Why Returning to Fitness is (Sometimes) Harder Than Starting.

Returning to a fitness program can be just as intimidating as beginning a program for the first time.  One walks back into the gym and is inundated with familiar, yet alien, sounds that bring back memories of youth, of being in shape, of mountains climbed and goals fulfilled.  These sights, sounds, and (in most gyms) smells can also bring back memories of weakness, intimidation, and failure. 

Let's face it.  Most of us go to the gym to look good.  There are not many who go to a gym to feel good or to get better at a sport.  Most of us don't like how we look in the mirror and we start to question our value or personal worth to the world at large.  I hope that you are not one of these folks, but I'm going to play the odds and say that you are probably like this to some extent.  We are bombarded with advertisements and media that show us the perfect body.  We constantly compare ourselves to the Hollywood elite, the fitness models, the bodybuilders, or our favorite athletes.  If you are at all like me, you have started fitness routines many times.  You have started strong only to fizzle out just as strong later on.  

I'll share a little story about how it usually goes for me when I start a new program.  

Day 1: "I think I need to go back to the gym," usually said while sitting on the couch watching some sort of pop culture program stuffing my face with pizza.

Day 2: I research.  I go to bodybuilder.com I go to muscle and fitness, I watch youtube videos, I find the perfect workout.

Day 3: I study the workout and read all of the reviews about how the workout will change your life. I get excited about the work and nervous about all of the supplements that the workout calls for.

Day 4: I finally dust off the old running shoes and walk into the gym.  It is at this point that I promptly forget that I have sat on by butt for the last year and my only workout has been mowing the lawn or doing laundry.  I pick up the weights that I was at before I took a nice long break and then I work through a poorly executed workout.

Day 5: I want to cry myself to sleep and refuse to move too much from the soreness that has hit every muscle in my body.  I drag myself to the gym or to work depending on the program.

I keep this up for a while until poor form on lifts and too much weight too quickly causes minor injuries.  I quit working out for a couple days to recoup, these couple days turns into months, I find myself sitting on the couch, eating pizza, dreaming about the gym.

I hope that this doesn't sound like you, and that I am unique in this struggle to return to the gym, but if there is even an inkling of truth to this for you I am excited to say that there is a better way.  This better way to return to the gym is one that I have been using since returning after the Covid-19 crisis and I can say that it seems to be working.  Look for Part 2 in the coming days and we will look at how to return to the gym in a responsible and healthier way.