The Fight at the Gym

I caught you with the title, right? Hopefully you thought I was going to tell you some badass story about these two guys throwing fists. I'm not, but given that you're already almost three sentences in, you're "pot committed" and have to finish what the story is actually about.

So, about two weeks ago, I made the commitment to get back in the gym. Before that, I went through quite the fight to get here. I've had a membership at the YMCA for a while now, a couple of years at least. Would you like to guess how many times I had been there since having the membership?

Go ahead. Come up with a guess.

I'll wait..

If you guessed zero -- come on!? I'm not THAT bad!!

But the correct answer is not far off, at eight.

Eight times over the course of like three years. Pretty pathetic, right? But I had tons of reasons, also known as excuses, for why I didn't go. The first one was because a long time ago I had a friend, Tyler, training me to get my ass in shape for a bikini pageant. We were doing two-a-days and I was bound to gain at least a little bit of weight. After two months in the gym and another one month of two-a-days..no weight was added to this little body. So, I gave up.

Yeah, yeah, all of you saying, "Well, Farrand, if you knew ANYTHING, you would know that it's going to take longer than thee months to see any REAL progress or to gain weight blah, blah, freaking blah." Okay? I know that. But I was young and angry, leave me alone.

There were a couple of other reasons, but the main one is one that I have learned affects pretty much anyone who wants to get their lazy asses up and in the gym.

Fear.

Not like fear of..people. I mean, the people at the gym can be scary, yeah, but it's not like they're monsters. Though, sometimes they do sound like monsters.

It's fear of not knowing what the hell you're doing. Fear of looking weak. Fear of making a fool out of yourself, of being judged. It's a difficult feat to get over, trust me. I've had to get over it like three times over the course of the last nine years.

I took a weight-lifting and agility class in high school called BFS (Bigger, Faster, Stronger) but back then, they taught us everything. They taught us proper form, use of the equipment, sanitation, how to jump on foot from dot to dot on the stupid five dot box thing. They had to teach us because..like, its school. You've gotta learn in order for it to be "EdUCatiONal". Back then, I was pretty confident in my ability, strength and knowledge. I was doing deadlifts, power cleans, benching over 100 lbs, and everything in between. Once graduation came..thaaaat was about the extent of my gymming lifestyle.

Going back on your own is a lot different than being in a group of your peers, (The first time I wrote that sentence, I 100% wrote "pears" and spent like five seconds contemplating if that was a fruit or a group of like-minded individuals. Apparently it's one of those mornings."

Back to the point - IT'S SCARY! The thought of walking into a room full of people who basically do this as a living (lets call them Gymmers) when you have absolutely NO idea what to do or where to start!? Ya'll wonder why I always walked on the treadmill for forty minutes? It's because I was spending that time watching everyone else and learning how these machines work.

And then, I would get confident enough and begin to walk over to a machine that looks promising, but one of the Gymmers gets on it before I get there. Fuck.. I've spent the last 12 minutes only scoping out THAT machine. So, then? I would just leave. "Next time. I'll definitely do that next time."

I'm currently over here praying that I'm not the only person who has done that..someone let me know that I'm not..

But, even if I had the courage to go to a machine, or a rack or grab some dumbbells, HOLY SHIT I'm weak. That's where the other big fear comes into play. Someone is definitely going to look at me and laugh that I can only bench the bar or that I'm doing curls with 5 pound weights.

It's one of those:

No one:

Me: They're all laughing at me.

Back when I was training with Tyler, we were at Planet Fitness, and after a little bit, I felt comfortable there. Don't get me wrong, I was terrified going into it. Especially since I knew Tyler a little bit before-hand. I begged him not to judge me or laugh at me for being weak. I expressed multiple times that he had no clue what he was getting himself into because I felt that it would be better if I warned him so that he would be less likely to laugh once he saw me struggle with barely any weight.

But once we got in there, I saw how nice it was having someone cheering for me to get the bar up and pushing me to do just "ONE MOR REP!" Everything was super laid back and there were a ton of people who were just like me. Either people who were just starting out, or those who were only there a couple of days a week.

On top of that, I had a trainer with me so anyone who looked at me would know that I'm dedicated and pushing myself, I guess. I don't really know why I thought it was better. There's just something about being there all by yourself looking weak that's different than being there with an experienced trainer looking weak. But, in case you don't remember where my new gym membership is, the Y is a LOT different. Or so I assumed, at least.

For one, it's a more expensive membership. So, I thought that you've got to have a little more commitment if you're going to pay more per month than just to go once or twice a week. Or.....once..or twice a year like I did. For two, they have squat racks. Like....REAL squat racks. And real benches with real bars that were just..there. For some reason, I looked at those and got so intimidated. This isn't a room full of smith machines anymore. This is a room full of real machines. A room full of, you guessed it, Gymmers.

Meanwhile, I'm over here on the treadmill going, "Welp, I'm just gonna hang out in this area for a while." On top of that, how l do I know what to do in one session? Gymmers have their days, hell, some have their MONTHS all planned out with what days they do certain workouts or when to work out which part of their bodies. I would probably walk around each day and just do the things I knew how to do and would end up getting stared at by the Gymmers wondering why the hell I am doing all of these different things.

But lets say I finally gained the courage to just do it, right? I had to pick the perfect time. I couldn't start in January. Wanna know why? Because then everyone would assume that I'm just another one of those New Years Resolutioners who made a resolution along the lines of, "I'm gonna work out! I'm going to be in the gym five days a week!" Then I fall off like two weeks in. Even if I didn't fall off, that's what they were going to think. I just know it. If I were to start in the spring, then I would be one of those girls just trying to get a bikini body ready for the summer, then I'll stop working out come mid-summer because, fuck it, I don't need to look good in the winter.

I know that this all sounds crazy, but these are the real thoughts that I had, and probably more people have or have had at some point. Or maybe I'm the only one to ever feel like this, and that's okay, I know I have some issues. It just never felt like the right time to start because I always thought that someone would have something negative to say about it.

My fiance is a Gymmer....yeah. You'd think that that would make it easier for me go, right? No. Not right. He's the whole reason that I have a membership and I always got the, "Are you ever going to use the membership that I PAY for every month?" I don't know why people think that that's a helpful form of encouragement. It just made me feel worse. And then I felt that if I ever did go it would because he wanted me to and not because I wanted to.

But one day I walked into the Y and I was ready. I was hype and confident. On the way in, I ran into one my buddies who works there. He greeted me with some comment about how this is probably my first time ever actually walking in there. It wasn't, it was like my third. But for some reason, that really put a damper in my day and shot my confidence down. I'm already a super insecure person, and though I know those weren't his intentions, that's how my mind registered it. I still "worked out", probably just ran on the treadmill for half an hour, if you can imagine that.

You want to hear the dumbest thing that I was worried about? What to wear. Yeah. Stupid, right? But here's why. I have pairs of leggings, what girl doesn't, and I have received some Gymshark apparel for Christmas. I absolutely love them. But, in my head, if I wear these to the gym, Gymmers will see the logos and assume that I am regular they haven't seen before. And then I'll reach for the 5 lb dumbbells and at that point I'll just look like a poser who WANTS to be seen as a Gymmer. I'd then be one of those girls who tells people she works out seven days a week when in reality, she just has a really fast metabolism and looks like she's in great shape when she can't even run a quarter of a mile without stopping six times because she can't breathe.

This is how my mind works. I might be crazy.. Someone help me.

There's so many people who think that it's so easy to just start gymming regularly. They are quick to cast judgement that those who don't are just lazy or all talk if we dare say that we WANT to start going to the gym. There might be so much struggle going on in someone's head that you would have never even thought about. Not everyone goes through the fight of these fears. But I personally know some people that share some, if not all, of these same experiences or some similar.

Not everyone thinks the same or goes through criticism the same way. I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who truly don't care about the thoughts of others, be it friends or strangers. But there's also a lot of people like me, who worry about the thoughts of anyone we come in contact with.

I've spent a lot of time contemplating all of these circumstance and these fears. I've argued with myself time and time again about why I don't need to go or shouldn't go. And then one day, I figured it all out. Here was my solution.

I was going to go to the gym. It didn't matter what I did, but I wanted to be there. If I ran on the treadmill or another half an hour, or if I benched the bar on the smith machine - it didn't matter. Why? Because if anyone dared to say anything to me or about me, at least I was there. There are a lot of people who always talk about going and never do...cough cough, me a year ago. So, it doesn't matter if I'm the weakest person walking in there. It doesn't matter if I need help learning how to do something, or if I have to ask the staff questions. It doesn't matter because at least I'm in there making an effort.

Probably the most crucial part to consider -- even the Gymmers had a beginning. Everyone has to start somewhere, and they might have started right where I'm at. Just because someone is at a different place in their journey, it doesn't make what I'm doing any less valid or less successful.

So here I am, a couple of weeks into my personal fitness journey, and you know what I've learned....

No one who is gymming actually has the time pay attention to what you're doing.