The Lost Art of Spotting

I've never been a big "workout partner" guy. Whether running or biking or lifting weights or swimming or practicing kata or hitting a heavy bag, working out has always felt like an inherently solitary endeavor to me, ever since my initiate days of pumping concrete-filled "DP" weights in my parents' basement. My few forays into "social" exercise--in triathlon clubs, boxing gyms, and martial arts studios--have been enjoyable, eye-opening revelations to me, but they've all been followed by quick retreats back into the comforts of my own misanthropic little workout shell, a secret world where I can deny my athletic averageness and safely pretend that I'm bigger, faster, and stronger than everyone else without the pesky intrusion of anything so mundane as "reality."

Not everyone is like that, and many workout texts perkily counsel readers to "Exercise With A Buddy! : )." I see such duos in the gym all the time, chatting away between sets or next to one another on the treadmill, or loudly impugning the honor of each other's mothers as they go for personal records in the dead lift.

One of the benefits of having a workout partner is that you always have someone to spot you, which would be a huge plus for me at the moment: as I've mentioned before, I'm currently on a personal mission to raise my lifting numbers solidly into 'mediocre' territory, so I've had occasion to need a spotter lately. The importance of a spotter was brought home to me again recently when a fellow gym-rat I'd buttonholed for a spot recounted the tale of getting himself stuck under a max-effort bench-press weight and attempting to extricate himself by ROLLING THE BAR ONTO HIS THROAT (capitalization mine). When I asked him what made him think that would be a wise course of action, he replied, "I thought my neck would be able to take the weight."

Among many other things, this little story illustrates the dangers of lifting weights while smoking crack. How and why he was alive and kicking to spot me on that day is a complete mystery to me, and a complete breakdown in the laws of Evolution as I understand them.

Show of hands: how many times has this happened to you? You're about to attempt a near-maximal lift on the bench press, you need a spotter, and you look around the gym, sizing everyone up on their ability, should the need arise, to save you from being crushed.

It's a strange moment, because, truth be told, you're looking for someone with whom you're momentarily going to entrust your life. You don't think of it like that, of course. After all, spotting is a relatively quick and easy task: give a guy some help hefting the bar off the uprights, mutter some cheesy but encouraging platitudes as he pumps away, then give maybe ten or fifteen pounds of assistance as he ekes out his final rep. Nothing to it.

Still, if he screws up, let's face it, you could buy it, right there at Bally's during the 5:15 rush.

Now, few spotters are so negligent that you'll actually die on their watch, but in my experience, they tend to fall into one of four cagegories:

1) CAUTIOUS PETE, or 'THAT-BAR-WILL-KILL-YOU-SOON-AS-LOOK-AT-YOU': This guy treats the bar like it's a wild stallion that could start bucking and kicking at any second. He won't let go of the bar the entire time you're lifting, and then he helps you the milisecond your lifting speed flags, denying your the feeling of accomplishment that comes with grunting your way through an agonizing last rep or two. Eventually you get the feeling that if you don't terminate the set yourself, Pete will just keep on lifting it for you till doomsday. You could take your hands off the bar, have a chat on the cell and a drag on your cigarette, and he'd still be there, lifting away. At the end of that set, it's impossible to know if you ever did even one single rep by yourself. Was he spotting you on the bench or were you spotting him on the dead lift?

2) ORTHOPEDIST'S ASSISTANT: This guy doesn't know to help you lift the bar off the rack, so you do something god-awful to your shoulders trying to wrastle the bar into place for your first rep, guaranteeing an expensive trip to the orthopedist, with whom O.A. is in cahoots. Your set goes on just fine, but when you finally need just the tiniest hint of spot to get the bar back onto the racks, O.A. pulls the bar skyward with all his might, practically lifting you off the bench along with it. This means the pressure on your shoulder joints goes from near 100% to less than zero in a matter of a tenth of a second or so, so that if the bad liftoff didn't already seal it for you, this little coup de grace at set's end will ensure that soon, very soon, you will personally be buying your local orthopedist a brand new Jet Ski that he'll bring along with him on a two-week trip to the Caymans!*

3) NO-HELP McGEE: When this guy utters the requisite "all you," he means it, because he's not helping you AT ALL. "How bad do you want it, Jackson?" he seems to be saying as you sputter and wheeze beneath the swaying tonnage. It's not until the bar begins its inexorable descent towards your trachea, and you've mentally started saying your goodbyes to loved ones and the taste of hazelnut chocolate bon-bons, that No-Help comes to the rescue, emitting a Beevis-and-Butt-Head chuckle when he finally saves your bacon.

4) GUNNERY SERGEANT McCARTHY, YOUR SENIOR DRILL INSTRUCTOR: This guy seems innocuous enough. Sure, he's a big guy, but most of the behemoths want the rest of us to succeed, if only so G.S.M. will have more smaller folks around to lord over on his big heavy lifting days. But get that bar moving and he starts cursing at you like you're back on Parris Island. And you never WERE on Parris Island, but you're pretty sure you know what it must have been like, because McCarthy casts such horrible aspersions on your character, your parentage, and your very value as a human being that you suddenly feel like you'd rather be squatting in the bush keeping an eye out for Charlie than listening to the kind of invective spilling out of this mammoth's mouth.

Given that the Art of Spotting seems to have gone the way of the Do-Do, I thought I'd just put together this little refresher course:

HOW TO DO THE PERFECT BENCH-PRESS SPOT:

1) Stand CLOSE to the bench, but not SO CLOSE that it's distracting. Or weird.
2) FIND OUT roughly how many reps the lifter is going for.
3) On the lifter's command, HELP him get the bar off the uprights and DON'T let go until he tells you.
4) When he tells you--LET GO OF THE BAR. Don't touch it, graze it, or hover your hands around it like you're casting magic spells unless and until he asks you for help.
4) Stand close and WATCH the lifter as he does his reps. Even if he doesn't need your help till the end, the focus will be appreciated. He's obviously working at near his maximum capacity, or you wouldn't be there. A little respect is warranted, no matter how easy that weight would be for YOU.
5) Utter some affirming, but not distracting, words as he cranks through his set (optional).
6) When he ASKS for help, and not before (unless he's in obvious distress), give him JUST ENOUGH ASSISTANCE to get the bar up to the arms-locked position. DON'T pull up with all your might (unless, of course, that's the only way to get the bar moving). Once the bar is up, DON'T assume he's finished with the set and force the bar into the uprights. Just help him lift it up till his arms are locked. If he wants to go for another rep, take your hands OFF the bar as he lowers it but keep them close, because he'll most likely need help again to get the bar up. Repeat until the lifter tells you he's done, and THEN, and only then, guide the bar back into the uprights.
7) End with a couple of words of encouragement, or congratulations, or--if the lifter ASKS for it--advice on technique, progression, or stock picks.
8) Be happy because you've participated in an age-old ritual of helping a fellow gym rat work confidently at his edge.

A good spotter is hard to find, and when you DO find one, remember it, because you owe him an equally attentive spot sometime in the near future. If you're not up for spotting someone who needs it--if you've got a bad back, or you worry that the load he's lifting is too much for you--say so.

I've never gotten myself a workout partner out of spotting someone, but I've made some decent gym pals. Saving someone's life will do that. To say nothing of being saved.

Andrew


*also paid for by you.

Numbers, Shmumbers

About halfway through the first (and best) TERMINATOR movie, the CSM-101 cyborg (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) sits in a seedy hotel room paging through a stolen address book belonging to his quarry, Sarah Connor. Having had some of his external flesh--including one eyeball--torn away in various high-octane misadventures, the CSM-101 is partially rotting, and is surrounded by buzzing flies.

Drawn to the stench, a janitor bangs on the door: "Hey buddy," he says, "whaddya got in there, a dead cat, or what?"

We cut for a moment to a P.O.V shot of the CSM-101: its computer brain quickly scrolls through a list of possible responses to the janitor's question, including "YES/NO," "OR WHAT", and "PLEASE COME BACK LATER." The CSM-101, ever the master of the pithy phrase (it was this film that gave Schwarzenegger his famous 'I'll be back' line), settles on "F**K YOU, A**HOLE," which has the intended effect of sending the janitor on his mumbling, cart-pushing way down the hall.

I was reminded of this immortal moment when I was doing a talk-back following a student matinee of MACBETH yesterday morning. Amidst questions about makeup, getting into character, and line memorization, one young man raised his hand and said, "This is a question for the guy playing Macbeth...how much can you bench?"

He asked me this because he’s a high-school guy, and presumably, because he saw in my bio that in my other life, I work as a fitness coach.

Like the Terminator, I saw a list of options flash madly across my brain-radar screen:

1) LIE (EXAGGERATING)
2) LIE (LOWBALLING)
3) ASK HOW MUCH HE BENCHES, SCOFF AT HIS REPLY AND SAY I BENCH TWICE THAT AMOUNT.
4) ASK “WHAT’S A ‘BENCH PRESS’”?
5) GIVE ANSWER, BUT IN DECAGRAMS INSTEAD OF POUNDS
6) TELL THE TRUTH.

Option six initially seemed like the worst option—it was no-win, and all the others seemed more attractive by miles.

But I was too slow. I couldn’t think of any humorous way of getting around it, so I opted for option six, and told them that I’d once pushed 225.

Which I must have known even in the moment was actually a five-pound exaggeration, meaning that I actually opted for choice (1) above: exaggerate. I do remember hitting 220 once a couple of years back, then excitedly TRYING to lift two plates on each side on the next set. A kind spotter, obeying the universal, unspoken rule of spotting a brother-in-iron on the bench, gave me a good twenty pounds of assistance and blessedly said that the lift was ‘all me.’ This is something you just tell a guy whether it’s true or not, and having been in his shoes many times before, I knew what he really meant: “Pal, it’s a good thing I was here to help you, because without me here to save your sorry ass, that weight would have crushed you like an apricot beetle in July.”

So now I’ve come out: my real all-time max on the bench press is a measly 220 pounds. Wow, that was hard to say, but I feel good now that I’ve said it.

At this point, I imagine some of my hardcore-weight training readers are smirkingly clicking “reply” and “unsubcribe” on their keyboards; after all, what could a guy who only benches 220 know about fitness?

And some others—like the room full of high school kids I was addressing—will think, “Wow, he benches 220. He’s a regular Master of the Universe.”

If I were trying to brag about my paltry lift in the guise of false modesty—either here or at that talk-back--I don’t imagine I would have felt compelled to add that imaginary five pounds to my lift (as if someone unimpressed by a 220-pound lift would be blown away by a lift of 225. Good god, the ego works in the oddest way…).

No, the fact of the matter is that I feel pretty sheepish about my 220 pound bench. I have all kinds of excuses, ranging from “the bench press is overrated as a measure of strength,” to “I have long arms,” to “I don’t lift for maximal strength,” but who am I kidding? I’d love to be able to push 300 or more, and maybe someday I’ll hit that. But right now it ain’t in the cards for me and my delicate, oft-dislocated right shoulder, my impatience with the long rest periods required for near-maximal strength training, and my weird preference for lighter, faster, more cardio-demanding training sessions.

And I’m trying to just live with that, people, and remind myself that my pitiful bench press numbers don’t tell my whole story. Like everyone I train, and everyone who cares to read what I have to say about this absurd hamster-wheel practice of getting in ever-better shape, I’m a work in progress.

The larger point that I want to make here—and this, as always, is something for ME to remember as well—is not to sweat the numbers. They go up, they go down; some stuff’s easy for you, some stuff’s harder. There are always ways to address a number that seem stacked against you—whether that number is your body fat percentage, or your cholesterol level, or your resting heart rate. And addressing your “problem” stats is obviously an important part of fitness. But whatever number you happen to be working on at a given time, remember that it’s just a snapshot of one tiny piece of who you are at one very specific moment in time. It is NOT, as my alter-ego of the moment, Macbeth, says, the ‘be-all and the end-all.’ It’s fluid. It’s dynamic. And it’s within your control to change.
So hold those number lightly, people. Don’t be ashamed of them; shout them from the mountaintops.

Or, if you prefer, to a room full of slouching, scoffing teenagers.

Those numbers aren’t YOU, after all.

Andrew

(Question of the day: Why isn't "buttoxen" the plural of "buttocks"? (thanks, Jane!))