Thread: In need of opinion about this new gym

I like weighted lunges as an alternative to squats.

My gym has only two squat racks. Some times I have to wait, but I either just increase my warmup or rotate my exercises.

For instance, if you're doing a floor-based deadlift like Sumos (which I'm doing right now) you can do those first, since you don't really need the rack for them.

I prefer to do my lifts with legs first (well, first, followed by 2 upper body planes of motion, then the next leg plane followed by the remaining 2 upper body planes.

Or, you could always have a plan B exercise. Lunges, step ups, convential split squats, bulgarian split squats (brutal!) hack squats can be done without a rack, zercher squats can be done off of bench press (I did that for an entire program whenever the rack was being used), jefferson squats are from the ground, umm goblet squats use a DB (not as heavy of a load, but something to try?), walking lunges, etc.

My gym is the same, I pay $21 a month

only one squat cage though. but hardly any one uses it. I do legs on sunday so the gym is dead anyway..

My gym has one rack too. Peak hours there might be 60 or 70 people...That's packed for this size of gym. There's so many lames there that anyone is seldom in the squat rack of course. The problem is when someone wants to get in it for curls, floor rows or some other crap they saw in a mag or some late night show.

You could go at hours that no one is there and do your squats without problem

Originally Posted by superyo

You could go at hours that no one is there and do your squats without problem

Tough to do for me. I work your typical 8:30 - 4:30/5pm hours so most have the same schedules around here and either crowd the gym early mornings or after work. Basically, unless I go there after 8pm I run the risk of being out of luck. To me this is too late to work out, not only does my body not perform well at this time but I also have other priorities for that time of day.

Anyways, I decided to write off that gym. Found another one with all the good stuff that this one has to offer but with 4 squat racks. Only this one is $44/month. I figure spending and extra $15/month for a piece of mind of doing legs when I feel like it is worth the investment. Thanks for all your input guys, very much appreciated.

good choice. No need to come back later and try to tell us how Smith squats are really not that bad for us.

I actually belong to 2 gyms right now - its a bit overkill but I wanted a place that had DBs that went > 100 lb and had more leg eqpt and just a general different scene. Most of my "social life" (if you could call it that) is in the gym and I find I get pissed off if all the eqpt is being used by a bunch of people who have no idea what they are doing except wasting air & space during my workout (LOL!) One gym gives me time to hang out w/ friends on non-leg days, and the other gives me good leg eqpt and idiots to watch for entertaininment. The first has better ambiance than the second, but the second has more & better eqpt. And I really needed the variety.

IMO its worth it to spend a few extra bucks to get a more satisfying workout. Like I said, if I end up in a shitty mood because of lack of available equipment or dufii (that's plural of dufus) it really ruins the rest of my day - I use the gym as my grounding and release after sitting in front of a computer all day. It is worth it to me to make sure I get out of my workout what I need. (I.e. a gym membership is SOOOO much cheaper than a therapist!)