Yesterday was the first day in about three weeks that I felt close to fully-functional. So of course I went to the gym and worked myself about one set away from my puke threshold. I did real freeweight squats for the first time. Don’t even ask how much, it was a ridiculously-small amount. The point was not to find my max, but to make sure I got in three sets with good technique and was able to walk after. Feeling a good burn today from it.
Although I had read repeatedly that cables and free weights were a major improvement over the isolation machines that take up so much real estate in the gym, I was still hesitant to try them. I talked myself out of the idea that they could be THAT much better over and over again. And it really wasn’t for the right reasons. It was because I was intimidated. The free weight area is where all the serious, jacked people dwell. You don’t know how many unspoken territorial rules programmed into me from elementary school get triggered by that.
I didn’t want to intrude on “their” space. I didn’t want to waste valuable time on a rack with my piddling little lifts; sure that someone would be waiting impatiently to slam quadruple what I was doing. I didn’t want to imagine everyone looking sideways at my noodle arms and the small weights I was using.
Of course, the breakthrough realization is that the reason the people over there look so serious is that it’s where you go to get serious results. And I’ve now been going to the gym on and off for three years, and the fact that I’ve never seen any major muscle development other than a nice bit of tightening up here and there shows I have not been serious about the strength side of things.
I have no interest in getting jacked, and I know it won’t matter if I develop muscles if I don’t lose a few pounds’ more fat so the muscles can become visible. But I do want to get better results, and feel stronger. So this is where I need to be.
And the result has been the same as the result everywhere I’ve gone in the gym. At every step, my fears have proven meaningless. No one gives a damn. Everyone’s focused on their own business. My own personal attitude looking at anyone at the gym is: “Hey, you’re trying to do something to make things better. Cool!” Well, except when I saw that guy the other day who wouldn’t stop rubbing his crotch.
I don’t know if that’s what everyone else is thinking, but I can’t be the only one, right?
I feel like I can get into some new territory now. Let’s see if I’m right.