My first week in the gym

 “A guy who came to Fight Club for the first time, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood...”.Well that’s what I thought going into the gym for my first week. I was right, kind of. Since I had little training experience and as I’ve said, I resembled a skeleton with a pulse I quickly made what’s known as “newbie gains”. My body was not used to lifting anything heavy for a certain amount of repetitions and it quickly responded by building a little muscle, but to me, a total newbie to gym life, this little muscle was amazing. I felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger after my first week!

I planned to go to the gym after work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Not too much to ask since the gym was on the bus route back in to town. Quite convenient wouldn’t you say? At the time, I worked as an Allocator for Poundstretcher. Pretty much meant I was sitting on my ass all day responding to various different e-mails and answering the telephone. So come 5pm, I still had loads of energy for the gym! I was so excited yet full of trepidation, but what had I to lose? My main problem was my shyness, not only am I genuinely a shy person by nature, but now I was going into a gym with guys who’ve made “all kinds of gains” and trying out exercises of which I’ve never heard of before. So, you understand the fear I felt as I’ve previously mentioned in my other post, “ A stranger in a strange land”, it simply had to be done.

I entered the gym with my gym bag in hand, swiped my new shiny gym card and passed the turnstiles walking down the stairs to the men’s locker room. Deer in the headlights. Frozen stiff. The locker room was just a bit bigger than my living room at home, and it was packed with 20 or so guys, either just arriving at the gym or making their way out. I had to find an empty locker and space on the bench to change. My worst nightmare was coming true. As quick as humanly possible, I unchanged and put on my brand new gym gear which I had bought from JB Sports the previous weekend and sprinted up the stairs towards the gym glad that I’d overcome my first obstacle, getting naked in front of strangers. Obstacle number two, awkwardly wandering around the gym trying to find the lateral pulldown machine.

During my induction to the gym I had been shown around the various machines and different exercise which had been planned into a workout routine for me. The gym instructor showed me how to perform each exercise then gave me a go, and corrected me where I went wrong. Now I was on my own. Walking right passed the treadmills, totally skipping cardio, I finally remembered where the lat pull-down machine was, but to my horror there was someone already using it. Totally unaware of gym etiquette, I approached this young gentleman, poked him on the shoulder and asked when he’d be done. He gruffly told me he’d be done in 2 sets, stared at me for far too long then continued his workout. Now what? I hadn’t prepared for this, there was no YouTube “how to” guide on what to do when someone has taken the only lat pull-down machine in the gym! I felt like Vincent Vega when he entered Mia Wallace’s house and looked confused and scared.  So I moved on to the nearest free bench, picked up two 8kg dumbbells and started on bent over rows which hit your upper back, lats, and biceps. This was easy! You kneel down on one leg on the bench, stick the other out wide to balance, then using one dumbbell at a time, keeping your back neutral, pull the weight up trying to focus on your back and not entirely on your biceps to lift. Rinse and repeat.

Over the next half hour or so I ploughed through all the exercises on my Monday workout routine, walked straight passed the treadmills again and headed for the locker room high on endorphin's, beaming from cheek to cheek, blood pumping through my veins, sweat dripping down my brow. Again, the locker room was full of half-naked guys standing around talking to one another like that’s a normal thing to do. Moving as fast as possible again, I changed back into my normal boring plain clothes and exited the building. First proper workout session complete. I felt like Neo when he finally becomes “the one”. The fear being the bullets which the Agents shot at him, I simply held up my hand and softly whispered, “No”. All my life I’d been scared to try new things, be it new food which my wife is continuously trying to force down my throat, new clothes again which my wife is continuously wanting me to try, or a new way of life such as working out, eating better and being happy. Fast forward to the end of the week and I had completed my first week of weight training, knowing my way around the gym, saying hi to the gym instructors like they were my new best friends, even saying “alright mate” to the huge guy on the bench press with arms bigger than my ego, although with calves smaller than my brand new baby new biceps.

Next post, “I am awake”