Gym Anxiety

It’s been confirmed by my completely awesome, body-pumping, co-gymming boss (who may or may not read this blog) that I am not crazy for being nervous. What am I nervous about? I’m going to a new gym tonight. The one on the other side of town.

I decided that I didn’t feel like thinking about my workout tonight, so instead of going to the gym and doing free weights as would typically be the plan for  a Wednesday night, I’m going to a second body pump class this week where I can jam along to the music and leave feeling… pumped? (Note: must stop using the word “pump” so often. It could scare the kiddies.) But this class is not at my “home gym” but rather a different location in the same chain.

But for whatever reason, I cannot get past this little twinge of anxiety that I have venturing out into the great gym-wilderness without a safety net. My boss says that it’s actually not that uncommon, unless, she points out, she’s also crazy. Which I can pretty much say factually she is not. It’s the “first day of school” syndrome that we tend to get past at our gym within the first few weeks. Where are the locker rooms? Is there special gym etiquette that I don’t know about? Will the routine be different? Will the instructor single me out? (Can I nab my stellar spot in the corner with access to two mirrors? FORM IS PARAMOUNT!)

I’ll let you know how it goes. I guarantee it can’t be as bad as I’m making it out… unless I run into my entire high school class which is entirely possible and would be tra-gic.

Have you ever experienced gym anxiety?

The Grunt

Do you grunt? That situationally specific, quasi-erotic, quasi-excruciating sound heard echoing through the gym?

I am typically *not* a grunter. If I ever do let one slip, it typically blends into the white noise of the packed club, stifled by the more manly grunts in the sweat-laden, testosterone-thick free weight room.

But today I worked out at the gym in my building. It’s nice, but small, and doesn’t have enough mirrors (a topic for another time). I started my workout with the entire gym to myself. Dark and echoey, I lifted, lunged, and pressed, bopping along to the music playing a little too loudly in my crappy sony earbuds.

Some guy walked in ruining my groove around the middle of my second set. Bastard. But I soldiered on in our awkward propinquity. After his stretches and my lunges he headed to the gazelle elliptical thing and I moved on to pushups.

Big girl pushups, bitches. F- yeah!

I got through 13 with no problem. 14 was a struggle, and on 15 I lost it.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAGH!

The unintentional grunt. It echoed. So. Awkward.

He turned. I could feel it. What was he thinking? What a freak? What a hot, grunting muscle-y chick? Doubt it.

While moderately embarrassed, I just got up and finished my workout, with a little less exuberance than before. I couldn’t afford another slip up. Not because he cared, but because I do not want to slip into the grunts-at-the-gym club. No one likes the gym grunter. I cannot be one of them.

So tell me, are you a gym grunter?