What 16+ Years In The Gym Taught Me

10+ Things

Burn out WILL happen — Sabbaticals

I have to take breaks every year. Usually, I take a break from the gym at the end of the year for 3–4 weeks. Now, I have my end-of-year fitness sabbatical and also include short breaks throughout the year. The burnout is real. Even when I was a gym fanatic (in the gym 6–7 days every week), I still needed to take breaks, and my body would always let me know it was time when I felt apathetic about working out.

You Will Want to Take Longer Breaks (often)

Sometimes, the burnout exceeds my time off (fitness sabbatical). As I near the end of my fitness sabbatical, I will sometimes not feel ready to get back to the gym. Some people who have been active their entire lifetimes never experience this, but I do feel like taking an extended vacation from the gym at times.

What has helped me is:

• Keeping my fitness and health a priority.

• Practicing self-discipline even when I don’t feel like it.

• Having an accountability partner who has a sub-career in the bodybuilding industry, leading to my next point.

Accountability

If you commit to staying healthy and in shape, at some point, you will need to have an accountability partner to help you stay the course. A partner will also help boost your progress because you don’t want to be at the same goal whenever you check in with your partner. An accountability partner is someone you can:

• Workout with regularly

• Share aspects of your health journey

• Motivate you

• Help you get back on track

• Be a sounding board for new fitness ideas and workouts

Sometimes You Will Have zero VISIBLE Progress

This is the name of the fitness game. There will be times of growth, and there will be times of regression. Neither are bad. I look at progress in the gym as relative; your goals will determine how you measure your progress.

Some of your goals might include:

• Improve aesthetic

• Increase strength

• Increase endurance

• Increase flexibility

• Increase balance

• Rest the body

Quick Question: What is your health/fitness goal right now?

Recovery Will Take Longer Sometimes

When I was in college, I worked out daily. Sometimes, I would not take a break from the gym for weeks at a time. Well, that all changed after I started my career in tech and graduated from college. Not only did I experience a slower recovery as time went by, I finally realized it made sense to take breaks. When you have more going on in your life with family, relationships, career, entrepreneurial endeavors, kids or pets, etc., your energy disseminates quicker, which leaves less energy for things such as working out and workout recovery.

As I continued to gain knowledge about health and fitness, I learned that taking breaks every couple of days from the gym is necessary and healthy to ensure you can stay in the gym long-term (longevity matters). You must give your body time to recover from the workouts. Looking back, there is probably no way I would be able to be in the gym 6–7 days a week with the workouts I do now anyway because the workouts are more advanced and require more recovery time since I’m exerting more effort.

Strengths Will Become Weaknesses

And vice versa.

Since day one, my legs have always been an area of opportunity for me. They have grown, but they still lag in comparison to my upper body. I am thankful for where I have brought them compared to where I have been, though.

Your genetics will be a key determinant of which areas of your body will be the most dominant. My partner is dominant in traps and lower body. I am more dominant in arms and upper body.

Quick Question: What is your dominant muscle group(s)?

Ditch the Cardio

I didn’t always look like the person in the picture above. I was always toned, but I was even slimmer. The issue was cardio. I used to run miles several times a week, do multiple spin classes in a day, or do at least 60 minutes of cardio almost several times a week. I still did weights as well, but cardio was king. It was not until late high school, I started to ditch the cardio and focus solely on the weights. And I’m glad I did because it was at that point, I was able to retain and gain muscle; my overall physique improved.

Side Note: Not everyone can ditch the cardio — especially if you need to lose a significant amount of weight. My body tends to stay naturally lean.

Diet Is Everything

You can work out all you want, but if your diet is sh**, your progress will be sh**, too. So for those of you who are in the gym but always look the same or even look worse, it’s because of your diet. Learn what clean eating is because most people don’t know what clean eating genuinely means.

Set Boundaries

I have only had a few workout partners. But for the most part, I work out alone. If you find yourself to be someone that loves working out with someone, then, by all means, do that. If you are like me and only workout with select people or by yourself, then go that route.

Social Ground

The gym is a social ground. People will approach you and want to talk to you during your workout and even mid-set (which I always find bizarre). The best thing to do is to have firm boundaries, to help you focus on your workout and ensure you get it done. I have a friend who will politely but (mostly) assertively convey to someone, who tries to interrupt her workout with a meaningless conversation, that she is getting back to her training — effective immediately. Do the same. Your time is valuable.

We are all running on minimal time, which has motivated me to become more conscientious of my time and chatting at the gym—every second counts.

Keep A Worthy Ideal (Goal)

If you only work out to look good, you will quit the gym after a while (unless you’re an over-the-top vain person). Hold onto realistic and worthy goals that keep you going when you want to give up. From personal experience, only wanting to look good will not keep you dedicated to the gym.

As Earl Nightingale states, “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.”

Ask Questions

I learned how to workout from asking others questions. When you ask questions, you accumulate knowledge that you can utilize to formulate your own opinions. You can also test out the knowledge you acquire and see if it actually works! So, if you see someone in the gym who has wicked legs or epic arms, ask them what they do.

Side Note: Many people are using steroids or enhancers, so they will sometimes always have the edge over natural gym rats.

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Thank you for taking the time to #elevate your life with this quick read. Grab your free books here — Destiny S. Harris’ Free Amazon Book Page. Wanna keep in touch online? Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, or my Website.