Becoming a Gym Stud(ette), Part 1
If you want to be a gym stud or studdette, follow along with the journey that turned me into an awesome manly-man.
Stever Robbins
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Becoming a Gym Stud(ette), Part 1
You often hear people say “age gracefully.” Well, I met a famous young woman at a theater opening: Joan Rivers. OK, she wasn’t young. With so much plastic surgery, I think it’s fair to say she isn’t aging gracefully; she’s going kicking and screaming. I say, “You go, er, girl.”.
I admit: I’m just scared. I’m approaching a “milestone birthday.” Yes, it’s one of THOSE birthdays that…as a kid, you thought “I’ll never be that old.” I have no gray hair, but my dry cleaners were shrinking my pants. Every single pair. Even the ones I wash myself. I confronted them. Mrs. Wong whipped out her tape measure and in 30, agonizing sentences, explained that I had reached a time in my life when “changes” happen in my metabolism. At puberty, “changes” left me with a new capacity for pleasure. Now, “changes” will just leave me fat. This calls for denial, but even more, it calls for action. And that, dear friends, means the gym.
I’d worked with trainer Tyler several years ago and started getting into shape. Then Tyler won the MTV Challenge three times and moved to L.A. to pursue his career. While I love him like the Siamese twin brother I never had surgically removed from my torso, I wish he’d stop focusing on his career and focus on my body. He left, and I….well, I broadened.
I’m four months into my new gym commitment. In this episode, I’ll share how I’ve made it happen. After all, misery loves company. This is a two-part episode that will cover all the stages of my gym adventure. All from the angle, of course, of how to get it done.
Get the Attitude
Real results require real attitude. The gym isn’t just an activity, it’s a lifestyle. Joan didn’t just apply a little rouge here and there and say “I’m beautiful.” She went for it. If you’re not prepared to commit, don’t fool yourself. Go buy some ice cream bon-bons, lay on the couch, and pork out.
So I grabbed my gym clothes, went out, straight to the supermarket, bought some bon-bons, laid on the couch, and porked out. Fortunately, I’m slightly lactose intolerant, which got me back off the couch a few minutes later.
Seriously, though, it was around this time that I made the conscious decision to commit. You can, too. Do it right now? Done? Great! Now, we’re not Get-Fit-Guy Ben Greenfield. He has 3% body fat, a medical condition proven to bring on hallucination and insane thoughts, like actually enjoying workouts. I don’t have that, and you probably don’t either. I needed to find my own motivation. I’ll recap. Come with me, and get motivated, too!
Motivation Phase: Hedonism
First, I chose a gym with natural light, so I feel good being there. It has a sauna, which becomes my after-workout reward — a key to my stick-to-it success. Most importantly, it’s near a college. That means it’s full of 20-year-olds with perfect bodies, who were depressed and upset that they had gained 1/10″ in waistline between the ages of 16 and 20.
This gave me two sources of motivation. First, Schadenfreude — taking pleasure in the misfortune of others — where I can listen seriously to their insecurities, thinking, “You child! You haven’t even fully gotten through puberty, yet. Just wait until gravity strikes. Then come to me for sympathy. Bwah hah hah hah hah!”
And lust. My old gym was inhabited by Joan Rivers’ friends who couldn’t afford plastic surgery. I thought “someday, that will be me,” and was continually reminded that my body will someday decay into death and disease. My new gym is inhabited by Jake, Chris, Pat, and Sean. Physically perfect body-builders, gymnasts, and trainers. Greg is doing Turkish Get-Ups, with a dumbbell that weighs as much as I did in college. I think, “someday that will be me (doing the lifting, not being the barbell).” And in a supreme act of role-reversal, at least for now, I serve the valuable function of reminding them that their body will someday decay into death and disease.
In the 1980s, which we shall pretend I’m too young to remember, George Michael in WHAM! wore a shirt that said “Choose Life!” When choosing your gym, “Choose lust.” It will get you in there and start you working.
Motivation Trick: Trainer
I also hired a trainer. A fit trainer with blond hair and blue eyes named “Shanti,” which means “Peace” in Sanskrit. Yeah, right. I’d cry “I can’t do one more rep,” and Shanti would say — through that beautiful blond hair and angelic blue eyes — “Don’t be a wuss. Do one more rep or I’ll drop a weight on your head.” Shanti has since grown a beard and now looks rather like a Demon from Heck, reminding me that Lucifer also started as an angel, too.
So that’s pure motivation. Get a trainer, at least at the beginning to get you going. Knowing someone’s waiting for you, you’ll show up and you’ll push past your limits. Or else.
Results Trick: Track In-Between Workouts
But you can make demands, too. Have your trainer create a workout routine for the days between your meetings. If your trainer says “use your judgment” or “just mix and match,” get a new trainer. You want a specific list of exercises, repetitions, and weights you can follow verbatim.
Now make sure you’re improving on every trip to the gym, between your trainer meetings. Shanti gave me strict instructions: “Every time you come in, add weight, even if it’s just 2.5 pounds. Or do more reps.” He made a workout sheet to track it. I printed the tracking sheet in a little booklet that fits in my pocket, so it’s always with me during my workout and I’m accountable for it.
At first, I read my tracking sheet to see how far I’ve come. What was my weight and rep count last time I came in? It took me a while to learn the advanced, manly-man way to use a tracking sheet. Look and ask, “if this is what I’ve done, how much can I stretch myself today?” Then set today’s stretch goal and get going.
Bumping your numbers on every trip is a way to know you’re pushing your edge. Respect your edge! Sometimes you’ll plateau on an exercise. Don’t injure yourself. Stay safe and listen to your body!
We’ve started the journey. We committed to the goal. We picked a gym based on lust, for motivation. We hired a trainer, even if just once or twice, to put together a good regime for us and for accountability. We are using a tracking sheet, and bumping our weight or reps on every trip. Next episode, we’ll go into overdrive and discover that motivation changes over time, in better and more amazing ways.
I’m Stever Robbins. I help high achievers accelerate or change careers. If you want to know more, visit https://www.SteverRobbins.com.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
RESOURCES
- How to Create a Booklet for your between-trainer workouts.
- How to Create Process Goals and why they rock!
Trainer image courtesy of Shutterstock.com
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.