Question 1 doesn't end with the question mark; the next two sentences explain the intention of asking "what's with the ems?" Which would otherwise be a hopelessly vague question, but becomes clear enough with the help. Charitable interpretation trumps exact punctuation as an interpretive guide.
r/Fitness does a weekly "Moronic Monday", a judgment-free thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. I thought this seemed like a useful thing to have here - after all, the concepts discussed on LessWrong are probably at least a little harder to grasp than those of weightlifting. Plus, I have a few stupid questions of my own, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that other people might as well.