Do you feel like a "tw@" in the gym?
Fitness & Thinking Fridays
Do you feel like you look like a “massive twat” in the gym? Despite gaining all kinds of confidence when we worked together this year, Louisa did, specifically when it came to the cable stacks, which she couldn’t quite get her head around. You can read more about Louisa’s journey here.
And when I came out to Southeast Asia – even though I’d tried my best to pre-empt the equipment I would have available – I realised I’d been a bit of a twat in my programming.
You see, I love cables. I adore a Matrix leg extension machine. And I just can’t get enough of a seated leg curl.
And now into my fifth month of traveling, the odds have been at most one in 10 that I’d find all of this kit in the same gym or even in multiple gyms across a given week.
Like Louisa then, I too had to get used to being uncomfortable, to not knowing exercises, having to learn them and trust that with practice – sets and reps! – I’d become better and the gains would come.
The Reverse Nordic curl was and remains my solution to not having reliable access to a leg extension machine but still wanting “whammo” quads.
Utilising bodyweight, the movement is regress-able with resistance bands (top-half of the still above) and progress-able with added weight; on paper, it’s an excellent substitution, and, in practice, I’ve found it really difficult! Where Beth got the movement in her first session, it took me at least four weeks to get into Reverse Nordics without assistance.
I’ve fallen over, I’ve cramped, I’ve needed help getting out of the bottom position; equally, I’ve since added reps, got to a comparable range of motion as Beth and completely replaced the leg extension machine in all of my travel workout programming.
If I’d worried about looking like a twat, I’d never have gotten to the point of replacing a seemingly irreplaceable exercise with one that I now find enjoyably difficult and, according to my measurements, has enabled me to hold onto muscle in my thighs – all despite the lack of sleep, lack of protein and chronic dehydration that most backpackers will encounter.
The people who care how you look when trying your best…
are likely people you shouldn’t care about.
It took me maybe a year of consistent training before I lost my gym anxiety. The turning point came for me when the biggest guy in my gym saw that I was trying and wanted to be better and so invited me to train with him. 12 months later and I had a great mate in somebody who became the coach he wished he had when he started.
For most of my clients, after four to 24 weeks of working with me they feel ready to tackle the iron temple with everything they’ve got. All of our journeys are different, and feeling like a twat (at least some of the time) is universal. As a qualified PT for nearly three years now, it’s easy for me to say that nobody’s looking at you in the gym – they’re really not unless you’re shouting! Equally, I know from experience that being told how something is and feeling it are often different things entirely.
If you’d like some free, confidence-boosting support centred on fat loss and starting at the gym from scratch, check out my email series Ticket to Fit.
And if you’d like more support to expedite your confidence, training, or understanding of food and recovery – make sure to keep an eye out for my 2025 coaching slots opening in December.
Where in the world are you?
Ticket to Fit and chance interactions with people in hostels, gyms and buses to famous landmarks in Southeast Asia has brought nearly a hundred new faces into the community but if you and I haven’t personally said hello yet, I’d love to hear from you – what brought you here, what’s your training goal, when do you feel like a twat in the gym? Let me know!
And that’s it from me!
Much love and I’ll see yas in the one
Jack x
