Why no legs/squatting in commercial gyms?

wuhhhh?

Who is "virtually NO men"?

Wow . Where are you? I'm at the Jersey shore, and I see men working legs and squatting all the time.

I frequently see men doing decent squats.
IDK where you train at.

That's odd to me because it's common here. But I don't usually go to gyms outside of my town, so I'm unsure why people squat here very often but not over in Chicago. Btw, it's a lovely town.:-)

I'm interested to see men reply to this thread and see if they've noticed the same thing where they live or their reasons why they don't squat. I would take a video but the men at my gym will likely assume I'm a weirdo lol . But feel free to come squat here!
The only thing I can think of is that some men at your gym possibly have injuries, because why else would they not work legs and squat properly? Unless they just don't know better. That's why I'm interested to see men's replies to this thread.

People don't like doing squats or deadlifts. They are hard and draw attention from everyone else.

People don't like doing things hard and having attention drawn to them. They like quietly going through their lives doing the easy things...

I've seen plenty of *kitten*-to-the-grass squats in the gyms in my area. I've even seen an interesting variation where you're on your knees, *kitten*-to-heels and then lifting up. It isolates the glutes.

thorsmom01 wrote: »

Wow . Where are you? I'm at the Jersey shore, and I see men working legs and squatting all the time.

I'm on the Jersey shore, as well. I rotate between 3 different locations within the same chain of commercial gym and see people doing full range or Rippetoe depth squats all the time. Granted, there will always be plenty of people that don't go full range.

On leg day, I go to the location with a squat rack, squat cage, and two smith machines and I rarely have to wait for the rack or cage. As soon as I finish, someone always jumps on it.

I almost made a fool of my self by saying this wasnt a FOM squat till I noticed it was a video and not a still shot ...10 push ups for me....
It is kinda funny that most of the functional fitness guys do squats and Deadlifts along with OLY lifts all the time, but my experience from gyms around the county is that few "regular" lifters do legs the right way...

zaxx1953 wrote: »

thorsmom01 wrote: »

Wow . Where are you? I'm at the Jersey shore, and I see men working legs and squatting all the time.

Chicago.

I see men doing something like the top 1/3rd of a full ROM squat, but that certainly isn't something I would ever call a squat. Maybe a 1/2 squat or lockout.

This is a full squat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8If9qgSRQ8

zaxx1953 wrote: »

Coming from an athletic background I was introduced to lifting/gym work from a functional POV but still loved the way I ended up looking aesthetically (big and powerful) as a teen. I always worked lower and upper body, and end up with a fairly balanced physique.

I guess everyone hears about guys in commercial gyms who only curl/bench, etc. etc., but the reality is actually worse than I ever thought.

Virtually NO MEN in commercial gyms squat to decent depth. You have the most effective exercise on the planet and no men seem remotely interested in even trying it. Furthermore, a lot of men- not all- basically just totally ignore their whole lower body...

Why is that?

For many men, because they weren’t trained to squat properly and now have bad muscle imbalances, they either don’t squat low because they can’t or because they’ve experienced knee pain doing so. Over time, they’ve come to believe that squating is dangerous.

Also, if they lift alone, they don’t want to deal with a failed rep. If they lift with others, the upper body work is easier to work in (variations in bench strength might be 20 lbs, so easy throw on two tens for a stronger lifter, whereas the squat might be 60 or more pounds, harder to swap weights).

And then there is the fact that leg days suck. That’s why I do full body programs, so every workout sucks. ;-)

But that isn’t every gym. There are some with some very good power and squat racks. If you see good heavy equipment when you go in, likely it is getting used.