A Rant on the College Gym

I’ve been called many things in my day. Descriptions like “Maverick, Loose-Cannon, and Rock God” tend to surface in my mind. That being said, I feel that I fall in the majority when I say that nobody wants to gain the freshman 15. Those who deny this realization often find themselves carrying around what is known as the “freshman 30.” The silver lining to this depressing health crisis, however, is your local college gym. Most universities have swank pump palaces that exist specifically to help the student population improve physical fitness. Considering most of us are paying a LUDICROUS  amount of money to ascend our mental capacities, we might as well milk the college gym for all it’s worth. You, the reader, have just began your journey to becoming a health nut, or in other words, a thoroughbred gym rat.

If  you relied on organized sports to work out in high school, then you may be as confused as I was. The organized chaos of team workouts  have been replaced with a horde of strangers who couldn’t possibly care any less about you. Rage-faced coaches have been replaced with a complete lack of non consensual motivation. Difficulty to find motivation to work out plagues the vast majority of us when facing an unfamiliar environment.

I have a simple method to get myself to the gym when I’m not feeling it, and I’ll share it with you for 3 easy payments of $19.95!

1. Look at yourself in the mirror for 30 seconds- no more, no less.
2. Use your imagination to add 25 pounds of gelatin to that bod.
3. If need be, weep silently at the thought of your blubbery self
4. SPRINT TO THE GYM

Fear this woman.the forming of good habits. Now that you’ve entered the path of the gym rat warrior, the question of how to decode the college gym presents itself.

Timing is everything when working out. Go to the gym with a plan;  it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the people.  Before dinner time on weekdays, the rec center could easily be confused with a flash mob, mixed with a Black Friday sale at Mall of America. My suggestion is to avoid this allotment of time completely and choose to work out in the morning or late evening.

My second piece of advice is to learn, and abide, by the dress code for your gym. Nobody wants to see your areola exposed because you decided to  cut an old t-shirt into a sliver that covers nothing but your sternum and your vertebrae. Keeping that idea in mind, it’s safe to say that a large percentage of your peers wouldn’t want to resuscitate you after a heat stroke that occurred from you wearing 4 layers of sweats. Try to keep a happy medium, and always remember: don’t wear Timberland boots.

A  common misconception for people at the gym: “If I only do bench press every day, I should lose a whole bunch of weight.”  This couldn’t be more wrong. If you’re looking to  lose weight, you are definitely going to have to throw in some cardio days. If you’re looking to gain mass, you should get your swoll’ on more frequently.

There are several archetypes of people common in most gyms. People watching is as essential as working out. With all due respect, I just want to say that anyone who decides to burn roughly 11 calories over a 45 minute span by walking on a treadmill upsets me on a deeper level than you know. It’s easy to spot the people who go to the gym to tweet at their friends and claim the right to brag that they worked out that day. The range from neon spandex-sporting girls to body builder wannabe guys really shows that many people use different forms of motivation.

Bottom line, reader: take the college gym for what it’s worth, and try to shape healthy habits. Balance is the key to every health plan, so utilize it. Eventually, it will feel weird when you don’t go to the gym, and that’s an enriching experience.

 

“For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.“-Arnold Schwarzenegger