Full-body or split routine, gym manners & the squat everyone hates.

01

Headphones exist for a reason.

The podcast

Basic-Fit, Rubí. I was right at the end of my workout, smashing out leg extensions, when a guy sat down next to me, put his phone in the phone holder and pressed play on a podcast. Full blast.

I looked at him. I told him I didn't want to listen to his podcast.

He asked why not, and pointed at the ceiling, to let me know the gym was already playing music.

“It's not the same thing,” I said. “Headphones exist for a reason, you selfish c&%t. Turn it off.”

In his defence, he did.

For the record, this all happened in Spanish, so I've paraphrased. The sentiment survived the translation intact.

I'm aware this is a chapter about manners.

I still can't understand why there's no social rule on this. Somewhere down the line, playing sound out of your phone in a shared space became normal. On the plane, in a café, and now on the machine next to mine. It's wank behaviour. The gym's music is the gym's choice, bad as it is. Your podcast is yours, and it's meant to go in your ears.

The bodybuilder

Different Basic-Fit, same energy. A bodybuilder had three pieces of kit on the go at once. The leg press, the lat pulldown and the only bench press in the gym. One bench press, for an entire gym. Basic-Fit Sardenya is a “special” place.

I asked him, very politely, if I could jump in on the leg press. He said yes, then started mumbling under his breath like a big baby.

“What is your problem?” I asked him. “I politely asked you if we could share. You said yes. Now you're acting like I pissed in your protein shake. The gym doesn't exist for you alone.”

He backtracked and apologised through a fist bump. He may be a bodybuilder, but I'm fae Scotland ya bass.

Can we share?

Asking to share isn't rude. It's how a busy gym works. You do a set, I do a set, and we both get on with our day. But so often when I ask, the reaction is as though I'd just insulted their mum.

If you're using three machines at once, you're not using three machines. You're using one and guarding two.

The rest of the list

Since this is the rant issue, a few more for the pile. The smell, which I'll leave there. The attitude, which you've already had two stories on. And the music, which is wank, mainly because I didn't choose it. To be honest, it's rarely the music itself. It's the volume. If I can't drown it out with my own headphones, it's too fucking loud.

Leave it at the door

Maybe the reason I can't stand the gym at the moment is the same reason everyone else can't. We all turn up ready for combat. It's contagious. Everyone walks in braced for someone else's attitude, so everyone brings their own, and for some reason a lot of gyms just ooze it.

It's a strange place to be. When I'm meditating, I'm so calm and full of empathy. When I'm at the gym, I fear the worst. I probably need to work on my meditation.

The older I get, the less friction I want in my training. That's why I'd rather be on my terrace, where the only person hogging the kit is me and the only playlist is mine. Or at the calisthenics setup down at the beach, until, inevitably, someone turns up with a speaker.

None of what I'm asking for is difficult. Put your headphones in. Share the kit. Leave the attitude at the door. Everyone in there is trying to have a decent session, you included.

02

Coach's Pick: in defence of the Bulgarian split squat

Nobody has ever said to me, “Can we do Bulgarian split squats, please?” Not a single person. I put them in anyway, for myself and for my clients, because I love them. Everyone else hates them. It's time to change that. Sorry, not sorry if I'm repeating myself.

If you've never met one: one foot up on a bench behind you, the other planted a step ahead, and you lower yourself on the front leg until your back knee is just shy of the floor.

How I use them

Every lower-body workout I build has one variation in it. They're there to complement the big bilateral lifts, squats, deadlifts and the rest, not to replace them. I personally prefer a short stance and the feet hip width apart, but everyone has their preferred set-up. From there I do every version going. Back foot on its toes, laces flat on the bench, or hanging in a TRX. I love all of them.

Why they feel so hard

Because one leg is doing almost all of the work. Researchers at Leeds Beckett put a force plate under each foot and watched 715 reps. The front leg produced about 84% of the vertical force. The rest was mostly the weight of the back leg resting on the bench, which is why the researchers concluded it isn't really helping.

That's trained lifters, set up properly with their weight over the front leg. Allow your weight to transfer back and the rear leg starts sneaking in to help, which is exactly why set-up and form matter so much here. So yes, it burns. That's the point.

They build a better squat

This one's my favourite. In 2016, a team including researchers from Glasgow Warriors and the University of Edinburgh took 18 academy rugby players and split them in two for five weeks. One group back squatted. The other did Bulgarians and nothing else. Not a single back squat.

At the end, both groups had a bigger back squat, a faster 40-metre sprint and sharper agility, with barely anything between them. The Bulgarian group got better at a lift they hadn't trained for five weeks. Scottish science. You're welcome.

Built for your backside

Want a stronger backside? It's officially the year for it! A 2023 study in Japan put the two lifts head to head, each at the lifter's own ten-rep max. At the bottom of a Bulgarian, the hip muscles, mainly the glutes and hamstrings, had to work 44% harder per leg than in a back squat. With less weight and a more upright back position.

A 2020 review of 16 glute studies put the split squat in its top tier for glute activation, in the same company as hip thrusts, deadlifts and lunges.

And you can steer it. Lean your torso well forward and your bum and hamstrings take on more of the work, according to a 2025 study of trained female athletes that tested a 40-degree lean.

Are they the single best exercise for your backside? Nobody's tested that, and the strongest evidence for glute growth is still for hip thrusts and squats. These are small studies, mostly on young athletes. But more glute and hip work per leg, with less weight on your back, is a very good deal, and it matches what I see in my sessions.

If you've been avoiding them, start with no weight, hold onto something for balance if you need, and do fewer reps than you think you need. Start with less, increase depth and build up slowly.

Nobody's asked for them yet. I live in hope.

Sources: Helme, Emmonds and Low, 2022 · Speirs et al., 2016 · Arakawa, Mori and Tanimoto, 2023 · Neto et al., 2020 · Aygun-Polat et al., 2025 · Krause Neto et al., 2025