I must admit that I’m a bit of a gym membership floozy. There are only two failed gym relationships in my past, but they didn’t end well. The first one was as a local place when I was at Sixth Form. Even though it didn’t cost me a penny as my parents had a family membership (thanks Mum and Dad!), I went no more times than you could count on your fingers (sorry Mum and Dad!). My second relationship was a more recent one that began when we lived in London. The gym was good, but small and I always left feeling confused and like I hadn’t really done that much. We cancelled our membership after a month or two and admitted defeat.
Now my third gym membership relationship started before Christmas. I thought if I got myself acquainted with the place, I’d be more likely to actually stick with it come January and so far, so good. I go down most weekdays and I’m weirdly into it. It’s early days still, but here are 10 things that I’ve learnt so far…
1. So much washing. All of the sweaty gym gear. All of the washing. I feel like I’m constantly running some kind of laundrette business out of the flat.
2. So much washing of my persons and even more annoyingly – hair. I’m not one to wash my hair religiously. If it’s gross I’ll throw it up into a bun and think about it another time, but since sweating out almost daily I’ve had to succumb to washing my hair almost daily. I’m going through shampoo at a rate of knots here.
3. It’s not that scary. Well it is for the first few times, but I’ve found in all of the gyms I’ve been to that people are friendly, more than happy to help you and more importantly – no one is staring at you/gives two hoots about what you’re doing (in the nicest way possible).
4. The Stairmaster is the devil and the first time you go on it you think that you might throw up.
5. In fact the first few times you do a session at the gym you will think you might throw up. You’ll also struggle to lower yourself into a seat/stretch up to wash your hair the next day fo’ sure.
6. Never forget to take your water bottle with you. I did once and spent the whole time eyeing up a water bottle that belonged to the person on the machine next to me. It took all my strength not to grab it for one long, refreshing sip…
7. Cardio is fab and all but if you want to start experimenting with weights and resistance machines, I’d point you in the direction of BodyBuilding.com. Again it sounds terrifying, but check out the Training area where you can pick a muscle set and see different exercises that target it. Genius.
8. Have something in your bag that you can eat immediately after your session because you will be ravenous. If not you’ll end up stopping somewhere on the way back, picking up a bag of Haribo and devouring the whole thing. My bad.
9. Another good resource that I’ve found really interesting in terms of general fitness knowledge is the Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises. It’s my current bedtime reading.
10. I’ve resisted this whole post to write the number one tip I’ve learnt from going to the gym because I feel like it’s something I’ll go into in more depth another time, but – get yourself a personal trainer. Even just for a session or two. It’s like paying a nice gym-obssessed friend to show you some routines to do, how to rack up, check your form, tell you where to stretch, point you in the direction of the loo etc etc. Some gyms might offer a session on sign up or if you’re lucky to have a gym-obsessed friend that you don’t have to pay then snap them up. But seriously, personal trainers rock.
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