<p>Free</a> Class: Olympic Weightlifting</p>
<p>I want to go to the gym that allows olympic lifting.</p>
<p>Enroll in the class and then tell them at the front desk.</p>
<p>That said, I would strongly advise you to avoid it, as:
- Access to the Oly room during open rec costs at minimum $7/session
- The Oly room is open under extremely restricted hours (essentially 5-8pm, weekdays only).
- I was honestly pretty unimpressed with the coaching and quality of teaching.</p>
<p>Also worth noting is that you can get away with Olympic movements, chalk, etc. in the smallest of the 3 weightrooms as long as:
- You’re not particularly obnoxious about it (e.g. if chalking, keep the chalk hidden and don’t make a huge mess).
- You only do it after 8pm.
- You don’t do it while a staff member is walking through the room (which is pretty rare).</p>
<p>The rules are rarely if ever enforced in that room because the student staff are pretty risk-averse and don’t want to **** with the serious lifters.</p>
<p>Try to avoid damaging the floor inside or behind the racks, though. I don’t quite understand how the floor inside the best rack got the way it is now, but there’s already been at least one broken ankle from it and I think everyone would be a lot happier if there weren’t any others.</p>
<p>Also, the class probably isn’t free anymore, and I would be very surprised if it wasn’t rather expensive.</p>
<p>I don’t think the staff is risk-averse. They just don’t give a ****. Unless one of the directors actually comes in, I’ve never seen anyone get in trouble for doing Olympic lifting. Nevertheless, I hate some of the people that just drop the damn thing on the ground. And they keep doing it for all their sets.</p>
<p>Dude, some little chick ran over to me and asked me to use the clamps when i was warming up on the bench with like…135…I must have gotten the new girl.</p>
<p>Uhm. No. You should always use clamps. The staff will always tell you to do so. You probably were using 45 plates so they’re unlikely to fly off, but I have seen 25s and lower just fly off the bar after someone’s set.</p>
<p>RE: Risk-Averse:
I’ve never seen anyone get away with anything in the big room. Nobody ever tries anything in the other small one. I kinda agree with the not-give-****-ishness, though, particularly with regards to the distance involved in enforcing the rules in the good one.</p>
<p>That said, I’ve seen staff members (presumably new ones) tell people to clamp their weights (I disagree with this policy…I don’t know why I’m telling people this*), put on shoes, etc. just from walking through and seeing them violating the rule, but have yet to be messed with for anything short of leaving a huge chalk mess all over the room (…which was definitely out of line, honestly).</p>
<p>*Actually, I do. It’s because I’m a huge nerd and feel like pointing out the stupidity of telling people to do one of the few things that can realistically make it difficult to get out from under a failed bench rep safely. There’s very little point on most other movements, too.</p>
<p>I would be very interested to know what the hell someone was doing to have a rubberized 25lb plate fly off the end of the bar. If you saw it with the old plates, I can kind of understand it, given that the 45s could migrate pretty far on rack pulls even if I had them clamped, but the new ones have much better friction (much like the ones at the gym I lift at in San Diego).</p>
<p>If I was brand new to lifting, or wasn’t using such little weight I could understand, but c’mon.</p>
<p>Taking the devil’s advocate position here, the fact that you’re benching 135 easily doesn’t necessarily mean that you know what you’re doing. It’s pretty easy to get to fairly high numbers on most multi-joint movements - just do them a lot for an extended period of time and you’ll inevitably get stronger, even if you’re totally clueless as to what good form looks like.</p>
<p>Guy was benching 185, didn’t push the 25 plate in all the way and after his set, he just let it crash on the handles and the weight just went off the bar and started rolling. This was in the small room haha.</p>
<p>Metal or rubberized plates? As above, I can see it happening with the old ones, but the new ones have enough friction that it seems very unlikely…</p>
<p>Might have been metal. iirc it was sometime last semester and the rubber ones only came around recently. But the rubber plates were pretty slick when they first came in too. I remember trying to pick up a 45 and it just slipped outta my hand.</p>
<p>The outsides used to be REALLY bad, yeah. The part that actually contacts the plate always had plenty of friction, though.</p>
<p>And yeah, if it was in the small room last semester that was probably metal.</p>
<p>I can’t do power cleans with the crappy plates they have at the RSF. So… I don’t think I can get away with it.</p>
<p>Sure you can - you just have to be more stringent with your setup and reset between reps. I know a guy who does sets of 5 with 225 now despite the plate changeover.</p>
<p>If I can do heavy sets of deads without issue - hell, even improvement - you can do sets of cleans.</p>
<p>Ok, i’ll try them out tomorrow, do you think the staff would even be able to recognize a clean? And what happens if I do get caught?</p>
<p>Past 8pm in the small room, nobody’s going to be watching. The room’s closed 7pm-8pm for a class.</p>
<p>Most of them know approximately what an olympic movement looks like, but they rarely venture into that room and, as noted above, don’t tend to mess with people very much.</p>
<p>If they get caught and actually decide to interfere they’ll come over and ask you to kindly stop doing that. They’ll then leave and possibly come back periodically to check to see if you’re still doing it, in which case you should probably just do your sets right after they leave the room.</p>
<p>Should perhaps also note that I knew a guy who did C&J reps with 185+ last semester around 11pm, usually setting up several pads on the sides to reduce the impact if he failed and had to drop it, and was never talked to even once by the staff. I kinda miss him, actually…he was an amazing bench spot.</p>
<p>Lol, the thing is, I don’t think I really have that imposing factor that shows that I know what I’m doing in case they do see me. I started lifting like 3 weeks ago and I’m bulking right now. I’m only 5’6" and 130lbs…</p>
<p>And are there a lot of people past 8? I don’t want to be the only person in there and can’t get a rep up on a bench press and get stuck. But I probably won’t use clamps.</p>