Gym wisdom

One of the guys at the gym has Clarke Peters-level gravitas. So for purposes of this post, I’m gonna just call him Lester.

Lester’s a trainer. And although I am not officially being trained by him, he sometimes trains me anyway.

One day I was doing squats. I really want to be able to squat my bodyweight, so I keep trying to go heavier. But in my striving, I can get a little careless. Lester showed me a couple of ways to improve my form — finding a fixed point to look up at, lifting my toes.

“It’s not just the weight,” he told me. “It’s the technique.”

Another day, a dude came in whom I hadn’t seen before. He gave a very enthusiastic pep talk.

To himself.

“Make it BURN!” Dude said, watching himself in the mirror as he did a few fast dumbbell curls.

While Dude continued his motivational speech, infrequently punctuated by further reps, I was doing a compound exercise: front/lateral raises. Lester admonished me to keep my elbows in close during the front raises. “Oh thanks!” I said, panting a little. “I always find it harder to do the compound exercises.”

Lester barely glanced at Dude as he spoke. “Yeah,” he said, “but you doin em.”