Why no legs/squatting in commercial gyms?

jediguitarist wrote: »

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.

Same here. I go to tilton and they also have 3 locations in this area.I've been to each depending on where I'm working that day. I see full range squatting often down here.

I rarely see anyone using the power rack to actually squat in my gym. I suppose that I'm not complaining, because that means that it's usually open when I need to use it. Fortunately, the people I do see squat seem to do them properly.

The flat benches (there are three of them versus one power rack) are popular, as is the cable machine. People also seem to prefer the Smith machine for OHP and incline bench (lame).

Lots of people don't want to work legs because it is hard. My gym has 2 power racks and a deadlift platform that would be st home in a NFL weight room plus another bit lesser buy still good power rack. More people are hanging out in front of the dumbbell rack doing curls than doing leg work. Which is fine, saves the equipment power racks for me.

The people that are doing leg stuff tend to work pretty hard at it.

This is also really dependent on what type of gym you go to. Chain commercial gyms have less people dedicated to seriously lifting in general than smaller local gyms that are more lifting focused. That's not to say you don't see people lifting, but seeing people doing traditional power or Olympic style weightlifting isn't as common. Many of those gyms don't even have the adequate equipment to do so, or not enough for several people to lift at once.

From talking to others in the gym, most of the guys that don't train legs, don't do it for these reasons:
- It's harder. Harder to get the right movement, more taxing on the body due to larger muscle groups, more DOMS the next day (complaining about not walking comfortably for ages!)
- Then I think there's such thing as "beach muscles" and a lot of people care about them. They want a nice upper body to show off but don't care about the lower as much, that can be hidden easier I suppose with longer shorts or something.
- I've also actually heard guys say "girls don't care about legs" so the dudes lifting purely to attract women aren't gonna bother either. I hear women all the time talk about how attracted they are to a man's arms, his chest, his biceps, abs etc but never his legs. I usually only hear the occasional comment about a man's butt. Unless it's from a female lifter (which aren't that common unfortunately), there's not much praise for nice legs.
- Also, some commercial gyms don't even have a squat rack. In many cases there's no demand for it. Some avoid equipment like that altogether because they want to detract away from "meatheads" (stupid I know) who potentially intimidate other gym goers, in particular, women. Women bring in a lot of money for a gym so generally they want to cater to them. I've had conversations with gym staff about how they want to bring in more female members, that they don't have that many. This means more machines, more classes, less scary free weights and the banging and clanging of big deadlifts. I don't agree with it, but it's their business and if that's how they see themselves best making money, that's how they're going to go about it.

Granted, I've seen lots of guys squat and deadlift. I go to a commercial gym that's quite decent in that sense, we have a squat rack and people definitely use it, but it's still the same crowd. A lot avoid them altogether though, still prefering to spend their time just benching and curling.

A lot of men, just like to work their upper body to show off for women and they forget about the most important day... Leg day

conoroneill94 wrote: »

I squat but not full depth like that vid cause i'd rather not wreck my knees. In most scenarios nobody can see your legs anyway so if you lift for aesthetical purposes (like me) there's not really any point trying to squat to a depth that is more purposeful for strength training.

Stopping at or above parallel for many people can actually put more stress on the knees, compared to going deeper, where the strain comes off them. It's a perfectly natural movement to squat to depth and performed correctly, you shouldn't be having any knee problems if they're otherwise healthy. Especially if you're not making squats and heavy lifting your whole life/career.

If they're not healthy, and you already have knee problems, then that's a different issue and probably better for a professional to advise you on, but the blanket statement "deep squats wreck your knees" or similar, as a lot of people think, isn't true. It's not that simple.

I go to a commercial chain gym, and the squat racks/cages are often in use. I see guys performing amazing squats, some even ATG, most at least to horizontal. A few of them have even given me a few pointers.

As far is not squatting if it's just for aesthetic purposes ... Yes, people can see your legs even if they have pants on them. Maybe not the muscle definition, but the unbalance does show (when you have a low body fat to show the upper body definition, your legs tend to be pretty small. There's a guy at my gym who looks like Arnold from the waist up, but his legs are very small by comparison and I've never seen him do a leg exercise (he's just one guy; like I said, most do). It's very disproportionate. And beyond the look, muscle imbalance may not be so great for overall fitness, either.

midwesterner85 wrote: »

I'm pretty new to weight lifting, but my small community gym has some guys that squat and others who do not.

Personally I don't squat or work legs because I have made a plan that strengthens the muscles I need to strengthen with a particular activity in mind. Sometime down the road my goals may change and I might work on strengthening legs at that time. Maybe your goals are different than mine, and your goals require you to squat. Great for you! That doesn't explain why I should squat, though.

Ok so what if I told you that squats and deadlifts can overall make you stronger. Would you want to add that to your goals?