Exploring your building gym

 

Prior to starting personal training, many of my clients had never explored the gym in their apartment building.  They may have lived in a building with a gym for a few months or a few years, but only visited a couple of times, or not at all.  People are often hesitant to use their building gym since they:

• Feel they don’t have enough time to workout

• Have never worked with dumbbells, and only know how to use treadmill

• Are unfamiliar with newfangled, scary-looking machines (that are actually fun when you learn to use them)

• Are experts at working out in a full gym, but don’t know how to put together a routine with the smaller number of machines in a building gym

• Worry about looking silly in front of their neighbors

 

The sad fact is that building gyms are extremely underused.  Many clients who’ve been worried about looking foolish in front of others are shocked to find they’re the only one in their building gym at that hour – apparently a lot of other people were thinking the same thing!

 

When you think about all the people in a condo building, some are going to chain gyms, some are practicing at yoga studios, some are running in the park…and a lot are just sedentary.  This doesn’t leave a lot of building gym users!  The few people who are there are likely watching TV or listening to their headphones.  They don’t think you look smart; they don’t think you look clueless; they’re just not thinking about you, period.

 

Still feeling self-conscious?  Bring a trainer, a friend, or your own headphones and tune the other people out!

 

Not sure how to work with the equipment in your building gym because it’s different from what’s in a big chain gym?  A few sessions with a trainer could jumpstart the process.  Alternatively, there are plenty of books out there with photos and clear directions on how to do simple exercises with the equipment even the smallest gym would have.  A couple of my favorites are Thrive Fitness by triathlete Brendan Brazier and Shred It by bodybuilder and runner Robert Cheeke (anyone who can succeed in two such opposite sports gets my vote!).