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Newcomers to the gym experience and fitness lifestyle let me welcome you on the Road of Kings. While many fail and few maintain, it is a golden road of treasures and pleasures though the rules be strict and many. Don’t worry I won’t be writing like this the entire time; what I want to say however is that the gym is a monkey see, monkey do environment and it is of much importance that you follow the right monkeys and not adapt the bad habits from the gorillas. Below you will find a list of things that most gym rats will agree is both annoying and selfish when practiced by other gym goers. It is up to you newcomers to avoid these activities in order to make your experience enjoyable without adding to the problems. Curling in the Squat Rack Guys do this for two reasons, they are either too lazy to walk over to… [Read more]

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Most people these days frequent some sort of gym to keep themselves in shape.  Whether you go to Powerhouse Gym, Lifestyles, Gold’s, LA Fitness, Bally’s, or any number of athletic facilities you are going to share it with hundreds of people.  Sharing anything with hundreds of people is typically never fun, convenient, or easy to do.  Since this is already an annoying process there are rules you can follow to make things less annoying for yourself and others around you. Most people do not think their behavior in the gym is annoying or troublesome to other people.  That comes from the fact that many people lack the ability to analyze themselves internally, and identify things they are doing wrong or incorrectly.  Here are several things people do in the gym that are annoying to fellow patrons. Stop with the grunting everyone knows that you are in the gym working out, and that it’s probably difficult… [Read more]

Many times you hear people say that they need to get into shape for summer or for vacation so that they can have a good time without the hassle of paying attention to trifles like health and wellness. What I find strange about this sentiment is that fitness is a lifestyle and not an activity, but the information spread through the media would lead us to believe that getting in shape is an activity. The other thing about vacations is that the people who frequently do the cliché activities are walking/talking proof that America has an obesity problem. Unless you are one of those that are the example, you should look at it as motivation to get right. Theme Parks and Obesity I started dubbing morbidly obese body-types the “theme park body” due to what I see whilst people-watching at any number of theme parks. People get bigger and bigger, are allowed on less structures… [Read more]

I don’t typically post music videos on the Hall but Ciara could easily have her own section on this site for being so excruciatingly hot. This is her video with Ludacris for the song “Ride” and if you can manage 4 minutes and 39 seconds of fire on your screen then go ahead and hit play and watch the princess dance. Now there are some of you who are probably going to see this and say “I don’t see the big deal”, well unless you can submit a video of yourself popping those gym-toned hips to a beat through several unique dance steps then I suggest you sit your hatin’ ass down and find something else to do. For those of you that can appreciate poetry in motion, witness Ride or as I like to call it “sex music”.

Starting a gym can be as intimidating as walking out of your house butt naked and many times folks fall into the same newbie pitfalls that brings unsolicited attention to them, and makes it worse in the long run. Prior to going into the gym I would advise you to find a good resource whether it’s through a gym rat friend (of the same sex), online or in a fitness magazine. Read and learn a bit about gym routines, what they are made to do and structure a plan based on it – this is if you want to avoid the price (and general trial/error of scoring a good one) a personal trainer costs. When you have your plan together, go into the gym and take it slowly and work your way up. If you have never been to a gym before, pull aside one of the monkeys working there (the border people in all… [Read more]

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Yoyo dieting is easy to call out but everyone seems to ignore the fact that people yoyo workout probably more than they do the dieting. The reason for this is due to two things, 1. A lack of education when it comes to your body and how it works and 2. The workout excitement wave being fun to ride but hard to maintain. In this article we are going to touch on the second point about the wave. I recall the first time I saw that P90X infomercial I rolled my eyes. Not out of hate for the inventor or for the program itself, but because I knew, like Tae-Bo before it, I would be hearing forever the screams of joy from the non-workout people, as they take the DVD set as their path to instant glory. It’s a familiar trend that occurs whenever someone introduces a new and exciting program for  training. Everyone buys… [Read more]

Are you into Martial Arts? Do you wish to become a better grappler? Or maybe you have a youngling in training to be a badass, roundhouse kicking Jedi. Then there’s a new product coming out to help you become said badass. The  Tommy Boi by inventor Tommy Jubei Knight is a solo grappler’s dream come true. You know, It’s one thing when you have a friend talk out his ass about what he plans on doing and then there’s another thing to have them actually do it. Tommy Jubei Knight (yup that’s his name) worked out at the same gym as me and we got to know each other through martial arts. As one of the only people to refer to me exclusively as “black dragon”, Tommy would recount to me his misadventures of sparring, fighting and squaring off against real opponents in multiple situations. Being of a stocky, hard and solid fighter’s stature, you… [Read more]

I would like to express my discontent with the men in the gym who troll for women to talk to and possibly get a number. Over the last couple of years, I have been that unfortunate chick without an Ipod or any other means of blocking out the “hey shawty” while I’m doing my thing on the treadmill. Recently I finally obtained means of personal music thinking that it would do the trick. I mean, if I am unavailable to hear your pick up line, then I shouldn’t have to worry about coming up with some sort of nice let down, right? Wrong. I am definitely an advocate for the “go to the gym to workout” club as I don’t believe the gym is either the time or place for getting numbers.  However, since there are men who know not of this rule and insist on breaking it, I figure I should help them out… [Read more]