Goal number 12 of 18 on my goals sheet for this year, pulled directly: develop a strength routine which involves putting on physical mass in the upper body and developing core strength. (Yes, 18 goals. Go figure what that means. Story for another time.)
I've done basically nothing about it until today, the 27th of May. The real reason isn't that I've been out of the country for a chunk of the year. The real reason is that I didn't want to go to the gym, and I was using the absence of a routine as the excuse for not having a routine.
Walking and cycling are exercise I can do well. They're comfortable, because I already know how to do them. The gym is the opposite. I don't really know what I'm doing there. And you can't know what you're doing until you push through the part where you have no idea, and you don't get to that part if you don't go.
I got home early Monday morning. 5am. By Wednesday afternoon the overwhelm was already creeping back in. Work starts at 6am, meant to finish at 2pm, but there's always something dragging on, and it almost feels wrong to stop in the early afternoon. Today I resisted. I got to 3pm. I tried to meditate a bit, which was let's just say, not very successful. And I thought, you know what would actually be good for me right now?
Forget the plan. Just go to the gym.
Not "design the perfect split." Not "figure out push day versus pull day versus leg day." Not "research the optimal hypertrophy protocol." Just go upstairs, two flights, walk in, and do something. Anything. Throw some weights around. Sit there and read a book if I want. Stay for half an hour. Go home. Do it again tomorrow.
Maybe the entire plan is two items:
- Go to the gym by yourself, just to do something.
- Go to the gym with a friend, to build some accountability.
I have a friend who lives across the road who has her own gym. So the second item is genuinely just a text message away. The barrier on both of these is much lower than the story I've been telling myself.
I went. No one else was there, which is a shame, because if someone had been there I could have, god forbid, used my social skills and asked for some tips. The gym is part of the rent, so the "is it worth it" question is already answered for me.
I tried the chest press. Pushed 100 pounds, that was about my limit. Now I know.
I tried the leg press. Tried the leg extension. Tried the thigh machine. Curled some dumbbells. Did some shoulder flies. Some push ups. Some sit ups, and discovered that sit ups are much harder when you don't have your feet tucked under something. Useful information.
I always had this fear that I wasn't doing the exercises right. That there were better exercises. That I needed to know the proper structure before I started. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe if you're dealing with procrastination, with fear, with not following through, the answer isn't a better plan. The answer is to show up and lift some weights and figure it out as you go.
My upper body is a bit sore now. Good. I'll go back tomorrow and see if I can make it more sore.
The other reason I'm writing this is that I have a backlog of blog posts I want to write. Voice notes. Half-finished thoughts. Things I've been turning over for weeks. And they don't get written for the same reason the gym thing didn't happen: it's probably not good enough yet, I haven't figured out the angle, I'll do it when I have more time.
So here it is. A short one. I went to the gym. I lifted some weights. I might go back tomorrow. The gym upstairs doesn't have everything, but it has dumbbells and machines and treadmills, and what else do I actually need.
Don't let perfect get in the way of having a go.