I’ve never liked working out in group settings. I don’t like going to a gym filled with intimidating sweaty gym bros but I can never find the motivation to do at-home workouts, especially since I don’t have any actual gym equipment. Unless I want to use my dog to bench press, I’m forced to go to the gym.
While I enjoy the ambiance of the RecPlex, the moment I walk in I get anxious. As someone who was always picked last for dodgeball and walked for at least half of the mile in high school, working out in front of people has never been an especially comfortable activity for me.
While the second floor of the RecPlex is usually pretty quiet and I can run on the treadmill for miles, my upper body strength is usually neglected because of how crowded the weight room area always seems to be. I’ve really been trying to make working out a positive experience for myself, but my anxiety always seems to run high when I’m in a crowd.
If you’re anything like me, here are some easy workouts that have helped me work through my fear of working out in group settings.
Starting with cardio
If you live on campus and want to use the RecPlex but also want to dodge the crowds, doing cardio workouts is probably your best bet. The second floor of the RecPlex is filled with treadmills, Stairmasters, rowing machines and stationary bikes. I usually try to split my time between two or three different machines, but my favorite is to start on the stationary bike for ten minutes and then move to the treadmill for about fifteen minutes at whatever speed and intensity feels comfortable for me that day. I usually cool down on the rowing machine, which is personally the hardest for me. Biking and running are activities people have usually done before, so these exercises are pretty hard to mess up.
Bicep curls
This is by far the easiest and least intimidating way to start lifting weights. To start, all you have to do is walk right up to the weights rack and grab two dumbbells. If you’ve never lifted weights before, I would start with a set of 5lbs dumbbells. Then, you can do what are called bicep curls. You take one dumbbell in each hand and hold them at your sides, just slightly in front of you. You pin your elbow to your side and lift your forearm with the dumbbells in hand to a 90-degree position from your elbows. Repeat this movement ten times for each arm and then take a minute rest before repeating the exercise. This workout is great if you’re anxious and don’t have a lot of experience lifting weights, because it’s hard to mess up or look silly doing it and you can do this exercise almost anywhere as long as you have the dumbbells. I usually do this exercise facing the wall so I don’t have to look at any of the other people in the weight room.
Dumbbell lunge
This is another easy workout to do if you’ve never used weights and again is hard to mess up. You hold the two dumbbells straight down at your side and then extend one leg forward and bend it so that your knee is at a 90 degree angle and your other leg is stretched out behind you. Repeat these motions with your other leg and go through these motions ten times for each leg. This is a great exercise to build muscle strength in both your arms and your legs. It’s also something that you don’t have to be near a bench for or ask someone to spot you, which alleviates a lot of my nervousness about lifting weights because for so many weight exercises you need to have someone spot you and make sure you’re safe.
All of these exercises are safe and easy workouts to perform alone and don’t require the assistance of another person and can mostly be performed in quieter areas or against the walls so that you can avoid all of the sweaty pro-weightlifters. Remember, working out is not only good for your physical health but also your mental health, so be sure to give these a try if you’ve been apprehensive about going to the gym like I have.
