The craziest thing that’s ever happened to me at the gym

A tale of squats and balance and old Chinese men and saving face.

So, it was Monday.

Squat day.

I go in and there’s this old Chinese guy using the pullup bar on the power rack. He’s just hanging on the bar and kicking his legs and kind of humming to himself.

Just hangin’ out at the gym. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA5M1qfwzc0

In between hanging sets, he’s standing there in the power rack.

The only place to squat.

So, I go up and I ask him, very politely in Mandarin if he can hang by the bar on the cable station instead, as I’d like to squat, and it’s the only place.

He nods and says no problem, and goes over to the cable station and hangs out over there.

I start squatting, warming up as I usually do, with the bar, then 40kg, 60kg, 80kg, and so on, till I get to my weights for my working sets with 120kg. At the time, this was close to ninety percent of my one rep max, so it required a lot of focus and concentration.

I take a deep breath, and unrack the weight, feeling it’s pressure etch the bar into my upper back. I step back a couple of steps, and rebrace. I do the first rep, unlocking at the knees and hips together and going down, forcefully rebounding out of the hole…