Going to the gym by yourself.

leecha2014

I want to focus on heavy lifting but, how do you do this on your own at the gym? When I was bench pressing, my arms felt week so I went to Dumbbells. I don't want to ask a stranger to spot so just curious what you do for those that work out on your own? Thx

fanncy0626

Thanks to the ladies on here they were discussing the roll of shame Krokador has a video of how to perform it. I practice that and I don't use the clips.

canadianlbs

i lift in public but am too anti-social to ever want other people all up in my lifts, especially strangers. so i just bench conservatively and keep myself well within weights i'm almost sure i can do.

it helps that i don't give much of a damn about bench i'm rarely motivated to push it.

Vetticus_3

I use the safety bars.
Needed them once on a squat (got down and nope. crawled out from under that. I had been sick for 2 weeks before that, and I hadn't deloaded enough) and twice on a bench press (with pathetically light weights too).

christch

I have been lifting by myself for a year now and started out lifting dumbbells. Now benching with barbell,rack and safeties, only 37.5kg but that's heavy for me.
When I started I worked with 5 reps then 8 then 12. Once I could do 8 I would start again at 5 with the next db up. I found that by the time I got to 10kg the next db up was 12kg so it took me til I could do 12 reps before I could manage the 12kg.
With the barbell bench I make sure I stop before I am unable to rerack so try not to go to failure otherwise roll of shame is handy.

BethAnnieT

I go to the gym alone and was worried about the same thing! For bench press and squat, I do weight I am confident with before moving up rather than pushing to failure on those. I am OK pushing harder on deadlift and rows because if you fail it's just falling on the floor, not your face. For OHP I have only ever done 30-45 lb, but in the beginning I just used 15 lb dumbbells, and now that I moved up to the barbell I just try to keep my face out of the way just in case.

Also watch the handy roll of shame video. I think there's a squat version on here somewhere too.

xcalygrl

For squats, I use the rack with the safety catches.

For bench, I have benched in the squat rack as well. When that isn't an option (busy time at the gym), I do the roll of shame or dump the weight off the side if I don't have clips on.
Roll of shame video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEUvI8Q6JDk

DawnEmbers

I always have lifted by myself. Even at the big gym, where there are several people even after 10 pm, didn't really help much in failing. No one came over to help each time I've not been able to finish a bench press. It was more awkward on the incline bench but once I got the roll of shame figured out, not so bad on flat bench. Not lifting 200+ so haven't really worried safety wise. At 115 fail for bench, I just set it on my chest then shifted it to stomach in order to sit up and lifting it off me felt far easier than expected in the moment. *shrugs* Once you've experienced it, then doesn't seem as difficult.

Squats are with the safety and I actually OHP in the rack too just in case. Well, I even do lunges in the rack to be honest, long as no one is around waiting for it, since they bother my knees the most. I want the safety bars on the off chance one of my knees decides to give out. Hasn't happened in years but it's always plausible.

leecha2014

Thanks everyone, appreciate the advice. Will look up roll of shame just in case.