How To Overcome Gym Insecurities

This blog post, I feel, is extremely important for anyone starting on their fitness journey. Especially when it comes to us ladies.

The gym can be such a testosterone filled environment, & that's before we've even got to the dreaded weights corner. And then we have all these fully loaded machines that unless you're the PT, I'm guessing you don't really know what to do with them.

I have first handedly suffered with this. I've always been big on keeping myself fit & healthy, but luckily i've always managed to do that without a gym membership as i've either been dancing all day & night whilst training at college, or i've been in a performing job which consists of doing a 2 hour show every night, so the need for the gym only really came about a year or so ago.

When I came back to London after a year away, Kristian & I signed up to PureGym but I found it near enough impossible to work out & this was because of two reasons. The first reason being that I could hardly ever get to a machine as the gym was constantly heaving. You'd have to wait atleast 10 minutes to use any machine or any bench to work on & weights were always missing as people would take them away to different parts of the gym & not return them. Then secondly, I didn't know what I was really doing & was always embarrassed incase I looked 'silly' asking. I mean how silly is that?!

So if you're struggling & feeling a little bit of a 'gym-novice', here are a few tips that worked for me so you can hopefully work the gym as good as anyone else & feel comfortable doing so!

Be comfortable in your environment.

Like I mentioned earlier, one of the main reasons as to why I never used to have any confidence in the gym was because I didn't feel comfortable in my environemt. PureGym I found, was always too busy, I was usually one of only a few girls (if not the only one) which I never enjoyed & I didn't find the atmosphere of the gym particularly nice. And because fitness is such a big part of my life now, Kristian & I decided to take the plunge & join David Lloyd. Yes it is a little bit pricier, but if you're wanting to up your fitness game & the gym is where you want to do it, then becoming a member of a gym you enjoy going too with an environment in which you feel comfortable in, is so important & your workouts will be more successful because of that.

Ask, ask, ask!

I feel so silly now, knowing how silly I used to feel to ask questions. Luckily I have a boyfriend who knows his way around a gym & the machines so he has helped me a lot, but on the days i've been without him there, i've plucked up the courage to ask one of the PT's on how to use them & have learnt a lot by doing that. Remember too, that's what they're there for. They're there to help you, not to judge you!

Research your workouts.

There's so much information out there on social media when it comes to fitness & workouts now, constantly people are uploading videos of their workouts & their exercise routines. So if you see something that intrigues you, research it. Research what it's called & how to use it. Spare yourself 20 minutes a few days a week to browse the internet, find out what people are doing, what they're using & in the long run you'll not only see your knowledge grow but also your own creativity & you'll find a way of working out that works best for you.

Find a workout buddy.

I feel like you see this everywhere but it's so true! Take a friend along with you & help each other (two brains are better than one after all) & you'll most probably have a giggle in the process! It's so much less stressful doing something wrong with someone by your side. So grab your girlfriend, your partner, even a parent & go see what you can do!

And lastly.......

No one's looking.

The amount of times i've tried to pick up a weight & not been able too because it's been too heavy, or tried to manoeuvre a machine & it go extremely wrong, then looked up to expect 15 faces looking & laughing at me, only to find that no one has even noticed. People are either too engrossed in what exercise they're doing, looking on their phones or simply staring at themselves in the mirror. So after you've done all of the above, head over to those machines with confidence, & focus on YOU, not what other people are thinking.

I really hope these little tips have been helpful! If there's any tips you've found to be helpful with those dreaded gym nerves then please comment below & let me know!

Have a wonderful day & thank you for taking the time to read this post!

Emily