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Gym Shyness

By now we know that the gym is likely the easiest place to exercise. If someone is lucky enough to have equipment at home, good for them! However, most of us need somewhere to go. Some people would advocate against the gym because body-weight exercises can be done with no equipment at all. This is true, but as you know, I advocate for progressive overload. There comes a point where body-weight exercises cannot overload the muscles. This is why I always recommend free weights. No one has ever outgrown a barbell! However, I will admit, body-weight exercises are great! I incorporate many of them into my routines. Overall, the gym is the easiest place to gain access to this equipment. A big problem with this is the feeling of tension inside a gym. Many people feel as if they do not belong or they are out of place. This is an excuse many people have and this is a huge problem!

This is an obvious problem because it is preventing you from bettering your health! I know how you feel though. Every single person had this feeling at one point or another. All it takes is facing the fear several times and then everything will feel normal. I get it though, many of the people in the gym are in great shape and it can be intimidating. I’ve been on this health journey for only a small fraction of my life. When I step into the gym, you better believe that many people appear to be healthier than me. This does not weigh on my decision to show up!

Here is why the gym is not nearly as intimidating as you might believe:

  1. They are just people – this is such an easy one. Everyone in the gym is a person! It doesn’t matter if people have Godly bodies or not, they are normal everyday people! This is something I realized in a hurry. As I stepped into the gym consistently for about a month, people started to warm up to me. They say hello each day when I walk in and enjoy making small talk. Oddly enough, they have become good acquaintances. We hold each other accountable and joke around if someone misses a day. We spot one another when needed and we encourage everyone. For example, these two women workout together each day at the same time as me. One is a young doctor and the other is older and retired. One day I saw them putting weight onto the bar for the bench press. I told them I’d help load the weight. Therefore, I jokingly grabbed more weight than they could handle. They laughed and said, “There’s no way we can do that”! I was like, “Come on! You’re wonder women! You can do anything”! We always joke around like this. There are two things that we can take away from this. One being that complete strangers can turn into reliable workout buddies to hold us accountable. Another takeaway is that there are all sorts of people in the gym! I work out at the same time as doctors, police officers, nurses, electricians, and even senior citizens! That’s right, the razzing of the senior citizens never gets old! Hah!
  2. Much of the equipment is useless to us – This is such a great thing to know! Sometimes when people step into the gym for the first time, there is so much “stuff” that we have no idea what to do. We aimlessly try each piece of equipment with no end goal. If you continue to follow your Health Cop’s suggestions, this will be no problem at all. I can help to guide you on what to do inside the gym. Being that free weights are the best way to go, we can ignore much of the other equipment in the gym to keep things rather simple! Trust me, eventually you will see other people using equipment without the slightest idea of what they actually want. Knowing (what and how) you plan to lift prior to showing up is a great plan of action.
  3. Gym members do some weird stuff – I had to mention this one because it can occasionally be the most intimidating thing about the gym. Sometimes people yell, grunt, and make other chanting noises. I have no idea why, but this helps people lift more…I guess. This only happens with a handful of people and it has become second nature to me at this point. I simply ignore it and continue with my lifting. It does not bother me, but to a new lifter, it can certainly be a bit odd! Another weird thing people do is the smashing of weights. This makes an awful lot of noise also sounds intimidating. I have yet to find an exercise where I was taught to smash the weights on the ground after lifting. Therefore, I have no idea why they do this. I simply ignore this as well. Regardless, it is a distinct sound that I often hear in the gym. Lastly, many people leave dumbbells on the floor and weights on the barbells. I was always taught to clean up after myself, so sometimes it can be irritating when I see someone partaking in this behavior. Simply clean up after yourself and the other members will like you more!

Overall, the gym is not nearly as intimidating as you thought. Who knows, maybe you’ll make some new friends like I did! This helps to make working out more of an enjoyable experience!

Do you like going to the gym? Is there anything inside that has confused or intimidated you? Comment below and together we can help each other overcome these little obstacles!

Yours truly,

Health Cop

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