#to save for this concert i would need to save $250 at LEAST every pay period until i leave in october.

[knifesxedge]

i am So Poor and So Depressed. should i actually literally just kill myself

[junker-town]

How retired NBA players are helping each other survive the coronavirus

Spencer Haywood, Thurl Bailey, Dave Cowens are members of the National Basketball Retired Players Association.

Retired NBA players are more vulnerable to the coronavirus than active ones. Here’s what they’re doing about it.

Moments before the NBA suspended its season, Thurl Bailey was at Chesapeake Energy Arena preparing to call a game between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder that would never happen. It was a night like any other, until it wasn’t.

After Jazz all-star Rudy Gobert tested positive for coronavirus and the 18,000-plus person crowd was calmly instructed to exit the building, Bailey, who played in Utah for 10 seasons, was whisked off the court behind Jazz players and broadcast colleagues.

The 58-year-old recalls being led with about seven others into a lounge near the visitor’s locker room. There they sat, eyes glued to a television that was reporting their own surreal experience in real time. Jazz head coach Quin Snyder settled some of Bailey’s nerves when he walked in the room to brief everyone on the situation, as serious as it was. Eventually Bailey was led from that room to another, where medical professionals in protective gear, gloves, and facemasks collected his personal information so he could be tested for Covid-19.

A doctor braced him for the process by letting him know what to expect and how uncomfortable it might be, before a cotton swab was inserted into his nose and mouth. According to Bailey, it was painless and simple. Waiting for results was anything but. After they quarantined at the arena for over four hours, the Jazz spent the night in an Oklahoma City hotel. Bailey sat in his room, concern mounting as he thought about his wife and children.

“What if my test is positive?” he remembers. “Was I next to Rudy? How long was I next to him? Can you receive it if you’re on the same plane as people? All those things you start replaying in your mind.”

In the morning a Jazz employee called Bailey with good news: his results were negative. Soon after, the team flew back to Salt Lake City where they met with Angela Dunn, a state epidemiologist at Utah’s Department of Health. She went over different risk factors, explained the meaning of asymptomatic, and made strong suggestions on how they (and everyone around them) should act through the life-changing days and weeks and months that loomed ahead.

Before the season was suspended, Bailey’s daily responsibilities were not limited to his job as a broadcast analyst for the Jazz. Earlier this month, he was elected as a board of director for the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA), a 1,000-plus member organization that includes some of the sport’s most integral historic figures — former players from the NBA, WNBA, ABA, and Harlem Globetrotters.

“No one’s immune to [Covid-19], but it is a greater concern for our demographics, if you will,” Bailey says. “A lot of our players are the older generation,” Bailey said.

Right now, in the face of a crippling global pandemic, its members also represent an increasingly vulnerable and shaken segment of society that needs all the security, support, and accurate information they can find. The average member is 55 years old and over 200 of them are at least 70. All are impacted by the coronavirus, stressed over their own future, from a physical, emotional, and financial perspective.

In addition to Bailey — who previously served before he was termed out of the role due to appointment related rules — other recently elected directors include Shawn Marion, Sheryl Swoopes, and Dave Cowens. (Cowens helped found the association in 1992 with Oscar Robertson, Dave Bing, Archie Clark, and Dave DeBusschere.) Johnny Davis was named chairman of the board after spending 34 seasons as an NBA player and coach, while Jerome Williams and Grant Hill were elevated into different roles on the executive committee.

Normally, the association serves multiple functions. It’s a helping hand to members in search of new professional and/or educational opportunities. It reminds them of their own value as walking brand names, and encourages them to engage with the public in different ways. But unfortunately, our current timeline is anything but normal. The NBRPA has always expressed solicitude for its own, but right now its first, second, and third priority is to ensure the health and wellness of every member who feels susceptible.

“No one’s immune to [Covid-19], but it is a greater concern for our demographics, if you will,” Bailey says. “A lot of our players are the older generation.”

The NBRPA has been in front of the issue as best it can. All former players with at least three years service have healthcare coverage, while counseling services, scholarships, grants, and a rainy day fund for any members who are struggling to cope are in place. General awareness of these resources has been spread via email and phone calls, but this pandemic’s unpredictable scale will test mechanisms that have never been burdened by a threat this widespread and relentless.

Many members work part time and are unsure of how they’ll pay their next bill or make future house payments. Dozens have contacted the organization for assistance, which tells NBRPA President and CEO Scott Rochelle that many more may want to. “There’s probably another hundred who need to reach out or haven’t reached out but need the information,” he tells me. “So that’s guiding our efforts to date.”

Spencer Haywood, who just termed out after two straight three-year stints as the NBRPA’s chairman of the board, can’t stop thinking about his fellow members, former teammates, and friends who were suffering even before the globe was blanketed by coronavirus.

“I love them,” Haywood says. “Everybody just calls, ‘Hey can you help me with $300. I need $400, $500. I need this to make my rent. I need this to get food ... We don’t have a revenue stream. All of our guys have to work. They’re doing basketball camps. They’re traveling. They do groups. That’s how they make money ... We’re at the very beginning [of this pandemic], so I know our family, the NBA retired family, we’re gonna have some drama. I’m hoping that it’s not me. But who knows?”

Now 70 and living in Las Vegas, Haywood has done his best to stay as safe as he possibly can, stopping just short of hoarding Purell and essential groceries several weeks ago when his brother, who lives in France, first told him how deadly the virus can be. His four daughters teased him about being overly cautious, but now admit he was right to be so proactive.

Aside from his inability to resist two concerts at the House of Blues, put on by Arrested Development and Leslie Odom Jr. before everything shut down — “I couldn’t help myself!” Haywood laughs. “I went out against orders” — he’s replaced daily trips to the gym with morning yoga and five-mile walks at a nearby park.

While shuttered at home last Saturday afternoon, Haywood — a four-time NBA All-Star and ABA MVP as a 20-year-old rookie — let a few hours pass in front of ESPN’s panoramic Basketball: A Love Story documentary series, which featured his own 1971 Supreme Court case brought against the NBA that essentially allowed amateurs to bypass college and enter the NBA Draft straight out of high school. “I’m sitting there watching,” he laughs. “And I’m like ‘Damn. Pretty nice. I did some deep shit.”

As it rolled across his television, Hayward says a few friends who were also cooped up watching the same thing decided to call him: “They were like, ‘Man, I didn’t know you went through that kind of hell’. And I said ‘You were in the league!’ Man, oh man.”

But the pandemic has also emphasized a few general frustrations Haywood wants to air: “We wasted so much time in fake news and fake this, like shit, dude, if you didn’t want to be president, why did you run?”

He praises the donations made by current players to arena employees who, without NBA games, no longer have a job to do, and appreciates the players union’s unanimous vote that gave healthcare coverage to retired players back in 2016 “[NBPA President] Chris Paul has been a champion,” Haywood says. “I mean truly life saving.”

But in the midst of a broad crisis that will be felt by more former players than are currently under the NBRPA’s umbrella, Haywood also believes today’s stars should make additional contributions. “It’s a survival thing.” he says. “Think about the ones who built it for you. Who built this big conglomerate for you. I think they just don’t know. They never think about us.”

“The thing that bothers me so bad is they don’t know when it’s gonna end,” Cowens says, “Or is it?”

For the NBRPA, spring is typically a busy time of year, with college conference tournaments, the NCAA tournament, the McDonald’s All-American game, and Full Court Press, a nationwide youth clinic launched through the Jr. NBA. In the coming months, members lined up to earn between $250-500k in appearances alone. Instead, thanks to a wave of cancellations, revenue is at zero. There are still engagement opportunities being explored through NBA2K, Twitch, and social media, but the ramifications are undeniable.

Speaking appearances are another source of income for those who can leverage their name and life experience to travel across the country and meet with different people. That includes Haywood’s successor, Davis, the NBRPA’s newly elected chairman. The 64-year-old lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and normally spends his time giving talks at different colleges and universities in the area. He also sits on the foundation board at UNC-Asheville, where he’s heavily involved.

But with those opportunities no longer an option for the foreseeable future, Davis is instead staying put at his home up in the Blue Ridge mountains with his wife and son, where they’ve lived since 2009. “The warning bell has been sounded,” he tells me. “You can see the presence of what this virus has done. You can see it here in terms of how people are moving in their day to day lives. It’s different. It feels different.”

Davis is also spending some time acclimating to his new role with the NBRPA, going through the bylaws with Cowens, who lives in Maine for most of the year but has been down in Ft. Lauderdale since Jan. 10. Despite not having a full-time job, Cowens tries to keep himself busy. Last week he signed and mailed 800 basketball cards for Panini, the memorabilia company, that compensated him for the service. “It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to pay a few bills,” he says.

The Hall of Famer currently lives two blocks from the beach in a 19-story building, with 12 units on each floor. He’s neighborly, but most of the residents are on the older side, and over the past couple weeks everybody has kept to themselves.

Nights are spent out on his balcony, drinking an occasional glass of wine. When asked about the NBA deciding to suspend its season, Cowens says he would’ve liked to see at least one game played without any fans in the stands. The sound of squeaking shoes, shouting coaches, grunting players, and a natural silence that would otherwise be filled by the Jumbotron reminds him of old exhibition games that his Celtics used to play against the Knicks in upstate New York. Only 1,500 people were in the stands.

But there are more pressing matters on his mind. Now 71, Cowens is troubled by everything we don’t know about the coronavirus, how there’s no vaccine or direct word from the inflicted about how it made them actually feel. He worries about his wife. He checks up on old college buddies from Florida State, and recently phoned former Celtics teammate Don Chaney, who’s dealing with a heart condition and is likely at a higher risk than most.

“There’s so much uncertainty. If you’re feeling fine, but all of a sudden you start feeling sick, you then say ‘Am I gonna die from this?’ And so you don’t know. Young people don’t care because they’re already immune to everything in the world anyway. They’re gonna live forever. But they’re young, that’s how they think, and for the most part they’re in pretty good shape for dealing with this,” Cowens starts to chuckle. “So I don’t hang out at the clubs anymore. That’s not part of the schedule.”

No one interviewed for this story can compare such active worldwide disruption to anything they’ve witnessed or experienced firsthand. None can think of anything that comes close. It’s an unknown anxiety, like walking a plank while blindfolded from an unknown height. The future grows more murky by the day. “The thing that bothers me so bad is they don’t know when it’s gonna end,” Cowens says, “Or is it?”

He reminisces about his childhood in Newport, Kentucky. Cowens’ grandparents and aunt lived upstairs, in the same house as his parents and brother. His aunt would entertain with stories about getting to see Jim Thorpe (the only sports hero Cowens ever had) race with her own two eyes.

Cowens thinks about that time; how his grandfather lived to see his 60s despite serving in World War I and then enduring the Spanish Flu, which killed as many as 50 million people across the world. “People are going to survive,” Cowens says. That’s true. But the coronavirus will still crash into so many different lives, and so far the mortality rate for those it infects is substantially higher in seniors with underlying health issues.

Preparing for a disease that will infect and bankrupt thousands of people everyday was never in the NBRPA‘s sight line, and, frankly, it’d be a little silly if it was. Very few organizations in this country, if any, were prepared. But that hasn’t stopped them from doing whatever they can to steady the emotional wave so many are flailing through.

Right now, the organization’s primary motivation is to keep a bad situation from getting worse, and so far most retired players are doing whatever they can to limit the damage. Social distancing and self-quarantining are two examples of individual responsibility each person must take seriously. Most retired players are. The NBRPA can’t help those who won’t help themselves, but they can spread facts and manageable tactics that will save lives. The minefield of misinformation can in many ways be as dangerous as an errant cough.

Towards the end of his career, Bailey spent four seasons playing overseas. Three of them were in Italy, where he formed lifelong friendships. For the last five summers, he’s gone back to put on a basketball camp. Over the past couple weeks, Bailey has been texting with those who know firsthand what the coronavirus is capable of. They beg him to take it seriously. Given his position with the NBRPA, those around him are fortunate that he is.

“Our organization is staying on top of our members and their families to make sure they’re getting through it,” Bailey says. “It’s something that will always be etched in history. I was there. I was there the day the dominoes started to fall in Oklahoma City. In the sports world, anyway.”

[tonygaskins]

I struggle with finding the balance between giving what’s needed and giving everything. I’m starting to understand more why so many men say they want to be financially stable before marriage. When I got married I wasn’t that type of man so I never understood the mindset but now I’m realizing why that mindset is normal for good men.

As the head of the household I want to provide for my wife and kids. I find myself wanting to provide their wants as equally as much as I want to provide their needs. That can get expensive fast. It really sends you into a space of evaluation where you’re trying to determine what’s really important in life.

When it comes to the kids, my wife and I may have made some mistakes, but all parents do. None of us really know what we’re doing, we just do the best we know how to do. We have two sons, a 10 year old and a 3 year old. They go to a Christian private school and for the both of them it’s about $2,100/month. We aren’t wealthy and money doesn’t grow on trees but I compare my 10 year old to some of the 10 year old’s I meet from the public schools and it makes Christian private school seem necessary. There’s a big difference for us between a Christian private school and a private school. At our son’s school they instill Christ in the kids and into the lessons. They try to emulate Christ and the love He showed the world. To hear my son learn new scriptures every week really blesses my heart. When he was little and was struggling with his allergies and eczema issues he would miss about 3 days a week. To know that he could go to school with skin completely red and not be bullied for it really meant a lot to me. He would say things like “mommy, I’ll be ok. Jesus will heal me because my friends at school are praying for me.” To hear that from the mouth of a child really blessed me. When our oldest son started going to Christian private school we were on financial aid and we couldn’t even afford that. We had to borrow some months but it meant the world to my wife that he went to a good school. She felt that it made a huge difference in her life and I couldn’t argue with that because I went to public school from K-9th grade and my mindset and behavior was totally different from my wife as she went to private school from K-9th. Her foundation was totally different from mine.

Lil Tony at his Band Concert

As much as we want to believe that everything at home makes all the difference, that’s not true. A child’s environment outside of the home is very important. We’ve always prayed for what we wanted and we went after it. We couldn’t afford it but my wife’s faith made it happen. That same type of faith helped me grow my brand and business and our son’s don’t receive any financial aid today but God has made a way. Looking around and seeing so many other kids in our neighborhood going to public school and seeming to be pretty good kids, I’m torn many days. I say to myself “man I could be saving $20,000/year. If i put that on the market or invested that into my business it would turn into millions.” But then I remember how being in public school I started having sex early even though my parents were ministers. I started stealing and even went to jail in the 9th grade. I was cursing, stealing, fighting, and all kinds of stuff because even though I had good home training, many of the kids around me didn’t and that pressure was greater than my parents influence. I turned it around thanks to the grace of God, but I could be dead or in prison today if just one thing had gone wrong. So I’m brought back to the investment that we’re making for our kids to be in a Christian private school getting their foundation set in place. I also feel some guilt because some families can’t even afford $100/month for school and have no choice other than to put their child in the public school system. I’m sure some private school parents don’t care about that but it bothers me many days. I thought about this the other day and I realize that by the time our sons are ready for college we will have already paid a minimum of $252,000 for their schooling and it’ll probably be much higher than that. It’s crazy to think about it. It hurts and it feels good at the same time. It’s sad to think that there has been a system created to protect the kids of the “rich.” I also realize that faith and the desire to have more for your kids play a part in it because not all kids at good private schools come from the same social class.

This also leads me to the understanding that sometimes we can do more for our kids but we don’t just because it doesn’t make sense to us. We will make our kids suffer just because we suffered in the same way. We limit our kids just because there were limitations placed on us. If it wasn’t for my wife having been exposed to the private school system my sons would probably be in public school. I know you may not think there is a difference, but there is. I’ve seen both sides of it and the difference is very noticeable. So even if you can only get financial aid, it’s worth at least asking the schools before just deciding to put your kids through the public school system. At my son’s school he was doing work in the second or third grade that I literally could not do. I helped him ONCE with his homework and it’s the only D he’s gotten since being in school. My wife can do all of his work of course because her education foundation was much different than mine. Because of her education my son earns straight A’s because she can teach him even what his teachers can’t teach him. Grant it, they both are also naturally smart.

I’m left to the thought that maybe this is the way to go in this day and time. Although it’s a sacrifice and paying $2k/month for school is very hard to do, I see a big difference and it would break my heart to give my sons less than the best if there is a way I can make it happen.

To throw in a little note for those of you who are upset right now and saying “yeah that all sounds good and I’m glad your sons can go to private school but that’s not the case for me because it’s just not affordable, not even with financial aid.” I will say, by having a deep desire to give my sons more than what was afford to me it pushed me to new levels in my life. I don’t have a college degree. I don’t have a mentor. I don’t have any full-time staff. I’ve started 8 companies and created over 40 streams of income, many you have no idea about, all because I wanted to be in a position to give them more. My point is that there is a way to make it happen if you really want to make it happen. Don’t sell yourself short before you’ve tapped into every possible resource and option. Sometimes just pleading with the school and asking them to give you a chance may do it!

Now, to setting my family up for success. This is a calling that many men accept and it is no easy thing. Many women have accepted the same calling out of necessity. I’m investing in my gifts and it changed our lives greatly. I would spend every free dime investing in myself so that I could yield a return. I knew that I was sowing on good ground and that a harvest would come. There was a 6 year stretch that I went from earning $20,000 a year to $500k a year. My faith, my hopes, my desires, and my love for God and my family pushed me on that journey. This fuel in me is pushing me to become a Billionaire one day. I don’t know how it will happen but I didn’t know how $100k/year would happen either. I just trust God and keep working on myself and investing in my gifts. Because I did it and I know it works it has lead me to invest in my family at any cost.

What I want you to understand is that these investments aren’t from an endless supply of money. There are many times that I spend our last dime to make an investment in my wife or our sons or myself. I don’t think scarcely. I think abundantly. My oldest son says he wants to be a professional soccer player. So I invest in club soccer each year, it’s around $2k right now and he’s 10 so I know that will grow to $5k and then $10k when you include all the flights and hotel stays that await us. Just to be on the team is $1,200. Then the uniform is $250. Then some tournaments we have to pay extra. Then some tournaments are 1-2 nights and we have to spend travel money and $200-$250/night on a hotel room. It gets expensive. Many families are swimming in credit card debt investing in their kids. This summer my son is going to an overnight camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL. This camp cost $2k for ONE week! It is absolutely crazy to me, but I’m doing it because I don’t want any other child to have any advantages over him. When he is grown, even if he doesn’t play a day as a pro soccer player I want him to look back and know that we invested in him and gave him every chance to be successful. Outside of those camps he’s going to two other camps. One was about $600 total and the other will be about $400 total. I want to cry just thinking about the fact that his younger brother will have to be afforded the same opportunities. So this summer alone another $3,000 is being invested into my son’s soccer dreams. I probably won’t do this every summer unless I see that it was really worth it. So here you have it, just for my oldest son I’m looking at an investment of $15,000 a year with school and soccer. It’s insane to think about but I’m painting a picture of how our world has separated us by how much money we earn. What we spend is small for some people. These opportunities are not afforded to everyone. I do believe if you want it bad enough you can find a way but it won’t just fall in your lap unless you win the lottery or find a sponsor. I just understand that I’m no one special. I’m just another child of God who has enough to believe that I can have the best this life has to offer.

I’m growing now and learning more about “smart money.” I’m learning that all the designer shoes, clothes, and cars aren’t important. The investments in our gifts and our lives are most important. I’m spending money differently now.

Those investments for our sons will have a return so that’s why I’m calling it an investment. It’s more than what I have to do and it’s not normal. It could be seen as borderline crazy. But I’m doing it because I don’t want them to have any excuses.

Outside of the money there comes, time. As a man or head of your household, the time you invest is more important than the money. The time you spend talking, playing, and bonding with your wife and kids will make all the difference. I remember my father being in the front yard with me all the time playing sports with me and training me to the best of his knowledge. He never paid for me to go to a single camp and I’m not sure why that is, but he put me through his own camps in the front yard or in the driveway playing basketball. I went on to play football in college because of his investments and sacrifices.

Yesterday I went outside and juggled the soccer ball with my son and it was so hard. I’m lying here typing this in pain. My thighs, calves, shins, ankles, back, all that is hurting! I told him we will do an hour a day, 5 days a week. That’s the goal but if we at least get 3 days in, I’ll be happy. I know he won’t forget that just as I haven’t forgot what my Dad did with me. At the same time I watch my wife spend 15-20 hours a week with my sons helping them learn their academics. She also takes our oldest to the fields and works him out, putting him through a training regimen. She was a college athlete too. She ran the 800 in college until injuries and school work took over.

The investment of time is so important for the head of the household. The blessings or curses flow from the head. I do my best to make an effort to give my wife time as well as my sons. She is just as important as them. They have to see the way I love her so they will one day love their wives even better. They see us have date-nights every week. They see me grab her butt and rub on them thighs. I don’t intend for them to see all that but they see it. I slip up and get a little inappropriate sometimes with the public display of affection and my wife has to remind me to chill. As they grow older they will see how the head of the household has a large responsibility. I make mistakes too and those are the areas they will be better than me in. We always leave some room for our kids to grow because none of us are perfect. Sometimes I get agitated quickly and get snappy. I don’t curse or yell so it’s not that bad, but I get one of them nice-nasty attitudes that come with smart remarks, silent treatments and rude looks. It takes me about 10 minutes to snap out of it. When my oldest son gives me a look, I blame it on all the concussions I had in college playing football and tell him that’s why I don’t want him to play football, lol. My family watches my every move, the good and the bad. I’m the head and it all flows from me. I’m also writing this mini novel to hold myself accountable and remind myself of my calling as the head of the household. I’m still trying to get more time. I have to make more time actually. Being motivated and driven to earn more money to give my family more opportunities also comes with less time. So I’m constantly working on time management and creating a system that shows balance. I realize that they appreciate my time more than my money. Many men don’t believe that but it’s true. I know they say that love doesn’t pay the bills but in a very discreet way, it actually does pay the bills. My love for my family is what motivated me to become better so I could give them more. That love for them also has pushed me to another level to create streams of income that earn money while I’m spending time with them or even sleeping. Love is paying our bills.

Lastly, I want to make a point to the men about investing in our wives. She is so capable. She is so strong and so smart. She is smarter than you. She can earn more money than you too if given the tools. She has more longevity than you, in the bedroom, in the boardroom, and on Earth. These are shocking facts that I’m coming into the knowledge of. I’m writing this blog right now as my wife is at a conference. Her ticket to this conference cost us $400 that wasn’t in the budget. It actually cost more because of gas and parking so really about $500 plus. We were sitting in the bed early morning on Thursday and I saw it on my timeline. It’s a conference for women who blog, youtube, etc. It’s called “BlogHer.” When I saw it, I mentioned it to her and offered to send her. She accepted and I dropped $400 on it. Our budget is strict and tight because the more you build the more disciplined you have to be and it is a struggle. That’s why they say “mo money, more problems.” A lot comes with trying to make a better life. Nonetheless, we spent the money and she is loving it!! It’s reviving her and giving her a much needed boost to get back to her blogging and brand building.

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Anything she wants to do in her life, I’m here for it. Anything! We are talking about law school right now. I will need a great Entertainment Lawyer one day and I want that money to go to her and she likes that idea too. She has a bachelors in Bio-medical Science and her masters in Medical Sciences. Her initial goal was to be a Medical Doctor but our lives took us in a different direction and now her interests have changed. I’m willing to spend my last dime on her dreams. She’s a full-time CEO of Home and helps run all of the companies I’ve started. She’s the backbone of our family. Our sons wouldn’t be who they are without her. I would literally be dead or in prison if it wasn’t for her influence in my life. For that, I owe her the world. She’s played a major part in my life. I think as men we often forget about the grace and favor a good woman brings to our lives. I challenge you to remember that and to give back to her instead of draining her more. There’s so much more I want to do for my wife that I’m not able to yet. As of now, I’m praying for abundance so that we can pay for law school if that’s where her heart leads her. If not, then for whatever else she wants to do. My days aren’t promised so for all the focus I stole from her at one point in life, I want to return it 1,000x. As men we can’t get into the mindset that everything has to be about us and our aspirations. Her dreams matter too. So many men want a handmaid instead of a Queen. The woman in Proverbs 31 made power moves and held things together. We have to respect her heart and her hustle and get behind her movement.

Ok, I have to put our 3 year old down for his nap now so I’m going to let you go. If you’ve read this far, thank you! I may not have made a lot of sense but I’m trying to put what’s on my heart into words and sometimes that’s so hard to do without offending or alienating someone. Please know this post is only to share another example. However you raise your kids or run your home, more power to you! I’m not saying my way is the way, but it is my way and I just wanted to share it with you to add a different perspective.

God Bless,

Tony A. Gaskins Jr.

  When a man wants to give the world… I struggle with finding the balance between giving what's needed and giving everything. I'm starting to understand more why so many men say they want to be financially stable before marriage.

[thelegendofsquatch87]

Shit

So I’m losing my job. The cable/internet provider I work for recently got bought by a foreign company and they have closed other smaller call centers in other states in the last year or so, and we were told they no plans to close ours, and that we would remain open. Well 2 weeks ago we had a surprise meeting with all members of management and some from corporate and we were told that “due to a lack of call flow, it has been decided that keeping this call center open is no longer necessary.” Which is bullshit, as every day since the announcement we have had at least 50+ calls in queue each day, sometimes over 100+

Anyway, we will remain open until June 30th, with the possibility of the final closing date being extended until July 14th if business needs deem it necessary. So my birthday is in June, so hey happy birthday to me, I no longer have a job. Then just as when my husband and I had a solid plan to get financially stable and be on top of things finally, this shit happens. He’s about to graduate from college and start his job, which means he’ll be making more money and we were going to stay here for a while and save up some money, have him get top surgery and then we’ll move, because we don’t really like the state we live in. And we need to be close to a beach, because the ocean is just amazing.

Now I’m freaking out, trying to fill out applications and find something that pays similar to what I had before, which is hard to do because this area sucks, and also we’ll now have to start paying for our cable and internet service, so another bill to add to our fucking pile. And I haven’t heard back from anything yet. We have a plan that if I can find something in Florida where we have friends and family that I can move down by myself and stay with them, work and get some money to get our own place and then Oliver will come down a few months after he has some work experience. Which sounds like a solid plan, but fuck, that’s scary. I mean I’ve moved to Florida by myself before for college and it wasn’t any trouble at all. No problem. But now, that shit is scary. I don’t want to be away from Oliver for that long alone. Fuck. I don’t know if he realizes that he’s my rock. He means so much to me, and I just need him sometimes, I think I would go crazy without him, or just be very depressed… I mean I think I’d be fine for a while, and the move would be for the better and things would be looking up, so it probably won’t be as bad as I’m making it out to be. More on this later ….

Also, I really fucking want the nintendo switch and the new zelda, which some friends were getting me some gift cards for my birthday to help me get one, or to just save until Christmas when I get more gift cards from friends and family and I could get one then. But now money is so tight and I have no jobs lined up, that’s not going to happen. Which is fine, I mean it sucks, but I had already accepted I probably wouldn’t be able to get the switch until next year maybe, or even longer. Who knows. But what sucks is that my friend had the switch just for Zelda and now he’s done with it. He offered to sell it to me first before anyone else, I could have gotten the switch and the Zelda game for $250, that’s $110 cheaper than getting them new, or even more if you include taxes. Fuck. This was last night, he offered it to me first, which I greatly appreciate, but I told him I couldn’t do it. With me losing my job and money being so tight, we have no disposable income, so I told him I greatly appreciate it and I wish I could, I just couldn’t. So he put it on Craigslist and some guy from Kentucky drove all the way up here just to buy his switch since they’re sold out everywhere, and that was a great deal. But that’s not it. I want to do so much for Oliver. Fuck he took me to a fucking hockey game, my first ever, and it was my favorite team (Go Penguins!) and it was amazing. He surprised me on our first valentines day with a trip to Columbus to see one of our favorite movies (Shaun of the Dead) in a movie theater. I want to be able to do nice things for him. Surprise him with a concert or with tickets to see wicked or tickets for a flight to CA to see a friend and we can make a trip out of it, or going to a theme park like cedar point or to go down to Florida to visit friends and family and go to universal Orlando again. Or even just get him accessories or a nice case for the DSLR he got for Christmas. And also just help him get top surgery.

I just feel like a lot of shit is happening and I need to realize that we’re okay for the time being. We’re okay for now. I’m getting severance that will help cover the next month and a half after losing my job. I just need to stay calm and focus on finding a new job. Then maybe I’ll be able to do something nice for Oliver.

Also, Oliver has been stressed to the max here for a while. With clinicals and work and studying for tests, he’s had 0 free time for himself. It’s been awful and I hate seeing him this way. He hasn’t been getting much sleep and he’s just been depressed and I feel useless and can’t help him.

But on the bright side we have our fidget cubes now, so now we have something to help us focus on and fidget with when we’re all anxious and nervous…

@adipose-abductee

[alicesyrene]

I'm buying a house! (9/13/2018)

OK, so it’s been awhile since I’ve put myself on a budget, and my credit card is paying the price.

I’ve been living in Marin County (San Francisco Bay Area) for a little over two years. I don’t pay rent, and it’s been fun exploring the city and the surrounding area, making friends through work and going to concerts and book signings, but eventually we all gotta grow up, right?

I just turned 24. 24! I wish I could put numbers in all caps, because that is an all caps moment for me. I could bold it, but I think the repetition with the exclamation point gets my point across. I know in hindsight 24 will seem young and stupid, but right now I feel old. Not old in the sense of my back hurting and my knees and hips going out, but too old to still be pretty much completely dependent on my parents. I think everyone in the Bay Area feels this to some extent. Everyone I meet either lives with several more people than is reasonable to be in a house or apartment, or still living with their parents. I can’t say I blame them. Rent is too damn high around here, unreasonably, raise-your-eyebrows-and-guffaw high, and there’s really no other way to do it. Some of those nice Silicon Valley jobs pay handsomely, but a lot of those tech people are still considered “low-income” and eligible for government assistance, even if they are pulling in $100K a year.

Long story short, I’m pulling from both the “still living with my parents” and the “too many roommates” crowd. I don’t technically live with my parents, which makes sound cool when I talk to people, but I do live with my brothers. Three brothers and me, in a two bedroom, 1 ½ bath townhouse. It’s crowded. Not only that, but we don’t pay rent because it’s not ours, it’s our grandfather’s. He’s currently shacked up with my parents at their place in Idaho, because he’s blind and can no longer speak, and his throat cancer just relapsed. We’re basically holding the fort down since he can’t live on his own anymore, but doesn’t want to give up his place. I think he plans to leave it to my parents in his will.

Basically, our situation is temporary. It’s great, because real estate in this area is, if possible, even worse than in the city, and we have a real opportunity here to get a unique experience we wouldn’t get otherwise. But it doesn’t feel like home.

Living with the boys is hard. Nobody likes to clean up after others or themselves, the chores get done at varying degrees depending on who got fed up with the filth and decided to pick up, or if our parents are visiting or we have guests over. It’s too much for me to keep up with, and on top of that somebody keeps eating all my Captain Crunch and peanut butter.

Basically I’ve had enough. I miss my mom and dad and my three grandparents living in Idaho currently, and even without rent everything here is too expensive. I work best if I’m living on my own, and that’s what I want to do, so that’s what I’m working towards.

Back to going on a budget; while living here I have been living high on the hog. Concerts, baseball games, book events, dinners and lunches with friends, dating, exploring styles in fashion and make up, FOOD. It all adds up. I’ve also taken a couple of vacations, bought some furniture and new appliances, and that’s all hurt my wallet too. I’ve still got student loans I’m paying off, and now this great big credit card bill on top of all the regular monthly bills for things like my phone and PG&E. I’m…somewhat responsible. I pay my bills each month and put the rest of my balance towards paying off my card. I’ve been doing this for about a year now, and I’m kind of in the same place as I was because I keep paying down the amount I’m spending each month. This has to end.

After having a long conversation with my mom, we decided I should move back home if it’s what I really want, but I should do it the right way. I could pay everything off and save a couple thousand to put a deposit on an apartment if I wanted to in less than a year, but then I would be paying rent every month and living on my own, but not able to save too much to put towards getting a house someday, which is the ultimate goal.

Instead, I’m going on a two year plan to pay off ALL my debt as soon as possible, and spend the rest of the time saving as much as I can to go towards a down payment for a house.

I’m not a very patient person, but the idea of having a whole fucking house to myself is so sweet I can taste it. Once the idea passed its way into my brain from my mother’s fingertips I was hooked. Sure, it’s going to take a while, but the payoff is going to be so great.

I’m starting with my budget, since I need to cut back my spending in order to pay more towards my bills each month. A balance transfer and a new line of credit is in order to cut back on the interest now gaining on my credit card. I anticipate this will be the last line of credit I open in the next couple of years. Next, I need to stop driving in or ubering to work. Miracle of all miracles, our late days at work we have to do once a week are changing, so we are starting an hour earlier and getting off an hour earlier, which means I can take the bus instead of waiting an hour and a half after work to take the ferry, or ubering or driving in. Hallelujah! Once I get back on the train of taking the bus every morning again, that should cut a significant part of spending out of my life.

Here’s how bad it is. I actually have about three months’ worth of credit on my Clipper Card right now because I’ve been skipping the bus so much on the way to work. So the first step there is to cut off the auto renewal of my commuter benefits that keeps piling on my Clipper Card instead of going in my pocket. That will be an additional $250 a month that will come on my paycheck. It will be taxed now, but at least I’ll be able to put it towards some bills.

Next is my food budget. Since I’ve been ubering in, I eat out during lunch way less since I feel so guilty about spending $20 on getting to work. It doesn’t sound like it evens out, but eating out in this neighborhood can be really expensive. Now that I’m cutting both out, we’ll see how much I save. I also eat out a lot for dinner, especially on the weekends, or if the pile of dishes is just too damn high. Pretty simple solution that will actually kill two birds with one stone: no more eating out. I’ll make a menu of what I’m going to eat every day and stick to it. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ll start packing my lunches more proactively, doing food prep and making sure when I make a big batch of food I’m not eating two dinners because I need to save at least half for lunch the next day. This will also force me to be more proactive about keeping the kitchen clean and the dishes to a minimum.

Right now my monthly budget for food is $200, but ideally I’d like to get it down to $100. I think once I get the saving momentum going, I’ll minimize my choices to the cheapest meals possible. We also have a lot of built up food in our pantry that is literally just sitting there. Cans of tuna, a couple boxes of tuna helper, popcorn, oatmeal, chili, beans, corn, pancake mix, canned soup, etc. It’s all perfectly good food, it just seems like nobody is ever in the mood for it. It’s all free game, and about to become part of my regular diet.

I just went shopping last night and spend about $165, which was pretty good for everything I got. The hardest part is going to be making sure the boys don’t steal any of it. They always say they will replace it, but I’ve lost quite a few gallons of milk in the last two years. I steal back whenever I can, but for some reason I’m the only one who can ever purchase things like flour, butter, sugar, oil, vinegar, baking soda or powder, essential kitchen items. Things everybody uses but doesn’t help replace. I have a plan though. My fridge in the garage is from college, and just a mini, but one people often forget about. I think I’ll start storing items in there, and bringing high profile dry food, like cereal and peanut butter, up to my room. It will require a little bit of extra work, but worth it if it gets me closer to my goal.

Next step, limit my spending on fun activities. Now, I already have tickets to see Craig Ferguson on Sunday in Napa, and Panic! At the Disco in February. I’m also flying home for Christmas and my mom’s birthday, so that ticket will be purchased very soon. Fortunately, my friend and I were talking about saving, and she has a travel credit card. If she gives me a referral, I can get approved too, and immediately start out with some points. Hopefully that will take care of some of my miles for my trip home. If not, we’re back to square one. But as far as ball games and other concert events and even weekend drinks with coworkers go, that will have to cut back to almost nonexistent. The problem with taking the bus is if I decide to go out after work I almost always have to get an uber home. I’m very tempted at this point to just delete my uber account. I also spend too much on drinks and food when I go out, when I could just as easily do something at home with a bottle of $5 Moscato. I’ll have to limit my excursions to special occasions, and even then maybe not partake, and plan ahead for transportation.

As for events, seeing if I really need to go, and then getting the cheapest tickets available. Fall Out Boy in October? No go. I saw them last year around the same time, and it was a part of the same tour. Hank Green in Santa Cruz? The tickets are already sold out, and I doubt I would get there in time for the event, since I’m working that day. I also saw him just in October of last year for John Green’s book tour. Maybe I’ll just spend that money buying the book. I would just check it out at the library, but it’s his first book and I want to be supportive.

I’m pretty good about my alcohol consumption. I’m not too big of a drinker, though I have been spending too much on wine lately. One of the perks and drawbacks of living so close to Napa is I now have a favorite winery, and I’m a member, which means I get free tastings, but it also means I paid for a full case of wine…a couple of times. I still have five or six bottles left from the last time I went back in May or June, and I don’t intend to buy anymore when I go to Napa this Sunday for Craig Ferguson. I do intend on going to get a free buzz though. I think I’ll spend the money for a bottle of wine on a T shirt at the show instead. That seems reasonable to me. Either way, I will eventually have to give up my membership status by not buying another case of wine, and switch back to Sutter Homes Moscato. I don’t think there’s any love lost there, just another average of $300 a year I’ll be saving.

This is my starting plan. I’m sure I’ll find more ways to save money as the months go on, but for now I’m excited to start this project and see it to completion. I think keeping this blog type will help me stay on track, and keep me motivated and excited for this long haul. I can’t wait to celebrate the day I’m debt free, and then the day I can start actually shopping for houses.

Let’s do it!

[apsbicepstraining]

Parties Are Doing It At Your Gym: 6 Personal Trainer Secrets

It’s been months since you signed up for that gym membership, and hitherto here “you think youre”, staring at a screen instead of working out. Maybe you’re doing the right choice. Sure, sitting on your ass will almost certainly kill you sooner, but at least you’ll be saved the ache, lies, and body fluids you know a gym excursion will be generated. And at the least you won’t have to look at the smiling appearance of a personal manager like Ryan George, who wants to tell you that …

6

There’s Plenty Of Sex At The Gym

stokpic/ Pixabay

I’m proud of the number of buyers I’ve bedded … because that figure is zero. I did a dwelling period formerly with the status of women who indicated activity in the nude( I admonished her not to — the pinching alone !). I had a male buyer invite me to a threesome with his wife( again, I said no; that is not what we mean by a “partner membership” ). At a hotel gym, I worked with a purchaser who wanted me to rub his glutes and asked if I’d ever been with a husband( I told him that I wasn’t training at as massage ).

Body-n-Care/ Pixabay “No, I’m not trained in groin massages either.”

Less ethical coaches take advantage, though. There was one I worked with who went after every attractive woman that came in. One era, a girl came storming onto the fitness floor and requested every staff member where he was, but he was nowhere find work. A few minutes later, there was a raucous agitation: The girl didn’t know about the trainer’s reputation and found out that he had been hooking up with someone else. The gym pointed up canceling both women’s bodies for contending. They prevented the coach, though, as he had among the best sales amounts at the gym.

One high-end gym that I was working at is seeking to incentivize us to stay on-site all day by building a “sleeping” room for the personal teaches, ended with bunk beds. Yes, some genius thought it was a smart thought for groupings of predominantly young, attractive, and single trainers to have their own bedroom in the gym, and much to everyone’s startle and feeling, the chamber became a love-den. I did try the chamber out for its intended objectives on one occasion, only to have my siestum ended by two tutors running one another out. Eventually, we lost access to the chamber because the housekeeping staff rejects to clean it.

kadmy/ iStock “Seriously, how difficult is it to make the condoms IN the trash barrel? ”

One tip: Never go barefoot in a steam bath. At the place I work now, the steam bath is pretty regularly stained with semen. It’s most likely research results of jacking off pre-workout, which presumably drops your blood pressure and loosen you. Hey, they say you have to erased exclusively your sweat down after you’re finished.

5

A Personal Trainer’s Looks Matter Way More Than Their Suitabilities

Satyrenko/ iStock

Like most of the service industry, gyms hire with an eye toward beautiful. As a manager told me, I have to be what the customer wants me to be. To female tutors, he mentioned, “If it’s a guy, you have to give him a really tough exercising. When he’s finished, take him to the rub counter. Rub his legs, extend him out, and when you are doing the hamstring extend, lean over, expose a bit of cleavage and announce, ‘I’d like you to be my purchaser. What kind of pack can I put you down for? ‘”

g-stockstudio/ iStock “I’m very committed to your hap-penis.”

It’s pretty clear what kind of business he thought he was passing, and it didn’t involve a lot of careful vetting of qualifications. As a upshot, many of us didn’t have any. I get licensed through the NASM, but plenty of managers I work with haven’t. Some take multiple-choice online tests and use that, plus their visible muscles, to get hired. Don’t assume your coach is some former athlete or even passionate about fitness — numerous join up merely because they think it’ll be an easy-going job.

But all that isn’t necessarily the occasion. When I first met one high-end gym, one of my fellow newbies was a stunning fitness modeling. She aimed up going lots of scrutiny from the male clientele but couldn’t move that into paying clients and retire the field wholly. Meanwhile Adrian — a middle-aged, slightly overweight female tutor with a dense Colombian accent — sketched $250 k a year. She was at the top of her environment because she knew her shit, plain and simple.

Alex_Koch/ Pixabay “The quicker you touch your fitness aims, the quicker I thump my financial ones. So pick that up. Now”

4

The Gym’s Business Model Is Completely Dependent On Your Lack Of Motivation

tpsdave/ Pixabay

I can confirm some of the stuff Cracked joked about in this video: We genuinely do count on a certain percentage of members signing up but not expending the facility. If most gyms were used by anything close to the full listing of members, they’d be space beyond capability. One time, a major blizzard back in the early 2000 s basically shut down the city, but we stayed open. Tallies of lapsed members, with nothing else to do and against all anticipations, represented their practice through our entrances. It was the busiest period that gym ever had, there wasn’t nearly enough material for everyone, and it was a goddamn madhouse. Luckily, it’s fairly difficult to get trampled in a treadmill stampede.

Capitol Records Treadmill-related injuries have descent drastically ever since OK Go canceled their membership .

Beyond tricking the masses into memberships they’ll never exploit, we’re supposed to sign buyers up for personal conferences because that’s where the real money is. An hour of personal course might expenditure upward of $100, more than a whole month of gym membership. So once we’ve got parties in the fitness chamber, we tell them the gym itself will do nothing for them, and they need one-on-one time if they want to improve. Not because of our lore, necessarily: The genuine selling place of a personal manager is having to look mortal in the appearance and predict you’ll come to the gym at a specific time and appointment. It’s harder to stay on the sofa when you’ve became that personal and financial commitment.

mastermilmar/ iStock “You just knowing that, only give me your pocketbook. You need to earn it back.”

Sometimes they do fight dirty with your firmnes, though. Right after 9/11, the fitness administrator gave us this long-winded discussion and included a line he wanted us to tell potential patrons: The rationale so many beings died during 9/11 was that they were not fit enough to flee the buildings. It’s a awful statement, from what I heard. I never got around to applying it, because inferno is mostly one big-hearted steam room — can you thoughts how much semen is on the flooring? No thanks.

3

Personal Trainers’ Advice Can Harm You

Highwaystarz-Photography/ iStock

Here are the subjects a qualified manager can speak on, ideally with a shooting dance beat backing them up: posture and push, muscular persuasivenes and tenacity, sporting concert, cardiovascular conditioning, and flexible. That’s the ideal register, recollect — we may not know anything about any of that trash. We may exactly search rockin’ in spandex. Whatever the speciman, we are most certainly not powers on nutrition, reclamation, or anything medical. Yet in every gym you’ll find teaches happy to advise you on all of those circumstances no matter how disastrous the consequences.

gpointstudio/ iStock “No , no , not the muscles, that’s a common story. You have to eat another man’s nature to gain his strength.”

I know one teach whose patron was contending( due to coach incapacity, primarily ), so he answered, “Tell your doctor you have asthma and have them give you a prescription for Advair. That will help you with your cardio.” There was another who thought they were qualified to give diet admonition to a diabetic. One buyer is intended to get in shape for her August wedding, so her trainer introduced her in a sauna suit to run on the treadmill the morning of the wed to fit into her dress. And then there was the tutor who decided to fix a client’s back pain using “core exercises” that patently just made the agony worse. We scarcely evaded a lawsuit on that one.

Even I’m not immune to the occasional climb up my own ass. I used to tell patrons doing bench presses to touch the barbell to their chests. Then I learned this was shredding up their shoulder joints, so I stopped, but others still insist on it. Leg expansions are what everyone uses to build their quadruplets, but I tell people not to because they’re ruining their knees in the process — you’ll still realize a shiny leg extension machine in every gym. One trainer will tell you the lat drag got to go behind the cervix, and I’ve is evident that do terrible things to people’s shoulders long-term, but I’ve sounded other trainers insist that doing it in front of chest, like I say to, is also bad.

Gennadiy Kravchenko/ iStock It’s only a matter of season before it gets is the responsibility of autism and grease-gun violence .

You’ll never know who’s right until you bolt yourself up doing it wrong.

2

Gym Employees Might Slip You Steroids

Dario Lo Presti/ iStock

At one gym I worked at, the first Monday of every month, a person in a dres would show up, change into workout gear, and take a pitch-black backpack into the gym with him. The human, who we dubbed “the doctor, ” would do a 30 -minute session. At some quality, he would casually residence the knapsack somewhere behind the pull-up depot, and the fitness director would later take it with him into the role. For the coming week, all the Terminator-looking guys strolled in to the fitness manager’s office when the sales director wasn’t around. I got the find they weren’t considering that quarter’s revenue.

Ozimician/ iStock “Oh my divinity, I finally pictured Hamilton , and telling you, absolutely worth the wait ! ”

One trainer I know mails his clients to a medical doctor at an anti-aging clinic, admonishing them to claim that they’re suffered by low-pitched testosterone. The doctor then leads a series of tests which magically confirm this, and the customer, whose simply real evidence is a lack of swoleness, skips away with a law prescription for testosterone. You can even get your insurance to pay for diminishing your testicles.

1

In The Result, The Gym Is Selling An Impossible Fantasy

Milan Stojanovic/ iStock

Cracked has told you over and over that the number of people who lose a large amount of weight and keep it off is statistically zero. Now, I have worked with people who’ve transformed their bodies in prodigious behaviors, so I’m not going to say it’s impossible to lose weight, but it is much harder than most people guess. A huge part of that is because the fitness routines we prescribe you are unsustainable, and we know this. Most people will get through the first few days of a educate routine just fine, and we’ll tell them it will get easier, but in reality, it gets harder . If it starts to get easier, you’ll stop witnes outcomes. And anytime you take on a new project, whether it’s starting a fitness routine or a habit dildo business, it steals from something else in your life.

Eva K ./ Wiki Commons “In the end, it was my free time with my boys that I was certainly leaving the shaft to.”

I try not to given impractical possibilities: During my first had met with a patron, I extract as much info as possible on the person’s life-style, mindset, objectives, and exercising biography, then try drafting a intention they can actually follow. But if gyms everywhere told buyers the truth — that there is no finish line; you are able to never reply, “OK , now I have a six-pack, so I’m finished with my person and now I can focus all of my time on video games”; that maintaining that six-pack is now your part-time activity for the rest of their own lives; and the older you get, the more working here will take — a billion-dollar manufacture would disappear overnight. Forget rising health-insurance premiums — that’s how paunch would maim the economy.

Ryan George hosts The GymWits podcast and has a new notebook out , Freeweight Training Anatomy . Follow Ryan Menezes on Twitter for trash slashed from this section and interesting thing no one should ensure . Have a tale to share with Cracked? Email us here . For more insider attitudes, check out 5 Insane Realities Behind The Scenes Of A Weight Loss Ad and I AM Compensating For Something: A Bodybuilder Speaks Out . Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out If Gyms Were Honest, and other videos you won’t meet on the site !

Also, follow us on Facebook, and let’s get a speedy spout sesh in, bro .

The post Parties Are Doing It At Your Gym: 6 Personal Trainer Secrets appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[apsbicepstraining]

Parties Are Doing It At Your Gym: 6 Personal Trainer Secrets

It’s been months since you signed up for that gym membership, and hitherto here “you think youre”, staring at a screen instead of working out. Maybe you’re doing the right choice. Sure, sitting on your ass will almost certainly kill you sooner, but at least you’ll be saved the ache, lies, and body fluids you know a gym excursion will be generated. And at the least you won’t have to look at the smiling appearance of a personal manager like Ryan George, who wants to tell you that …

6

There’s Plenty Of Sex At The Gym

stokpic/ Pixabay

I’m proud of the number of buyers I’ve bedded … because that figure is zero. I did a dwelling period formerly with the status of women who indicated activity in the nude( I admonished her not to — the pinching alone !). I had a male buyer invite me to a threesome with his wife( again, I said no; that is not what we mean by a “partner membership” ). At a hotel gym, I worked with a purchaser who wanted me to rub his glutes and asked if I’d ever been with a husband( I told him that I wasn’t training at as massage ).

Body-n-Care/ Pixabay “No, I’m not trained in groin massages either.”

Less ethical coaches take advantage, though. There was one I worked with who went after every attractive woman that came in. One era, a girl came storming onto the fitness floor and requested every staff member where he was, but he was nowhere find work. A few minutes later, there was a raucous agitation: The girl didn’t know about the trainer’s reputation and found out that he had been hooking up with someone else. The gym pointed up canceling both women’s bodies for contending. They prevented the coach, though, as he had among the best sales amounts at the gym.

One high-end gym that I was working at is seeking to incentivize us to stay on-site all day by building a “sleeping” room for the personal teaches, ended with bunk beds. Yes, some genius thought it was a smart thought for groupings of predominantly young, attractive, and single trainers to have their own bedroom in the gym, and much to everyone’s startle and feeling, the chamber became a love-den. I did try the chamber out for its intended objectives on one occasion, only to have my siestum ended by two tutors running one another out. Eventually, we lost access to the chamber because the housekeeping staff rejects to clean it.

kadmy/ iStock “Seriously, how difficult is it to make the condoms IN the trash barrel? ”

One tip: Never go barefoot in a steam bath. At the place I work now, the steam bath is pretty regularly stained with semen. It’s most likely research results of jacking off pre-workout, which presumably drops your blood pressure and loosen you. Hey, they say you have to erased exclusively your sweat down after you’re finished.

5

A Personal Trainer’s Looks Matter Way More Than Their Suitabilities

Satyrenko/ iStock

Like most of the service industry, gyms hire with an eye toward beautiful. As a manager told me, I have to be what the customer wants me to be. To female tutors, he mentioned, “If it’s a guy, you have to give him a really tough exercising. When he’s finished, take him to the rub counter. Rub his legs, extend him out, and when you are doing the hamstring extend, lean over, expose a bit of cleavage and announce, ‘I’d like you to be my purchaser. What kind of pack can I put you down for? ‘”

g-stockstudio/ iStock “I’m very committed to your hap-penis.”

It’s pretty clear what kind of business he thought he was passing, and it didn’t involve a lot of careful vetting of qualifications. As a upshot, many of us didn’t have any. I get licensed through the NASM, but plenty of managers I work with haven’t. Some take multiple-choice online tests and use that, plus their visible muscles, to get hired. Don’t assume your coach is some former athlete or even passionate about fitness — numerous join up merely because they think it’ll be an easy-going job.

But all that isn’t necessarily the occasion. When I first met one high-end gym, one of my fellow newbies was a stunning fitness modeling. She aimed up going lots of scrutiny from the male clientele but couldn’t move that into paying clients and retire the field wholly. Meanwhile Adrian — a middle-aged, slightly overweight female tutor with a dense Colombian accent — sketched $250 k a year. She was at the top of her environment because she knew her shit, plain and simple.

Alex_Koch/ Pixabay “The quicker you touch your fitness aims, the quicker I thump my financial ones. So pick that up. Now”

4

The Gym’s Business Model Is Completely Dependent On Your Lack Of Motivation

tpsdave/ Pixabay

I can confirm some of the stuff Cracked joked about in this video: We genuinely do count on a certain percentage of members signing up but not expending the facility. If most gyms were used by anything close to the full listing of members, they’d be space beyond capability. One time, a major blizzard back in the early 2000 s basically shut down the city, but we stayed open. Tallies of lapsed members, with nothing else to do and against all anticipations, represented their practice through our entrances. It was the busiest period that gym ever had, there wasn’t nearly enough material for everyone, and it was a goddamn madhouse. Luckily, it’s fairly difficult to get trampled in a treadmill stampede.

Capitol Records Treadmill-related injuries have descent drastically ever since OK Go canceled their membership .

Beyond tricking the masses into memberships they’ll never exploit, we’re supposed to sign buyers up for personal conferences because that’s where the real money is. An hour of personal course might expenditure upward of $100, more than a whole month of gym membership. So once we’ve got parties in the fitness chamber, we tell them the gym itself will do nothing for them, and they need one-on-one time if they want to improve. Not because of our lore, necessarily: The genuine selling place of a personal manager is having to look mortal in the appearance and predict you’ll come to the gym at a specific time and appointment. It’s harder to stay on the sofa when you’ve became that personal and financial commitment.

mastermilmar/ iStock “You just knowing that, only give me your pocketbook. You need to earn it back.”

Sometimes they do fight dirty with your firmnes, though. Right after 9/11, the fitness administrator gave us this long-winded discussion and included a line he wanted us to tell potential patrons: The rationale so many beings died during 9/11 was that they were not fit enough to flee the buildings. It’s a awful statement, from what I heard. I never got around to applying it, because inferno is mostly one big-hearted steam room — can you thoughts how much semen is on the flooring? No thanks.

3

Personal Trainers’ Advice Can Harm You

Highwaystarz-Photography/ iStock

Here are the subjects a qualified manager can speak on, ideally with a shooting dance beat backing them up: posture and push, muscular persuasivenes and tenacity, sporting concert, cardiovascular conditioning, and flexible. That’s the ideal register, recollect — we may not know anything about any of that trash. We may exactly search rockin’ in spandex. Whatever the speciman, we are most certainly not powers on nutrition, reclamation, or anything medical. Yet in every gym you’ll find teaches happy to advise you on all of those circumstances no matter how disastrous the consequences.

gpointstudio/ iStock “No , no , not the muscles, that’s a common story. You have to eat another man’s nature to gain his strength.”

I know one teach whose patron was contending( due to coach incapacity, primarily ), so he answered, “Tell your doctor you have asthma and have them give you a prescription for Advair. That will help you with your cardio.” There was another who thought they were qualified to give diet admonition to a diabetic. One buyer is intended to get in shape for her August wedding, so her trainer introduced her in a sauna suit to run on the treadmill the morning of the wed to fit into her dress. And then there was the tutor who decided to fix a client’s back pain using “core exercises” that patently just made the agony worse. We scarcely evaded a lawsuit on that one.

Even I’m not immune to the occasional climb up my own ass. I used to tell patrons doing bench presses to touch the barbell to their chests. Then I learned this was shredding up their shoulder joints, so I stopped, but others still insist on it. Leg expansions are what everyone uses to build their quadruplets, but I tell people not to because they’re ruining their knees in the process — you’ll still realize a shiny leg extension machine in every gym. One trainer will tell you the lat drag got to go behind the cervix, and I’ve is evident that do terrible things to people’s shoulders long-term, but I’ve sounded other trainers insist that doing it in front of chest, like I say to, is also bad.

Gennadiy Kravchenko/ iStock It’s only a matter of season before it gets is the responsibility of autism and grease-gun violence .

You’ll never know who’s right until you bolt yourself up doing it wrong.

2

Gym Employees Might Slip You Steroids

Dario Lo Presti/ iStock

At one gym I worked at, the first Monday of every month, a person in a dres would show up, change into workout gear, and take a pitch-black backpack into the gym with him. The human, who we dubbed “the doctor, ” would do a 30 -minute session. At some quality, he would casually residence the knapsack somewhere behind the pull-up depot, and the fitness director would later take it with him into the role. For the coming week, all the Terminator-looking guys strolled in to the fitness manager’s office when the sales director wasn’t around. I got the find they weren’t considering that quarter’s revenue.

Ozimician/ iStock “Oh my divinity, I finally pictured Hamilton , and telling you, absolutely worth the wait ! ”

One trainer I know mails his clients to a medical doctor at an anti-aging clinic, admonishing them to claim that they’re suffered by low-pitched testosterone. The doctor then leads a series of tests which magically confirm this, and the customer, whose simply real evidence is a lack of swoleness, skips away with a law prescription for testosterone. You can even get your insurance to pay for diminishing your testicles.

1

In The Result, The Gym Is Selling An Impossible Fantasy

Milan Stojanovic/ iStock

Cracked has told you over and over that the number of people who lose a large amount of weight and keep it off is statistically zero. Now, I have worked with people who’ve transformed their bodies in prodigious behaviors, so I’m not going to say it’s impossible to lose weight, but it is much harder than most people guess. A huge part of that is because the fitness routines we prescribe you are unsustainable, and we know this. Most people will get through the first few days of a educate routine just fine, and we’ll tell them it will get easier, but in reality, it gets harder . If it starts to get easier, you’ll stop witnes outcomes. And anytime you take on a new project, whether it’s starting a fitness routine or a habit dildo business, it steals from something else in your life.

Eva K ./ Wiki Commons “In the end, it was my free time with my boys that I was certainly leaving the shaft to.”

I try not to given impractical possibilities: During my first had met with a patron, I extract as much info as possible on the person’s life-style, mindset, objectives, and exercising biography, then try drafting a intention they can actually follow. But if gyms everywhere told buyers the truth — that there is no finish line; you are able to never reply, “OK , now I have a six-pack, so I’m finished with my person and now I can focus all of my time on video games”; that maintaining that six-pack is now your part-time activity for the rest of their own lives; and the older you get, the more working here will take — a billion-dollar manufacture would disappear overnight. Forget rising health-insurance premiums — that’s how paunch would maim the economy.

Ryan George hosts The GymWits podcast and has a new notebook out , Freeweight Training Anatomy . Follow Ryan Menezes on Twitter for trash slashed from this section and interesting thing no one should ensure . Have a tale to share with Cracked? Email us here . For more insider attitudes, check out 5 Insane Realities Behind The Scenes Of A Weight Loss Ad and I AM Compensating For Something: A Bodybuilder Speaks Out . Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out If Gyms Were Honest, and other videos you won’t meet on the site !

Also, follow us on Facebook, and let’s get a speedy spout sesh in, bro .

The post Parties Are Doing It At Your Gym: 6 Personal Trainer Secrets appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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[apsbicepstraining]

Parties Are Doing It At Your Gym: 6 Personal Trainer Secrets

It’s been months since you signed up for that gym membership, and hitherto here “you think youre”, staring at a screen instead of working out. Maybe you’re doing the right choice. Sure, sitting on your ass will almost certainly kill you sooner, but at least you’ll be saved the ache, lies, and body fluids you know a gym excursion will be generated. And at the least you won’t have to look at the smiling appearance of a personal manager like Ryan George, who wants to tell you that …

6

There’s Plenty Of Sex At The Gym

stokpic/ Pixabay

I’m proud of the number of buyers I’ve bedded … because that figure is zero. I did a dwelling period formerly with the status of women who indicated activity in the nude( I admonished her not to — the pinching alone !). I had a male buyer invite me to a threesome with his wife( again, I said no; that is not what we mean by a “partner membership” ). At a hotel gym, I worked with a purchaser who wanted me to rub his glutes and asked if I’d ever been with a husband( I told him that I wasn’t training at as massage ).

Body-n-Care/ Pixabay “No, I’m not trained in groin massages either.”

Less ethical coaches take advantage, though. There was one I worked with who went after every attractive woman that came in. One era, a girl came storming onto the fitness floor and requested every staff member where he was, but he was nowhere find work. A few minutes later, there was a raucous agitation: The girl didn’t know about the trainer’s reputation and found out that he had been hooking up with someone else. The gym pointed up canceling both women’s bodies for contending. They prevented the coach, though, as he had among the best sales amounts at the gym.

One high-end gym that I was working at is seeking to incentivize us to stay on-site all day by building a “sleeping” room for the personal teaches, ended with bunk beds. Yes, some genius thought it was a smart thought for groupings of predominantly young, attractive, and single trainers to have their own bedroom in the gym, and much to everyone’s startle and feeling, the chamber became a love-den. I did try the chamber out for its intended objectives on one occasion, only to have my siestum ended by two tutors running one another out. Eventually, we lost access to the chamber because the housekeeping staff rejects to clean it.

kadmy/ iStock “Seriously, how difficult is it to make the condoms IN the trash barrel? ”

One tip: Never go barefoot in a steam bath. At the place I work now, the steam bath is pretty regularly stained with semen. It’s most likely research results of jacking off pre-workout, which presumably drops your blood pressure and loosen you. Hey, they say you have to erased exclusively your sweat down after you’re finished.

5

A Personal Trainer’s Looks Matter Way More Than Their Suitabilities

Satyrenko/ iStock

Like most of the service industry, gyms hire with an eye toward beautiful. As a manager told me, I have to be what the customer wants me to be. To female tutors, he mentioned, “If it’s a guy, you have to give him a really tough exercising. When he’s finished, take him to the rub counter. Rub his legs, extend him out, and when you are doing the hamstring extend, lean over, expose a bit of cleavage and announce, ‘I’d like you to be my purchaser. What kind of pack can I put you down for? ‘”

g-stockstudio/ iStock “I’m very committed to your hap-penis.”

It’s pretty clear what kind of business he thought he was passing, and it didn’t involve a lot of careful vetting of qualifications. As a upshot, many of us didn’t have any. I get licensed through the NASM, but plenty of managers I work with haven’t. Some take multiple-choice online tests and use that, plus their visible muscles, to get hired. Don’t assume your coach is some former athlete or even passionate about fitness — numerous join up merely because they think it’ll be an easy-going job.

But all that isn’t necessarily the occasion. When I first met one high-end gym, one of my fellow newbies was a stunning fitness modeling. She aimed up going lots of scrutiny from the male clientele but couldn’t move that into paying clients and retire the field wholly. Meanwhile Adrian — a middle-aged, slightly overweight female tutor with a dense Colombian accent — sketched $250 k a year. She was at the top of her environment because she knew her shit, plain and simple.

Alex_Koch/ Pixabay “The quicker you touch your fitness aims, the quicker I thump my financial ones. So pick that up. Now”

4

The Gym’s Business Model Is Completely Dependent On Your Lack Of Motivation

tpsdave/ Pixabay

I can confirm some of the stuff Cracked joked about in this video: We genuinely do count on a certain percentage of members signing up but not expending the facility. If most gyms were used by anything close to the full listing of members, they’d be space beyond capability. One time, a major blizzard back in the early 2000 s basically shut down the city, but we stayed open. Tallies of lapsed members, with nothing else to do and against all anticipations, represented their practice through our entrances. It was the busiest period that gym ever had, there wasn’t nearly enough material for everyone, and it was a goddamn madhouse. Luckily, it’s fairly difficult to get trampled in a treadmill stampede.

Capitol Records Treadmill-related injuries have descent drastically ever since OK Go canceled their membership .

Beyond tricking the masses into memberships they’ll never exploit, we’re supposed to sign buyers up for personal conferences because that’s where the real money is. An hour of personal course might expenditure upward of $100, more than a whole month of gym membership. So once we’ve got parties in the fitness chamber, we tell them the gym itself will do nothing for them, and they need one-on-one time if they want to improve. Not because of our lore, necessarily: The genuine selling place of a personal manager is having to look mortal in the appearance and predict you’ll come to the gym at a specific time and appointment. It’s harder to stay on the sofa when you’ve became that personal and financial commitment.

mastermilmar/ iStock “You just knowing that, only give me your pocketbook. You need to earn it back.”

Sometimes they do fight dirty with your firmnes, though. Right after 9/11, the fitness administrator gave us this long-winded discussion and included a line he wanted us to tell potential patrons: The rationale so many beings died during 9/11 was that they were not fit enough to flee the buildings. It’s a awful statement, from what I heard. I never got around to applying it, because inferno is mostly one big-hearted steam room — can you thoughts how much semen is on the flooring? No thanks.

3

Personal Trainers’ Advice Can Harm You

Highwaystarz-Photography/ iStock

Here are the subjects a qualified manager can speak on, ideally with a shooting dance beat backing them up: posture and push, muscular persuasivenes and tenacity, sporting concert, cardiovascular conditioning, and flexible. That’s the ideal register, recollect — we may not know anything about any of that trash. We may exactly search rockin’ in spandex. Whatever the speciman, we are most certainly not powers on nutrition, reclamation, or anything medical. Yet in every gym you’ll find teaches happy to advise you on all of those circumstances no matter how disastrous the consequences.

gpointstudio/ iStock “No , no , not the muscles, that’s a common story. You have to eat another man’s nature to gain his strength.”

I know one teach whose patron was contending( due to coach incapacity, primarily ), so he answered, “Tell your doctor you have asthma and have them give you a prescription for Advair. That will help you with your cardio.” There was another who thought they were qualified to give diet admonition to a diabetic. One buyer is intended to get in shape for her August wedding, so her trainer introduced her in a sauna suit to run on the treadmill the morning of the wed to fit into her dress. And then there was the tutor who decided to fix a client’s back pain using “core exercises” that patently just made the agony worse. We scarcely evaded a lawsuit on that one.

Even I’m not immune to the occasional climb up my own ass. I used to tell patrons doing bench presses to touch the barbell to their chests. Then I learned this was shredding up their shoulder joints, so I stopped, but others still insist on it. Leg expansions are what everyone uses to build their quadruplets, but I tell people not to because they’re ruining their knees in the process — you’ll still realize a shiny leg extension machine in every gym. One trainer will tell you the lat drag got to go behind the cervix, and I’ve is evident that do terrible things to people’s shoulders long-term, but I’ve sounded other trainers insist that doing it in front of chest, like I say to, is also bad.

Gennadiy Kravchenko/ iStock It’s only a matter of season before it gets is the responsibility of autism and grease-gun violence .

You’ll never know who’s right until you bolt yourself up doing it wrong.

2

Gym Employees Might Slip You Steroids

Dario Lo Presti/ iStock

At one gym I worked at, the first Monday of every month, a person in a dres would show up, change into workout gear, and take a pitch-black backpack into the gym with him. The human, who we dubbed “the doctor, ” would do a 30 -minute session. At some quality, he would casually residence the knapsack somewhere behind the pull-up depot, and the fitness director would later take it with him into the role. For the coming week, all the Terminator-looking guys strolled in to the fitness manager’s office when the sales director wasn’t around. I got the find they weren’t considering that quarter’s revenue.

Ozimician/ iStock “Oh my divinity, I finally pictured Hamilton , and telling you, absolutely worth the wait ! ”

One trainer I know mails his clients to a medical doctor at an anti-aging clinic, admonishing them to claim that they’re suffered by low-pitched testosterone. The doctor then leads a series of tests which magically confirm this, and the customer, whose simply real evidence is a lack of swoleness, skips away with a law prescription for testosterone. You can even get your insurance to pay for diminishing your testicles.

1

In The Result, The Gym Is Selling An Impossible Fantasy

Milan Stojanovic/ iStock

Cracked has told you over and over that the number of people who lose a large amount of weight and keep it off is statistically zero. Now, I have worked with people who’ve transformed their bodies in prodigious behaviors, so I’m not going to say it’s impossible to lose weight, but it is much harder than most people guess. A huge part of that is because the fitness routines we prescribe you are unsustainable, and we know this. Most people will get through the first few days of a educate routine just fine, and we’ll tell them it will get easier, but in reality, it gets harder . If it starts to get easier, you’ll stop witnes outcomes. And anytime you take on a new project, whether it’s starting a fitness routine or a habit dildo business, it steals from something else in your life.

Eva K ./ Wiki Commons “In the end, it was my free time with my boys that I was certainly leaving the shaft to.”

I try not to given impractical possibilities: During my first had met with a patron, I extract as much info as possible on the person’s life-style, mindset, objectives, and exercising biography, then try drafting a intention they can actually follow. But if gyms everywhere told buyers the truth — that there is no finish line; you are able to never reply, “OK , now I have a six-pack, so I’m finished with my person and now I can focus all of my time on video games”; that maintaining that six-pack is now your part-time activity for the rest of their own lives; and the older you get, the more working here will take — a billion-dollar manufacture would disappear overnight. Forget rising health-insurance premiums — that’s how paunch would maim the economy.

Ryan George hosts The GymWits podcast and has a new notebook out , Freeweight Training Anatomy . Follow Ryan Menezes on Twitter for trash slashed from this section and interesting thing no one should ensure . Have a tale to share with Cracked? Email us here . For more insider attitudes, check out 5 Insane Realities Behind The Scenes Of A Weight Loss Ad and I AM Compensating For Something: A Bodybuilder Speaks Out . Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out If Gyms Were Honest, and other videos you won’t meet on the site !

Also, follow us on Facebook, and let’s get a speedy spout sesh in, bro .

The post Parties Are Doing It At Your Gym: 6 Personal Trainer Secrets appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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