Skipping Leg Day and Making Friends at the Gym

I try not to be a hypocrite. Curiosity is my job, and I skipped leg day for so many years that my legs and the rest of me looked like they belonged to two different men. Enough people commented on photos with some version of “nice quads, do you rent those?” that I finally swapped in some new workouts into my repertoire.

I started with goblet squats, a 50-pound dumbbell held against my chest, which is a squat with a bit more commitment. And I kept noticing two camps. Some people do it flat on the floor. Others prop their heels on a 45-pound plate. I’d done the movement for weeks and couldn’t have told you the point of the plate if you paid me.

So I asked a guy doing the elevated version. AirPods in, mid-set, a stranger I’d never said a word to. Hey, quick question. He pulled out one AirPod, not both, so I understood the clock was running.

“To be honest, I have no idea,” he said.

“I just feel it less in my lower back, and I’m scared I’m going to pull the shit out of it.”

We both laughed. Two grown men doing the same lift for opposite reasons, neither able to explain it. He asked my name, I gave it, he gave his, and I went back to my shoulders. I now, bromance in the making (like Haaland and Bellingham???).

He was right, though. Propping your heels up increases ankle dorsiflexion. That lets you stay upright as you drop, which loads the quads and cuts the forward lean that strains your lower back. Flat-footed isn’t wrong. It just asks more of your ankles and could lead to that painful electrical voltage in your lower back.

Two psychologists ran a study with a title I wish I nabbed first, “Smart People Ask for (My) Advice” led by Alison Wood Brooks, PhD (LINK). People assume asking a question makes them look incompetent. Lean toward the opposite. Ask someone for advice and they tend to rate you as more competent, because you just handed them a stage to show off on.

The person too proud to ask stays wrong and looks no smarter for it. The one who leans over mid-set and asks walks away with an answer, and maybe, just maybe, a new friendly fame to see in the gym repeatedly. Two for the price of a few seconds of awkwardness.

The most confident people I know ask the most questions. Go ask one. And work those scrawny legs.

String bean leg photos of myself on demand.

Todd B. Kashdan is the author of several books including The Upside of Your Dark Side (Penguin) and Professor of Psychology and Founder of The Well-Being Laboratory at George Mason University.