I’ve never been to a gym to lift weights but this whole form/ability/performance argument is bollocks in light of the fact that the debate is about public gyms where by their very definition there is a wide range of abilities and attitudes present. Unfortunately ‘public’ means minimum standards for the benefit of everyone and a simple mechanism that stops heavy lumps of metal dropping from the sky or bouncing into you seems like one of those minimum standards. You know, like you’re not allowed to heavy pet, smoke or top bomb in the swimming pool next door which is why you book a holiday to a place with a private (not public) pool.

Guy that I go to the gym with was deadlifting 240kg this week, he uses collars and is not a d*ck.

<p>I may be a tad biased as I work for a risk management consultancy but if this scenario was transferred to an industrial setting with weights being raised manually in areas with foot traffic, securing that weight would be a minimum requirement under the ALARP principal.</p>

It’s safer not having the clips if you’re benching on your own without safeties (I don’t do that personally though). When doing deadlift warm-up sets sometimes I don’t bother with the clips.

But putting the weights away and generally tidying up after yourself – I don’t understand why so many people are so bad at that? Don’t they find it annoying to find a bar racked with a loads of weight on it, so you don’t know if someone is in the midst of something? And doesn’t anyone who isn’t clueless always start with an empty bar for their warm-up sets?