Motivation for Going to the Gym

I used to be on the club rowing team at the University of Oregon. I used to work out nearly every day. I used to go hard during every work out.

Those days are very over. After my retirement from the sport in the fall, I struggled to regularly lift weights or hop on an erg (the most painful workout machine ever invented by masochistic man). I usually walk into the rec with the intention to erg, but the clangor of the basketball courts calls my name much louder than the prospect of figuratively casting knives into my muscles as sweat cascades from my cringed brow and onto the unrelenting erg.

Courtesy of intoBooks and Flickr.com

However, I’ve turned a new leaf. I watched some motivating, inspiring and stirring YouTube videos, and then I got on the erg and let the knives dig deep. This wasn’t a one-and-done deal either; I erged the next morning too.

Why have I suddenly been graced with the motivation of a testosterone-filled young adult man, you ask? Well, aside from the fact that I’m a testosterone-filled young adult man, there are a few factors that have led me back to my mindset of old.

These motivations aren’t really universal, but they’ll probably help you get off the couch and into the rec.

1) In case my aspirations to attain a career of intellect are crushed, I want to be fit enough to be a logger. Or at least a tree trimmer. I think I’d probably hate either occupation, but I’ve always had an intense jealousy of trees with their towering height, so this could be my way of getting back at them by giving them the axe.

2) I always feel better about myself when I’m doing laundry and get to turn the knob to “heavily soiled.”

3) About two years ago I went to the rec and people were handing out free Luna bars, so that happening again has been in the back of my mind every time I’ve gone since that magical day.

4) At the UO rec center, you can use a hand scanner to gain entrance. You heard me right, a hand scanner. I feel like a young James Bond when I use that bad boy. Sometimes I go to the rec just to scan my hand, ensuring my fingerprints* are still legible, and then I immediately leave.

5) The smell of sweat is basically an aphrodisiac for women.

6) In an effort to keep the electricity bill manageable during the cold winter, I went to the rec to raise my core body temperature. After my work out, I’d race home and hop beneath my frigid sheets, sweaty clothes and all. (People, you know I’m kidding, right? That’s just gross. I took my sweaty clothes off and hopped under the sheets, sweaty skin and all.)

It’s definitely best to have a workout buddy, especially if your motivations for going to the rec are as bad as mine.

*My sister just informed me that the hand scanners don’t actually read fingerprints. I might not go to the rec ever again.