8 Kinds of Workout Gear That Should NOT Be Made Fun Of

We live in a world where fitness trends come and go faster than a lot lizard at a truck stop. Many in the fitness industry will try to sell us any piece of junk trying to convince us that it will help us reach our goals.

While a lot of fitness gear tends to be garbage, there are a few things that really do help you out. Unfortunately some workout accessories have a bit of a negative stigma surrounding them that is truly undeserved.

Do you use any of these particular items?

1. Weightlifting gloves.

One of the most hated on pieces of workout attire is the humble lifting glove. Now for pure practicality, weightlifting gloves make perfect sense.

They give you better grip while keeping your hands from looking as raw as someone who simultaneously jacked off the Human Torch and the Thing.

Yet for some reason people tend to view others who wear gloves as sissies.

I personally have had my hands bloody with skin hanging off from doing heavy deadlifts numerous times, and I still never bothered with gloves.

Maybe it’s the Westside Story, Andrew Dice Clay fingerless glove look that bothers me, or maybe it’s the fact that most of the guys I’ve seen wearing them look like Ellen Degeneres wearing a stringer.

Either way, I’m also guilty of hating on them.

As I get older and stronger though, I’m starting to finally see the benefits of the gloves.

Many serious lifters wear them and in all reality you shouldn’t care what people think of you. If they help, wear them. Besides, bragging about how your hardcore workouts ripped up your hands isn’t all that impressive.

You might think thick calluses make you look tough and cool, but no one really cares.

Missing chunks of your hand loses the cool factor pretty quickly after you try to get intimate with a lady friend and she thinks you are trying to finger bang her with a dead alligator.

2. Weight belt.

The good ol’ weightlifting belt. I’m not sure if the weight belt is so much hated on as it is just misunderstood. I think this is more of a line crossing thing.

If you see a young guy bench pressing 135 lbs with a belt on, you may be inclined to think he either has an injury or just thinks the belt makes him look like a real lifter. On the other side of the line, you have the guy squatting 500 plus lbs and you don’t even question why he is using a belt.

I’ve seen guys wear the belts for their whole workout, including cardio.

The belt is suppose to be added support, mainly for heavy lifting, not a damn girdle to hold your fat gut in.

Usually the guys walking around the gym with the belts on are also the same guys walking around the gym wearing gloves. Notice that they are never sweaty.

Do they even lift? It’s hard to say. I can say with certainty though that they love to dish out advice on why you need to wear that crusty old belt that’s sitting in the dank corner of the gym.

I remember the first time I repped 415 lbs on deadlifts. I weighed 165 lbs at the time and lifted it completely raw. No gloves, chalk, straps, or BELT. I felt like the fucking man.

Before I could even enjoy my accomplishment though I was bombarded by some old ass geriatric Bruce

Jenner pre-tits looking motherfucker. He went on to grill me about lifting such heavy weight without a belt and how I would eventually fuck my back up.

I was like 23 at the time so I could care less about what he had to say. Flash forward five and a half years and that stiff as a porstar dick, Miley Cyrus musty cooch smelling belt is damn near essential to my training.

I don’t wear it all the time but if I’m squatting heavy, it definitely helps to keep me from putting myself on the disabled list.

3. Mouth guard.

This one isn’t as common to see as some of the others on this list, which is why it’s so odd when you do see it. I’ve seen a good bit of competitive crossfit people wearing these but not many normal gym goers.

Every once in awhile though you will catch a guy in the gym lifting weights and notice that something about his mouth looks weird. Upon closer inspection (by way of sitting on a bench and sideways glancing in the mirror at him so you don’t come off as a creepy weirdo.) you realize he’s wearing a mouth guard like you see NBA players wear.

What the hell? Is he afraid he’s gonna catch a stray Karl Malone elbow to the face during his curl session? Karl Malone is old as shit. How bad can it hurt?

Believe it or not there actually is a very logical and scientifically sound reason for the mouth guard.

It keeps the occasional rogue dick from accidentally playing hide the hot dog with your face when you aren’t paying attention on the bench press.

Just kidding, that’s never an accident when you are doing whatever it takes to make gains.

Actually, I was serious about the scientific reason part. Studies have shown that biting down on a mouth guard can help you lift heavier.

Plus biting a guard is better for your teeth rather than clenching them constantly without one during a workout.

So if you come across one of those guys lifting weights with a mouth guard in, just remember, he’s not worried about ninja penis attacks.

Can you say the same?

4. Toe shoes.

Oh the toe shoe guy. If you have ever been to a large commercial gym you most likely have seen this mystical creature prancing about.

Toe shoes are those shoes that go on like a slipper and have a space for each individual toe.

They started off innocently enough. A shoe designed to mimic being barefoot while still giving you enough foot coverage to avoid injury.

Sounds great for weight lifting and strengthening of the smaller foot and ankle muscles. Here’s the problem with them though.

Besides the fact that they look like something a doctor would make you wear to avoid spreading some kind of lethal foot fungus, they have been adopted by a certain group. Crossfit.

Anyone I’ve ever seen wear these in the gym was some kind of hipster crossfit douche spigot. I honestly wanted a pair of toe shoes when I first read about them.

I had some foot and knee issues and.thought they might help.

Plus i could missile dropkick dirty orphans in the face and not get turd trapped underneath my toenails.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Now I’m just afraid if people saw me wearing them I’d be asked about crossfit programs and paleo diets.

5. Water jug.

Every gym usually has a few guys who walk around sipping from a one gallon water jug.

There is nothing wrong with that. The water bottle I use is 1.5 liters and I usually finish most of it throughout my workout.

Generally the guys using the gallon jugs are very serious lifters, but even if you are small it would be pretty stupid to make fun of someone just because they have a big jug of water.

Unless you think your BPA free 20 dollar water bottle is that much cooler, you probably wouldn’t give a second thought about what someone is drinking out of.

Well, just slap a certain natty vegan high-low penis to ball ratio having bodybuilders logo on that one gallon jug, and suddenly you are sipping the sweet juice of fermented gains out of the goblet of shame.

If you really want to be ridiculed for something as mundane as what you are drinking out of, just pay the 500% mark up on an empty jug.

6. Barbell pad

For those of you who treat leg day the same as you treat flossing, meaning you know you need to do it but more often than not you just put it off for another day, you may not know what a barbell pad is for.

It’s just a simple pad that slips on the barbell and softens the bar as it sits on your upper back during squats.

The old school bodybuilders would just wrap a towel around the bar for a bit of cushioning.

Barbell pads are similar to weightlifting belts in that there is a line you must cross for it to be acceptable for use without being ridiculed.

I would use the pads all the time until I developed big enough traps for the bar to sit comfortably.

Now I only use one if I’m squatting really heavy or my traps are really sore from a previous workout. Like with anything else though, the heavier you lift, the more you can get away with using ridiculous lifting accessories.

For some reason though there’s just something off putting about seeing a guy squatting 135 lbs and using a pad. (Not a feminine hygiene pad. In case you just skimmed the article and read that first sentence out of context.)

Maybe it’s just a douchey alpha male feeling making you think a guy must fill his shaker cup with vaginal juice to sip throughout his workout simply because he needs to use a pad for lightweight.

Then again if you are more concerned with what someone else is doing in the gym than you are with your own workout,

you don’t deserve to worship in the temple of gains in the first place.

7. Rocktape (kinesiology tape)

Rocktape seems to be all the rage lately. From Olympians to NBA players, there are a number of athletes performing with what looks like colorful duct tape on various parts of their bodies.

As weird as it seems, that tape serves a fairly useful purpose.

Awhile back when I played basketball 4-5 days a week I developed really bad jumpers knee. I would often get sucked into impromptu dunk contest and try to show off.

After many of these contest and me getting older, I found my knees would swell up very bad. That’s around the time rocktape started to become popular.

I decided to give it a try and it actually workedreally well in relieving the pain and swelling. The tape pulls on the skin and helps the fluid move around instead of building up in one spot.

Nowadays you will see people who really overdo it with the tape though. If you walk into a crossfit gym you will see people covered in the stuff.

All kinds of crazy colors and strange patterns.

Now I don’t know if they are just suffering from that many injuries, or are just trying to look like their favorite pokemon.

Either way it’s very bizarre and most likely not very beneficial.

Side note: You know at least one of those erectile dysfunction having guys taped up his tallywhacker in order to get the boner juice flowing. Weird.

8. Bumper plates.

I’ve never used them but bumper plates are rubber or hard plastic weight plates, sometimes very colorful, that look heavy but usually aren’t.

You will see guys lifting 10 lb plates and they look like 45’s. A lot of people refer to these as crossfit plates which is where most of the mockery in using them stems from. (Notice a pattern here?)

Again, I’ve never used these plates before so I can only speak from what I have seen. (I’m quite sure they make these plates heavier than what I’ve seen used but most of the time the weight was very light) The original intended use for bumper plates I believe are for Olympic weightlifters.

Olympic lifts are often difficult and result in the weights being dropped from high off the ground and even overhead. Bumper plates won’t break or mess up the floor during these lifts.

Therefore they are very necessary in that kind of training.

I’m really not trying to shit on crossfit here but it just keeps happening. My thinking is at least these people are being active and not all of them are moronic douche bags that think they are superior to everyone else.

Unfortunately a lot of crossfit practitioners are more concerned with ego lifting and looking cool.

Form goes right out the window and bumper plates become a necessity simply to keep them from killing themselves.

Imagine slamming around actual iron 45’s like these grown toddlers do with bumper plates. The gym would be out of business in no time because everything would be fubar.

Damnit crossfit stop making useful things embarrassing to use.

If there are any items you think I’ve missed please let me know in the comments.

Honorable mentions.

• Yoga pants.
• Ghostbusters shaker cup.
• Way too big Ipod armband.
• Short shorts.
• Over 9000 Vegeta muscle shirt.
• Full size cardboard cutout of Gary Busey.
• Spiked.foam roller.
• Pair of Olivia Munns dirty underwear. (Boost testosterone probably.)
• Flat brim hat and flat bottom Adidas shoes.
• Nicolas Cage’s stunt double from Ghost Rider.

Author: Caleb James for BroScience