No deadlifting in the power room?

[uamaverick]

I had a funny experience today at the rec center on campus. There's a tiny side room with 2 squat racks and a DL area, all covered with rubber mats. The gym only has 2 rubber 45 lb plates and the rest is your standard plates. We're doing deads for the last thing today and one of the guys who works there walks over to us.

"Hey you can't be doing that in this room."

"What?"

"You need to be a little more careful going down if you're going to deadlift here."

"But we're not dropping the weights at all, it's just making some noise."

"It's going to damage the plates."

"I don't see any signs saying no deadlifting in this room."

"They're all over the place."

"No, they're not. I see no signs indicating a certain level of delicacy when DL'ing on these mats"

"I know the sign says 'Power Room', but if you want to lift heavy like that you need to go somewhere else."

"I've never heard anybody saying doing deads on this kind of mat will damage plates, even if you drop them from lock out position."

"I've been a strength and conditioning coach here for 10 years. I've had enough experience to know this isn't proper deadlifting equipment."

"I'm not trying to be a smartaleck, I'm just saying if you don't want deads here, there needs to be a specific sign saying so. Kinda silly to have a sign saying 'Power Room' when you can't do a power lift."

"You can do deadlifts, you just can't drop the weight like that on these mats, they're not made for this."


At this point I wanted to laugh at him. The mats aren't olympic mats, but they offer plenty of support to ensure that neither the floor nor plates are damaged. I've seen countless videos of people pulling on these exact types of mats, with the exact types of plates. We weren't dropping the weights from lock-out, either, but you know when you're lifting heavy it's kinda hard to worry about being quiet instead of trying to get all your reps.

If there was a sign indicating a certain level of care required for doing deads in that room, I would have no problem with it, but this guy was talking down to me like I had just started lifting last week. I didn't feel the need to tell him my 10+ years of experience in weight lifting and bodybuilding, but apparently he's a big man and is the premier source for strength training in the entire state.

I hope I wasn't out of line, and tried to be courteous, but I'll gladly pay $20 a month to go to a gym in town where throwing weights around is ok, and the rules are clearly stated.

 

[timtim]

I had a funny experience today at the rec center on campus. There's a tiny side room with 2 squat racks and a DL area, all covered with rubber mats. The gym only has 2 rubber 45 lb plates and the rest is your standard plates. We're doing deads for the last thing today and one of the guys who works there walks over to us.

"Hey you can't be doing that in this room."

"What?"

"You need to be a little more careful going down if you're going to deadlift here."

"But we're not dropping the weights at all, it's just making some noise."

"It's going to damage the plates."

"I don't see any signs saying no deadlifting in this room."

"They're all over the place."

"No, they're not. I see no signs indicating a certain level of delicacy when DL'ing on these mats"

"I know the sign says 'Power Room', but if you want to lift heavy like that you need to go somewhere else."

"I've never heard anybody saying doing deads on this kind of mat will damage plates, even if you drop them from lock out position."

"I've been a strength and conditioning coach here for 10 years. I've had enough experience to know this isn't proper deadlifting equipment."

"I'm not trying to be a smartaleck, I'm just saying if you don't want deads here, there needs to be a specific sign saying so. Kinda silly to have a sign saying 'Power Room' when you can't do a power lift."

"You can do deadlifts, you just can't drop the weight like that on these mats, they're not made for this."


At this point I wanted to laugh at him. The mats aren't olympic mats, but they offer plenty of support to ensure that neither the floor nor plates are damaged. I've seen countless videos of people pulling on these exact types of mats, with the exact types of plates. We weren't dropping the weights from lock-out, either, but you know when you're lifting heavy it's kinda hard to worry about being quiet instead of trying to get all your reps.

If there was a sign indicating a certain level of care required for doing deads in that room, I would have no problem with it, but this guy was talking down to me like I had just started lifting last week. I didn't feel the need to tell him my 10+ years of experience in weight lifting and bodybuilding, but apparently he's a big man and is the premier source for strength training in the entire state.

I hope I wasn't out of line, and tried to be courteous, but I'll gladly pay $20 a month to go to a gym in town where throwing weights around is ok, and the rules are clearly stated.

dont know if you were out of line but go to another gym then.

 

[grubd]

weight room attendants typically skinny douche bags

 

[petpre61]

even with the right mats there is equipment that wont take dropping, even just from lock out position, for very long until it breaks. so he might be right.
certainly no power room though.

 

[artificialaspirations]

i've had a similar situation. The middle of deads or squats is the worst time to tell someone they can't do something or are doing it wrong, especially from a fucking trainer.

 

[uamaverick]

The main issue I have with being slow on lowering the weight back to the floor is that it increases your risk for injury. I don't advocate releasing the weight from lock-out, but the descent back to floor needs to be a natural movement, not something where you have to think about being quiet and careful. There's a lot of torque on your bones, joints, tendons, etc when you have a shift in movement, and when you're having to concentrate on being nice and quiet, it puts more torque on you than if you just get it back down to the floor quickly.

It's going to make noise, that's usually what iron does when it touches anything, but the bumper plates are taller than the regular plates, so even if you were to drop the weight, the bumpers are going to take the force first. You can even drop bumper plates from an overhead position, so long as you follow it back down on the way with your hands to make sure it doesn't go flying away from you.

This is almost the exact speed of descent back to floor. I don't see any problem with it.

YouTube - 500 LBS DEADLIFT 5 STRAIGHT REPS! PRUSSA!!!!

 

[mwm5]

why is it every time some one gets in an arguement with someone at the gym one of them happens to be some lifting specialist for X amount of years. i had a similiar situation with our leg press sled and too much weight. guys starts in with the "i've been a trainer blah blah years and blah blah"

 

[djeclipse]

Tell him to take his 10 years of "strength and conditioning coaching" and shove it up his ass!

How could any so called strength coach be against deadlifts, and/ or telling people to not make noise/ go down slow on the way down. It's a deadlift, even 225 makes noise when it hits the floor.

I would continue to lift the way you are, (like in the video), as soon as you try and lower the bar slow and control it you are going to hurt yourself.

 

[Big_BK]

Luckily all the gyms i train at i am good friends with the people there because they know i compete. The manager at my golds was a huge c u next tuesday but she ended up getting fired for it so i don't have to listen to her bitch and moan any more .

 

[joe d]

i personally dont give a shit what they think at my gyms. they can cancel me if they want. for some reason they dont have a problem with what i do though. they even let me use their kitchen. once in a while i ruin something. its not intentional it just happens. but if they bitched i would tell them to upgrade their shit or kick me out. no attitude i just dont see the whole opening a gym and expecting everyones top priority to be keeping their equipment like new idea. my mind is a little to focused on what im doing there to wonder if this snatch is going to bend the bar. if you open a gym with middle of the road equipment you have to expect a few strong guys to join and break your shit.