September 26th 5:16pm - D-1

Note to All College Athletes: The Things I've Learned in Four Years:

Top Ten Things to Avoid When in the Weight Room:

AKA DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OR FOR WHATEVER REASON DO THESE. It's just a bad idea. Learn from my inexperience!

1. Swinging dumbbells in circular motions in an attempt to wake yourself up. One of the dumbbells will inevitably connect with one of your fingers. You will bruise and then lose your thumbnail. You may hit and seriously injure someone.

2. Hanging weights from your waist and trying to complete a pull-up in order to show off your massive muscles. The opposite effect is accomplished when you can't do more than one pull-up without any weight.

3. Not checking to ensure sufficient weight is on the rear of the back-extension machine before suspending yourself in the air by resting the backs of your heels against the appropriate bar, your hips against the suitable ledge, and leaning forward. Without weight on the end, you will plummet towards the floor head/hopefully arms first.

4. Putting uneven amounts of weight on the bar in an effort to build up one side of your body over the other. This will throw off your balance. You might fall.

5. Placing a leg strap below your knees to force you to expend effort in keeping your legs apart, then stepping onto a balance board with a weighted bar on your shoulders, and trying to complete a "jerk" lift motion while maintaining balance and staying upright. It is hard. There are easier methods to exercise those muscles.

6. Increasing the speed on the treadmill as much as possible to see just how fast you can run.

7. Trying to undertake box jumps with your eyes closed.

8. Talking about anybody's drunken hook-up the night before. All college coaches/instructors/trainers have the hearing abilities of a Noctuid Moth/mouse/dolphin. They take classes on overhearing conversations. It's a pre-employment requirement.

9. Writing inappropriate comments and pictures on the Strength and Conditioning coach's white board. He will retaliate. You will not be able to lift a water bottle to your mouth without pain for a week.

10. Walking through the weight room flirting with someone when blunt objects (i.e. medicine balls) are being violently thrown between partners a short space apart.

* Arriving at lifting the morning after an inebriated night is forever a bad idea. When the entire team does so it is even more troublesome. When you start working out, you sweat out the alcohol from the previous night's antics.
Another prerequisite of being hired on a D-1 athletic staff: a shark's sense of smell. They smell any and every minuscule whiff of alcohol.

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