It has happened to us all, we are in the gym doing our own thing which most of the time is completely different from what everyone else is doing and people want to know what it is. I would be willing to bet not a day goes by that in the gym someone doesn’t ask you: what is that, why are you doing that, are you some kind of professional, ect….  I most of the time am very receptive to these questions and will answer them as I believe knowledge is power, but the other day I got one that I wasn’t so receptive to.

 I was squatting with a reverse band setup to try to work my explosion from the bottom and feel the natural weight at the top and some little tea sandwich of a man walk up to me and says your sir are cheating on your squat in a very condescending voice. I didn’t take offense as I know he knows nothing about what I am doing and just gave him a dirty look and went back to my business.

 A while later I saw the guy across the gym and went over and asked him why do you think I am cheating.
His response is

“You are using bands to make the weight lighter at the bottom, anyone can squat 525 when you have an elastic band to make it lighter at the bottom.”

I took this as a challenge, invited him to the squat rack and asked him to squat it for me, as he approached the bar you could see the look on his face of what did I get myself into, needless to say he couldn’t begin to fathom of how to get it off the rack. So he backed out of the rack looked at me and apologized, and then asked what he should have asked in the first place, what the bands do. So I sat him down and explained to him the concept of lifting with bands, chains and basically introduced this guy to a whole new world of training.

What’s the point of this article you ask, if you are reading this and are new to the sport there are a million people out there willing to help you. We love this sport, we want you to love it and be successful at it. However when asking for help you need to go about it in the correct manor, don’t criticize what we do and expect us not to get pissed and explain it to you, however maybe expect a fist to the face. Common courtesy gets you a long way. 

 Have questions on lifting with bands or alternative exercises? Please feel free to email me and we will answer your question in the QA section. Also feel free the check out the advanced training section for photo and videos on exercises.

Thanks for reading and happy training
-Brandon Braner