New Gym Starter?

[Scythe13]

Hi Everyone

I feel I'll be dominating this part of the forum, because it's something I know lots about, and I'm really passionate about helping other people achieve their goals.

This is a motivational post to each person that hopes to join a gym but is scared or has some anxieties. This will not make you super fit. It will not help you survive in a world after TSHTF. What this post will do is let you know that you're not alone in your worries about the gym.

Nobody was ever born in a gym on purpose. Anyone that has ever been to a gym (yes even those super fit people you see walking around) has had their first time in a gym. We all start in the gym somewhere. Oddly enough, we all start at the beginning, our that first day in the gym.

Okay, so it's your first time in a gym. That's a damn scarey day. If someone says to you they weren't scared......bollocks. If you're unfit (a bit chubby, lets say) then you feel really out of place and you're scared people will look at you funny. If you're quite slender (a bit scrawney, lets say) then you'll feel equally out of place and you'll be just as scared people will look at you funny. We, as people, are self-conscious and we are mostly concerned about our appearance. There are the odd exceptions, but those people normally are not in the gym....because they don't care what people think, haha. Anyway....back to the story....the first day in the gym.

Well, from someone that used to be 17 stone of muscle, I remember my first day in the gym. I weighed in at a 'massive' 10.5 stone, at 6 foot tall, with a gigantic 28" waist. I was a beast! You know those pipe-cleaner men people make? They were more muscular than me. A friend of a friend took me to the gym, he was an enormous 5'4" tall (haha, short stuff!!!) but he had a 42" chest, and his arms bigger than my match stick legs (I'm totally serious!!!). So, I turned up to the gym looking like this guy's b***h.

When inside the gym, I had a look around, as you do. Worryingly enough every guy(it was a hardcore bodybuilders gym, so there were no women) in there was at least 17 stone or more, except Kev. But the only reason he wasn't 17 stone plus, was because he was just over 5 feet tall. However, he was still a beast!!!

After 10 years of hard training, I was one of the big guys, at 17 stone (okay, I might have been 1lb short of 17 stone.....but let's not be picky....please). The only problem was that those guys that were big when I first started, were even bigger! So I was still a runt compared to them haha.

The thing I noticed was that each guy gave me respect for sticking at it. They would joke around with me, but they saw that I was determined to achieve something. The same is true of myself. When new guys would start, loads of them would flake away and give up. Then there were the ones that stuck at it. The ones that kept going, working hard, pushing those weights to achieve something more than their friends thought possible. They worked to achieve something that was worth of their time. Those kids that started and kept at it recieved respect from me and everyone else in that gym, simply because we all knew what they were going through.

So when you get into the gym, look around and smile. Many of the people there know you're starting, but they respect your decision to take that first step through the door and achieve something worth working(out) for.