20 minutes later I found myself seriously thinking, “Uh oh! Crap. Am I going to die?”
I knew “going to the gym” and “working out” were things that were going to make my life better. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to DO in the gym. I walked in with no plan and left an hour later with a bruised ego and bruised rib cage.
Maybe this is your first Nerd Fitness article. Perhaps you’re thinking about going to the gym but are afraid, you only use the treadmill in your gym, or you’ve been reading Nerd Fitness for years and finally decided, “I’m going to start going to the gym because I know ‘strength training’ and ‘lifting weights’ is good for me.”
Then, you hear that tiny voice in your head:
“You need to get in shape first before you go to the gym so you don’t look foolish.”
“Stick to the cardio section. Maybe the machines. Don’t go near the free weights though, that’s for bros and meatheads and bodybuilders.”
“As long as you don’t try anything new, you can’t mess up. Stick to what you know.”
And that’s what I’m going to cover in today’s article: how to not suck at going to the gym for the first time. This will apply if you just joined a gym this morning, or you’ve been a member at a gym for the past two years but are ready to venture outside of the newbie zone (what you know) and into uncharted territory (the free weights section or something else).
My First Day in the Gym: A Horror Story
I had just been cut from the high school basketball team.
As a high school kid with acne, braces, a sweet flat top haircut, and not a tremendous amount of self-esteem, this was naturally the end of the world. Although I had been cut because I was bad at basketball, I made a plan to “work out” and get big and strong at the gym and make the team the following year.
A few days later, I joined Sportsite, the only gym in Sandwich, MA (yes, that’s actually the name of my hometown). I had no idea what I was doing, or even how to work out. When I walked in the door, my eyes bugged out of my head, and my heart started racing.
There were so many machines everywhere! And people running on various forms of cardio equipment! And really strong jacked dudes picking up heavy things.
Here I was, 5’11”, probably 110-120 pounds, and clueless. Like a sheep without a shepherd, I wandered around the gym for 20 minutes, assuming that everybody there was staring at me.
Of course, they weren’t. They would be soon, though, thanks to my idiocy.
Because I didn’t know how to use any of the equipment, and I was scared of face-planting on a treadmill, I did the ONE thing I knew I was supposed to do: bench press!
I walked over to a bench and proceeded to put 45 pound plates (the big ones) on either side of the bar. Mind you, I’ve never worked out, and now the weight I attempted to lift was heavier than my bodyweight.
I laid down on the bench – no spotter, of course – and proceeded to use my spaghetti arms to lift the weight off the safety supports. Unsurprisingly, the weight immediately plummeted like a sack of hammers onto my rib cage, and I was trapped under the bar. I was now in a full on panic mode. I slowly leaned the bar to the left, and watched as the weight on the bar slowly spiraled off the end. The 45 pound plate fell off the bar to ground, throwing the bar off balance and quickly shifted all the weight to the other side of the bar, where that weight fell off too.
Because the free weight section of Sportsite was on the 2nd floor, these weights hitting the floor sounded like two gunshots had just gone off.
Remember how I said I was worried everybody was looking at me before? Now everybody WAS looking at me. I sheepishly put the bar back on the supports, sat up, and pretended like nothing happened – internally I was crying and looking around for a hole to crawl in.
Jim’s Story:
Do you know Jim Bathurst, head trainer at Team Nerd Fitness? One-handed handstand master, super strong, badass Jim? The guy who can now do things like THIS?
He had a first-day horror story just like me! Here’s Jim:
Way back in high school, when I started lifting weights, I came into the weight room to lift and decided I would bench. The bench was over in the corner – bar up on it with a pair of 45 lb plates on either side. “No problem! Warm up weight!” I thought. What I didn’t see was that someone had left a single 25 lb plate on the outside of one of those 45 lbs plates.
Now, it doesn’t take a math degree to know that 45 lbs on one side and 70 lbs on the other side is a bit uneven. Simultaneous surprise and horror as I unracked the bar and proceeded to dump 70 lbs to one side, and then 45 lbs to the other side, my arms locked out in a combination of terror and self-preservation. Yes, all eyes on me at that point. I wish I could’ve teleported out of there. What did I do? I simply left the gym and never worked out or bench pressed ever again.
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