GYMTIMIDATION

I want to talk to you about Gymtimidation. We’ve all been there. The nervousness we feel when we enter a gym and see all the people working out on machinery that we’ve never seen before. I remember when I was in high school and started taking working out seriously. I only stuck to the elliptical, treadmill and bike. I was so nervy to even touch a weight rack much less go up to a leg machine and look at the picture for too long. You know that little picture that demonstrates exactly how you should use the machine. I didn’t want to stare at it and putz around because someone might see and figure me out! I didn’t want to be the fake at the gym. Even though they say not to worry about this because everyone is so into their own workout they aren’t paying attention to you anyway.

So how did I overcome this? Well I’m an early bird so I’m used to working out at 4 or 5am when there aren’t a lot of people around. I slowly worked up my courage this way by checking out the machinery when not too many people were around. I even started asking people. Well not just anyone I’d only make sure to ask the employees. Baby steps. Soon I started utilizing fitness apps, I would create a workout at home and figure out what it is that I wanted to work on. Once at the gym I had a purpose, I would head on over to the appropriate machine and give it a go. To this day if there’s something I’m still unsure of, I’ll Youtube it.

I honestly would not have made it this far along in my fitness journey if I let gym intimidation consume me. Happy to share that with the help of the whole30 and being brave enough to try different workouts annnnd sticking to a concrete workout plan, I’m down 8 solid lbs this month!

For more tips on how you can overcome gym intimidation check out this info graphic from Aaptiv. I’d love to hear your story let’s continue the discussion over on the gram!