Turn the Page...what a track, Bob Seger or Metallica????
Well, that's not what the blog is about today. Today I'm talking a bit about New Year's Resolutions and how it can crowd up our gyms, but that's not a bad thing! Enjoy and drop a comment below.
This week and every week in January, February and at least the first two in March will see our precious gyms overrun with dreaded newcomers! How dare they come to MY gym and take over the squat racks for their barbell curls and use the good flat bench to do planks on, don’t they know I was here first???
Seriously, how many times have you heard that every…single…year? How many times have you been guilty of feeling that way yourself? I was for years until I realized that the only difference between me and these misguided souls was that I was in the gym in December, toiling away, frying my system and stressing myself out while they were eating cake and psyching themselves up to hit the weights after the holidays. Really, who’s the loser in that situation?
I’m not here to advocate junk food and being lazy, but there’s something to be said for the lad who gets to enjoy dessert and Netflix while work is on holiday, compared to the bloke who is struggling at every family meal, grinding through workouts instead of taking a rest. Both these guys are taking it a bit too far for sure, only for the magical date to change to January 1st and suddenly each person thinks that it’s time to “get back to it.”
Being the ripe old age of 35 now I’ve seen every variation of the New Year’s Resolution and have ridden that wave myself a lot, but these days I think it’s different than when I was coming up. These days, I think most commercial gyms are still fairly busy in the winter, and the many of the Resolutioners are already members but used the holiday as a break and have come back in January to work on their summer bod. I’ve been in and out of gyms since I was 15 and I’ve never seen so many people working out before, and doing so many different things! It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but overall, the more people working out, the better.
I used the example of the guy in the squat rack doing curls, and while that is a headache to those of use that actually squat there, I’ve found that most of the time those guys are curling there because there’s nowhere else for them to curl and it’s their bicep day-just like I want to use the equipment for my program, they want to use it for their program too. Far too often in strength culture there’s almost a hierarchy of exercises and when it comes to the sacred squat and deadlift, we think that the practice of those two movements trumps everything else. That kind of thinking just creates negativity and only serves to further the divide between the average person and the average person who strength trains and thinks that they are somehow more important than the next man or woman.
Yeah it’s a new year, and if you need that page to turn in the calendar to make you try a little bit harder to get the body or lifts you want, then don’t look back! Get in the gym, do your thing and get out. Rinse and repeat. Too often I think we let the completely unrealistic nature of social media influence what we do and more importantly it can negatively influence how we view the actions and progress of others. Everyone that makes the effort to go to the gym deserves the same amount of respect and courtesy, regardless of their motivation or endgame.
Keep a positive attitude about yourself for these months and it will only serve to increase the culture and competition around the gym, this will only help everyone there-whether they are curling in the squat rack or doing lunges in the parking lot. The energy you spend in criticizing others should go toward achieving your goals-don’t cut yourself short.
Well, that's not what the blog is about today. Today I'm talking a bit about New Year's Resolutions and how it can crowd up our gyms, but that's not a bad thing! Enjoy and drop a comment below.
This week and every week in January, February and at least the first two in March will see our precious gyms overrun with dreaded newcomers! How dare they come to MY gym and take over the squat racks for their barbell curls and use the good flat bench to do planks on, don’t they know I was here first???
Seriously, how many times have you heard that every…single…year? How many times have you been guilty of feeling that way yourself? I was for years until I realized that the only difference between me and these misguided souls was that I was in the gym in December, toiling away, frying my system and stressing myself out while they were eating cake and psyching themselves up to hit the weights after the holidays. Really, who’s the loser in that situation?
I’m not here to advocate junk food and being lazy, but there’s something to be said for the lad who gets to enjoy dessert and Netflix while work is on holiday, compared to the bloke who is struggling at every family meal, grinding through workouts instead of taking a rest. Both these guys are taking it a bit too far for sure, only for the magical date to change to January 1st and suddenly each person thinks that it’s time to “get back to it.”
Being the ripe old age of 35 now I’ve seen every variation of the New Year’s Resolution and have ridden that wave myself a lot, but these days I think it’s different than when I was coming up. These days, I think most commercial gyms are still fairly busy in the winter, and the many of the Resolutioners are already members but used the holiday as a break and have come back in January to work on their summer bod. I’ve been in and out of gyms since I was 15 and I’ve never seen so many people working out before, and doing so many different things! It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but overall, the more people working out, the better.
I used the example of the guy in the squat rack doing curls, and while that is a headache to those of use that actually squat there, I’ve found that most of the time those guys are curling there because there’s nowhere else for them to curl and it’s their bicep day-just like I want to use the equipment for my program, they want to use it for their program too. Far too often in strength culture there’s almost a hierarchy of exercises and when it comes to the sacred squat and deadlift, we think that the practice of those two movements trumps everything else. That kind of thinking just creates negativity and only serves to further the divide between the average person and the average person who strength trains and thinks that they are somehow more important than the next man or woman.
Yeah it’s a new year, and if you need that page to turn in the calendar to make you try a little bit harder to get the body or lifts you want, then don’t look back! Get in the gym, do your thing and get out. Rinse and repeat. Too often I think we let the completely unrealistic nature of social media influence what we do and more importantly it can negatively influence how we view the actions and progress of others. Everyone that makes the effort to go to the gym deserves the same amount of respect and courtesy, regardless of their motivation or endgame.
Keep a positive attitude about yourself for these months and it will only serve to increase the culture and competition around the gym, this will only help everyone there-whether they are curling in the squat rack or doing lunges in the parking lot. The energy you spend in criticizing others should go toward achieving your goals-don’t cut yourself short.
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