How I Get Myself to the Gym After a Lifetime of Never Getting Myself to the Gym

white flag surrender

A few months ago I hired a personal trainer.

After not consistently exercising for twenty years I decided it was time to raise the white flag. Wait, raising a flag sounds like physical exercise and I just explained that I… Anyway, you get the idea.

Spending hundreds a month to pay someone to tell me to do push-ups was not an appealing option. I’d have to admit something embarrassing and what the Buddha might have titled his Fifth Noble Truth had we been roommates in college.

When it comes to getting his fanny to the gym, D.J. rarely gets his fanny to the gym.

Smash-cut to me at the free personal training session offered by my gym. When the sales-guy asked me my goals I said, “I want to lose fat and gain muscle.” He asked how much fat and muscle. “Hmm, well I guess if I could get to 12% body fat that would be ideal.” (I read that number in a book ten years back.) He nodded, because that’s what gym sales-guys do. “We can do that!” he said. He hadn’t measured my height, weight, or whether I was suffering from consumption, but if he was confident, who am I to argue? He asked more questions about my “fitness goals.”

I realized at that moment that I had no desire to set fitness goals. Not in the traditional sense of pounds lost or areas of the body to tone. Instead of giving him more numbers I read in fitness books, I came clean.

“Look, forget everything I said. I don’t care about my body fat percentage.”

I paused, because honesty is a pain in the ass. “The truth is that I can’t get myself to the gym. If I pay for training, I believe I will show up.”

He smiled in response but didn’t speak. His eyes moved up to the ceiling as he searched for reassuring phrases that wouldn’t emasculate me further. I was embarrassed and he knew it. My eyes moved down to the desk and I stared at his fingers. A few seconds later he spoke. “Hey bro, that’s why everyone gets a trainer. If you could get to the gym you wouldn’t need us.”

I returned my gaze up to his eyes. He was still smiling. We shared a short laugh. It was nice to know that there were other bozos like me.

He started to talk, but I cut him off because I hadn’t yet said the full truth.

“I need a trainer that is going to push me beyond my limits. I am not to be trusted and I will wimp out if given that opportunity.”

He assured me that would not be a problem. “But first, let’s get that free session in, bro.”

For the next hour we worked every part of my upper body performing each exercise to failure. This means that you do as many sets and reps until your muscles give out and you cannot continue. It was the single hardest physical hour of my life. After a final shoulder exercise that was so hard I hallucinated, he ushered me back to the sales desk. I collapsed in the cloth chair which instantly absorbed my back sweat. I didn’t move an inch even though I’m sure seventeen people with simplex herpes had sweat into that same chair that month.

Ten minutes later I had signed a contract for a year of personal training, three sessions a week. It wasn’t cheap. They paired me up with the “best trainer in the gym” (how lucky for me!) and set up a schedule.

It’s now two months later and it turns out that the pay-for-something-I-can’t-do-myself-strategy works. I show up three times a week and he kills me. I hate it because it’s hard.

What I realized is that what I’m really paying for is the opportunity to struggle. I struggle the minutes before I have to leave the office to make it to the gym on time. I struggle on the walk over where my brain tries to convince me to skip. I struggle when I fear he’s going to say, “Today’s a leg-day.” I struggle through the final set of each exercise where I have to dig deep to keep going.

But yet, when it’s over, a sense of pride often emerges. It’s brief, but fulfilling. I suspect that’s because I struggled but kept going.

I also struggle when I see the elderly naked dude shaving in the locker room. That is not fulfilling.

7 thoughts on “How I Get Myself to the Gym After a Lifetime of Never Getting Myself to the Gym”

  1. Michelle says:

    Hilarious as ever and relatable. I did the same for about 8 months. It allowed me to surf the Baja coast and be the only girl in our group who could stand up on a surf board and ride the waves 25 times. Keep going. Financial blackmail does work.

  2. SASSYPIEHOLE (@sassypiehole) says:

    The struggle is real. Perhaps you should join a less daunting facility, sizzle chest …. uh … I mean BRO. 😉

  3. Linda Roy (elleroy was here) says:

    I have paid a monthly membership fee for years to belong to this excellent gym I almost never go to. But dammit, when I’m ready, it’ll be there. I really should hire a trainer so I have to go. Plus, it’s super cool to say “I have a trainer”. That really gets the other housewives’ hackles up. That and when I tell them I have a “massage therapist”. And you better believe I go there monthly.

  4. thecrunchymommy says:

    I am over here dying at you hallucinating!!!!

    I can relate… Which is why I pay an asinine amount of money for my gym membership… *sigh*

  5. Amber Skye Forbes says:

    Your measurements, weight, and health history should have been taken. Since I’m studying to be a personal trainer, I do everything at home, just looking up Youtube videos as my “personal trainer.”

  6. Karen Williams says:

    Since my dryer conked out on me, I’ve been using my treadmill to hang my clothes to dry. It’s gotten more use as a drying rack in the past week than it ever got as an exercise machine. Kind of pathetic, I know.

  7. Ronnie Peace says:

    Your commitment is impressive.
    Before you know it you’ll be throwing down large weights on the floor with a bang just so people know what you’ve listed, slapping other guys on the arse and grunting loudly (once again, for effect, just so others know you are working out).

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