Interpersonal Skills Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people looking to improve their interpersonal communication skills. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Today in the office gym, this guy was doing Olympic movements with bar. And for every lift, he was impulsively flexing his belly and was getting in clearly awkward position. Which is dangerous considering the amount of weight he was lifting. I tried to explain to him that he should start with less weight and perfect the posture first. The guy got angry for telling him the correct way. And I wouldn't have corrected him if it wasn't dangerous.
How should I react to these situations?
Smile and move on.
Do not let your kind approach being bothered by people refusing to take advice. When people reject your kind advice, there is nothing much you can do.
Since you have done your part (proper advice on how dangerous that is), it's on them to choose whether to take advice or not.
Does the office gym have some kind of supervisor? If so, you should inform that person of the problem. It is really their responsibility to confirm the proper usage and safety for those using the equipment.
That doesn't mean you can't suggest a better/safer method to someone (assuming you are qualified to do so). But don't tell them ("The guy got angry for telling him" as you said); a polite and friendly suggestion usually works better.
But if they ignore your advice, let it go.
I almost never help these people as they often respond as they did in your example. Just walk away and feel content that you offered help. It's their flaw, not yours. Sometimes you can even use them as a bad example for friends/people who appreciate your advice.
I'm wondering how you told him. In my experience, this type of person has a super fragile ego. If you wish to help them, simple rephrasing might do wonders:
"Hey man, I see you can press an impressive amount of weight! But I also noticed that your technique has a bit of room for improvement. Can I give you some quick tricks?"
That emphasized the amount of weight they're doing, which often is their way of measuring progress/skill, and thus not an "attack/insult" on their skill. They want the quick solutions, and to look muscular as quickly as possible.
Something to consider when offering advice about anything physical...
Not everyone is built the same way, and people can be sensitive about it if it seems like you're pushing a one-size-fits all solution on them. Advice meant for a statistically average person can be dangerous to people with unusual builds, and stress all the wrong muscle groups. For instance, someone who is very barrel-chested may wind up benching with their neck muscles if they use an average-width bench grip (yikes!). As for stomachs, some men have big bellies even when they have a six-pack, so you may have misinterpreted what was going on. (I knew a guy who was built like this, and he hated going shirtless at the beach even when he was the fittest person there, because he was embarrassed by his belly. I don't think he would have liked having someone at the gym point it out.)
If you feel you must give advice about lifts, focus on which muscle groups, etc, should be feeling stress, and which shouldn't. Or perhaps, "Doesn't it hurt your ___, doing it like that?" You can express your concern in a neutral, pleasant way. If your guy's 'awkwardness' was due to an unusual build, you probably came across as a self-appointed expert on someone else's body.
So there are several general trainers in the gym, and some personal trainers.
You've not mentioned if that person has hired a personal trainer. Well, if he has, it's the trainer's job to see how and what he is doing. So, a good approach would be to go to his personal trainer and ASK (not tell) if that is the correct posture/method of doing the exercise.
If he doesn't have a personal trainer, there are general trainers who can be asked for help by anyone without hiring them. You could go to one of them and say that it looks dangerous how 'X' is doing those lifts. Is that how they should be done or if X is wrong, would you like to go point it out to him that he's not doing it correctly. Maybe, also show him how it's supposed to be done.
If 'X' still chooses to ignore, there's absolutely nothing you can do.
Just say to yourself you did the right thing. It's pretty natural to get angry when someone points to your mistakes, I know this happened to me as well. At least you can be sure your advice didn't go unnoticed, even if the behavior didn't change (it may take time for the guy to accept his mistake). I wouldn't alert anyone else right away, since that would only shame him more, unless there's a significant risk of trauma with long-lasting consequences.
If you see the guy later on doing the exercise the right way, just say hi. You may get your well-deserved "thank you for the advice" belatedly.
You've already done all that you are obliged to do - more than that in fact. Advice on how to use equipment safely is not solicited nor required by this person, so offering it is a step beyond what you actually needed to do for him - if you wish, you can let it go and move on.
If your concern is for this person's well-being and safety, and you really care about them (for whatever reason), you can go even further beyond necessary and offer to spot for them - even knowing that they're using an inappropriate technique - so that if they do injure themselves, you'll be able to help them when it happens.
Again, this is beyond what is necessary - you don't technically need to interact with them at all. But if you're committed to helping them, you could offer this in addition to what you've already offered.
If they stilly say no - well, that's their decision. Pressing it would be rude, so the only thing you really could do at that point is to move on.
Keeping to tell someone who has already made up their mind how to do things rarely helps. However if he is interested in gyming, he's probably checking out places and communities online which are about gymming. Instead of telling him, go on there (anonymously if you want) show videos of people doing it the wrong way where it goes horribly wrong and they get injured. Even if that guy doesn't care about your advice you probably help at least some people to make sure they do the exercise right.
