Impromptu Personal Training

So I'm at the gym today, and it's one of my favorite days to lift, as I get to dine on the uber delicious:
Incline smith bench
Dumbell shoulder press
Incline skull crusher
reverse grip pulldown
and the incomparable
Bent Over Row

At my gym you see the same guys every day at lunch. I apologize when I'm late, and demand their late pass if they come in past 12:30. Today there were 2 new young faces, full of peach fuzz and hope. Ah yes I remember the days when I thought, "Someday I'll hit 160lbs!"

They were doing the things young lifters do: working the entire body with bad form, going from machine to machine, giving a few idle pushes at weight that wont move (like me trying to dead 405 last week and getting owned.)

Then, out of the corner of my paranoia thinks that they're watching me. At first I was like, naw naw, it's just my imagination, but then I see them doing dumbell shoulder press, just as I do it. Ok, coincidence, sure. Next I move on to upright skull crusher. Next they move on to upright skull crusher. As I warm up, I stretch, and they too stretch as I do (and I have this very odd stretching ritual, so at this point I KNOW they're copycatting.) I see one of them check themselves in the mirror- "they're totally sizing me up right now, lol" I think to myself.

Then I think back, when I was that fuzzy faced 18 year old, and I too did the same.

Oddly enough one of the young guns' aunt is on staff at our gym and I know her. She walks over to me and asks me to show him how to build big legs, as clearly its something, as she puts it "He knows how to do very well, it's what he does," after I'm done with my session, of course.

Why thank you, it IS what I do.

So the young man sorta of hovers and scratches his head at my rather good form on the BOR with 2 plates on each side, with a "how does he bend like that without falling over."

Then I begin to think, what can I possibly relay to this kid in 10 minutes that would be of significant help. This is my love affair after all- I've spent countless hours digging away at my physique, countless days on websites, message boards and databases reading about the topic. It's like trying to sum up the star wars trilogy in one sentence.

Asking me to help this kid build a set of wheels in 10 minutes is sort of asking a lot.

I give him the general tenets:
Lifting lighter with good form is better than chunking around heavy weight.
Squeeze the muscle you want to target.
Tear down in the gym, grow at home.
Eat protein, and lots of it.
(PAUSE)
"Isn't protein steroids?" he inquires (it was almost cute.)
No, protein's better than steroids (then I explain how all meat contains protein and how its the building blocks of muscle.)

I realize that there's no possible way I can effectively relay my life's work in 10 minutes, so I just have to walk away. And I feel sorta guilty. I had a chance to pass the bug on.

I suppose it's better than what I usually do when people interrupt my workout.

People have died for lesser offenses.