How many times have you either heard someone say or maybe even said to yourself, “uhh I gotta go to the gym today.”? I feel like it is something pretty common that I hear and to be honest, I’m guilty of saying it myself at times. I either don’t feel like dealing with the crowd, not in the right mindset to train, or will feel like it’s a chore. So even though I stand behind saying that training is my favorite part of my day, there are times when it can take a hit due to my mentality heading to the gym.
Far too often feeling like crap becomes our norm. As bad habits begin to form, the crappy feeling that come along with those become less and less noticeable over time. Then before you know it, you just think that’s how you’re supposed to feel.
No matter when you may choose to go to the gym it may be busy, or the only time you have to go it may be a madhouse. Therefore if you frequently experience training at a super busy gym, I believe there are a few things that can be done to help keep you on track and stay effective with your training.
With a lot of things in life, especially fitness, people are always looking for either the easiest route or the best one. Even though it may not make sense to work harder than you have to, many times there is no way to get around the fact that some goals are just going to be hard to reach. Fitness goals are often sabotaged by misguided expectations. Unfortunately the only way to reach any sort of sustainable fitness level it’s going to take hard work, consistency, and time. Whether you want to lose and keep off some weight or build a jacked physique, it's not something that can be achieved overnight, in a few weeks, or even a few months in most cases. Rather than looking solely ahead at your end goal trying to find a shortcut, people should focus more on how far they have come and how much they have changed.
As you start your fitness journey, most people's’ goals include either losing weight or putting on some muscle. The Want Factor to achieve these goals can usually pull people through to achieve them, but the problem lies after the goal is reached. People will often lose as much weight as they wanted or put on enough muscle that they are pleased with the way they look, but they fail to plan any further. So once they finally hit their goal, many times people will fall back into old habits because they haven't set a new goal to strive for.
March 19, 2020 was the last day I went into my gym to train. As I write this, that would be 3 whole months without me stepping back into it. Over the course of these past few months, I’ve been lucky enough to have a small home gym, so my training actually wasn’t disrupted to badly. I was even able to make pretty decent progress comparable to what I would have done if I was going to my gym normally. Yeah it sucked not having all the fancy gym equipment and machines, my gym even recently got remodeled with all brand new equipment. And even though I missed using all the fun new machines, I found it was something else that I missed even more…
There have times when as I begin to feel like I’ve hit a plateau or my training just isn’t going very well. Not only does my progression seem to stall or even feel like it is not where it should be, but I will also feel not as motivated to go train. The only thing that will usually seem to help after feeling like this for a few weeks is either a few days off or a change to my training program. What I have learned through rough experience is that this may have been caused a lot of times due to built up fatigue. Ever since I started paying closer attention to how much volume was contained in my training plans and keeping better track of when I need to take a deload/extra rest days, I have not felt that run down feeling to the extent that I used to. The problem was when I would feel like this, I was letting fatigue sneak up on me and not fully recovering from my training sessions. A few of my friends that lift also continuously run into the same problem as well if they aren’t careful. Once they either took the necessary rest period or lowered their volume for a bit, they were right back at it 100%.
It’s pretty common for new gym goer’s to be a little self-conscious about coming to the gym and training around a bunch of people they don’t know. When I started training in a gym I remember feeling this way and was so worried about what other people thought of me. I had that feeling of being judged on how I looked or how much weight I was lifting. Then once I continued to go, I slowly gained more confidence in myself and became familiar with the environment. But I also noticed another interesting thing…most people are so absorbed into what they’re doing they don’t even notice you.
Every New Year brings a plethora of people into the gym eager to start their fitness journey. So as we close out the first month of the New Year, it is a perfect time to talk about gym etiquette. For the people who have been regular gym participants, it is even more important that they follow common courtesy practices to act as role-models on how to act in the gym.
With New Year’s right around the corner, people are going to start thinking about their New Year’s resolutions. The most common ones I hear usually have something to do with getting in shape, eating right, working out, and things of that nature. Unfortunately for many of the people that I hear this from, their resolution turns out to be a fleeting moment. There are a multitude of reasons that this may happen, but one of the best ways I think it can be avoided is by having an actionable and sustainable plan. When people are well informed and have a well-structured plan, it greatly increases the chances of adherence and success.
A lot of people act surprised when I tell them I don’t barbell bench and prefer to use dumbbells for that type of movement. Or when I started deadlifting I learned by pulling conventional, but after an injury I switched to sumo and have been loving it. Because of my stances on these two exercises it got me thinking on how everyone needs to decide for themselves what exercises they are willing to perform.
Whether you train at the nicest gym in town or right in your living room, you gotta learn to work with what you got. Now if your goal is to be a powerlifter, you’re going to have to lift some weights, or if you want to be a marathon runner, you will actually have to go run. But that doesn’t always mean you can’t be adaptable.
Many people have misconceptions about how long they need to spend training. Even though I may hear opinions all over the board, I think the most important thing to remember right off the start is, something is better than nothing. So regardless if you go for a 10 min walk outside or train for 2 hours in the gym, both are 100% better than not doing anything.
Every once in a while, sometime throughout my workout I will just hit a wall. I’m not able to hit the weight goals I was supposed to that day or I’m just not feeling it and I get frustrated very quickly. This isn’t something that happens very often, but maybe once every few months for some reason everything just goes to hell when I train. I’m not talking about when there is little deviations, but rather when not only is the weight super “heavy” but I also feel drained/sick/injured. When a training day reaches this point, I will usually choose to either do a little cardio instead of weight train or just totally go home. Now this isn’t something anyone should make a habit out of, but you also shouldn’t beat yourself up to bad if it happens either.
I get to the gym excited to train legs, I’ve got both squats and deadlifts to kick things off. As I begin to warm up, my lower back doesn’t feel 100% and has been bothering me in the weeks prior. I mostly brush it off and just mentally note that I better keep my form perfect and to not push it too much. With each set my lower back continues to feel more tense and I make the poor decision to just tighten my belt up even more. After my four working sets of squats I go to do a few warm up sets for deadlifts. The warm-ups don’t feel that great and I need to wear my belt just to get through them. As I get to my working sets I now have my belt pulled tighter than I usually have it. I get through 1 set, 2 sets, on my 3rd I lower the weight, and on the 4th I could barely pull the weight once. I struggle to get my belt off because it is so tight and when I do my back is just throbbing. It was at that moment I knew I messed up.
A super common problem I run into is that when I make it to the gym, something will just feel off. Sometimes I can tell it’s going to be one of those days before I even make it to gym, on others I will be excited all day to go lift but during my workout I can tell I’m not at 100%. We all have those days when we get to the gym and something just isn’t right. Sometimes you may feel a little unmotivated going into the workout, realize the weight feels heavier than usual once you start training, or your lack of rest/nutrition is starting to wear on you. Rather than just totally skip that workout or leave during the middle of a workout, there are some ways that you can manipulate your training to best suite you for that day. In the lifting community we call this auto-regulation and it is a great way to help tailor your training plan to the specific factors that are affecting you in the day to day. We can’t always foresee when we are going to have a rough day at work, be short on sleep, or feel our allergies kicking in, which is why we need to be able to make the necessary modifications that allow us to still make gainz.
The main and most important thing I want to say about doing cardio is, you don’t have to stick to just the treadmill! Cardio can be anything that gets you moving. So if you like going into the gym don’t be afraid to try out other cardio machines. They are a good way to help break up the monotony of a treadmill. Also don’t discount doing activities outside of the gym such as swimming, biking, or even playing sports with your kids. I guarantee if you try to keep up running around with a few kids playing you’ll be winded faster than you can say time out. I also don’t want people to think I’m bashing running. I just feel like a lot of people assume it’s their best option but get burnt out on it quick. My personal favorite cardio is taking my dog for a walk. I have a hyperactive Boxer, so luckily he likes to keep a quick pace with me.
When most people talk about fitness, usually only the physical training and nutrition are brought up. A big part of training is also the type of equipment we like to use too. Over the years, I found that I have developed some favorites when it comes to my attire, gym bag components, and even some things I keep at home. Many times when someone is starting their fitness journey for the first time, or even getting back into it after a period of not exercising, purchasing some new gym accessories can be a good motivator. So I thought it would be a fun idea to run through some of my favorite my training gear.
When going to the gym, a lot of people will call things whatever name they see fit. There are however what I believe to be a lot of accepted verbiage used throughout the lifting community. I have found from experience that a lot of people do not feel comfortable asking what things mean in the gym because they feel embarrassed they don’t know. So I decided to think about all of the terms I feel most people who don’t frequent the gym would know. Some of them may have my own personal spin on them, but hopefully this will act as a guide to help others understand what people mean when they say certain things when describing their training.
One day I was having a conversation with my brother about lifting because he had started doing a full-body routine a few times a week along with running and cycling in his free time. I was kind of giving him a hard time and joking that he’ll lift by himself but is too good to come lift with his brother. Then as we were talking he told me that he didn’t really care to go to the gym as often as I did or follow as structured of a plan as I did. He mainly enjoyed running and cycling and was lifting a few times a week just because. He didn’t care about gaining tons of muscle, he just wanted to stay at a weight he was comfortable at and stay “healthy”. It was during this conversation that I came to the realization, not everyone likes this shit as much as me.
When I talk to many individuals about their training program I get answers that are all over the board. Some people have an actual plan or are following some program that they have found online. I am still amazed at how many people come to the gym and have no idea what they are going to train until they get there. Rather than having some sort of structure, they decide to train whatever they feel like that day. I also run into a lot of people that try to follow a particular plan, but due to other obligations, they are not able to adhere to it very well.