Gym

The Professional Gym Spotter

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The unsung hero in gyms around the world is the spotter. It is a lonely and difficult job. While the lifter gets all the glory and the girls, all the spotter gets is “Thanks dude, I should have made that lift”. Imagine how humbling it is to line up behind another man while he is doing a full squat and perform your “spot the squat” job.

It is rumored that Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs will try the thankless job of spotting in a future episode.

(Thanks, Scott)!

  • http://nourishingobscurity.com/ jameshigham

    Spotter’s critical. I’m back in training again after dental things and he wasn’t there yesterday. I’d have put three more reps in if he’d been there.

  • http://mkonen.com/bblog Mark

    Glad to hear you are back training, James!

  • http://www.creatine-breakthrough.com/letter.html Mark Martinez

    Yep, the spotter is key. Yet I think it goes out in several
    levels…
    Level 0: Never let a new guy spot you unless you explained the rules clearly. Dude, this can cause you injury without trying (ouch!). I had a friend who got this doing over-head tricep exercise… he was going for max… last rep, almost there, almost getting there… the spotters busy watching somebody else… and, Geeesh he pulled it through yet got cut and hurt pretty badly.
    Level 1: basic spotting for safety. I do more squats, more consistently just knowing someone’s watching my back.
    Level 2: advanced spotting. The guy knows when to help you out and tries to take you to the max without you getting injured.
    Level 3: the dude goes beyond proper spotting, he knows how to bring out the beast in you… motivating… pushing you through.
    Mark Martinez,
    Testing out best plain creatine like the energizer bunny