
Sometimes someone can put something so succinctly that there is really no other way to express it. I was remarking to a colleague about my visit to a gym I hadn’t seen in years, and how it looked as if I never left since most of the people, I encountered looked the same.
“Most people go to the gym, but very few know how to use it.”
I was intrigued by her statement, and ask if she could elaborate further.
“They go, but they don’t know what to do.”
“They could simply ask,” I said.
“But they won’t. So, they do what they think they know, and fail miserably.”
I was curious as to how she arrived at such an astute observation.
“I know first-hand,” she said, “because that’s what happened to me.”
Her simple yet innocuous statement did not need any further embellishment. Although I had seen what she spoke of and explained it in a myriad of ways, the simplicity of her statement illuminated the subject in a whole new light.
In all other endeavors in life most individuals would ensure they have attained sufficient knowledge before embarking to do a thing, but not in the case of going to the gym. For some inexplicable reason, most believe that going to the gym involves nothing more than lifting weights.
This foolhardy approach often gets them injured or due to lack of results makes them abandon their fitness goals. Worse, are the ones, as my colleague alluded to, who merely go year after year, resigned to the faith that no changes in their physique have taken place.
Why would someone do something with no clear achievable goal in sight? Even more perplexing is the continuation of the task that has yielded no visible results.
It became easier to go the gym, achieve nothing than to query the help of a fitness professional, and discover that all those years have been wasted.
I have drawn my own conclusion based on a conversation I had with someone who started the journey before me, but quit, while I doggedly carried on.
“Where would I be if I had stayed consistent like you.”
“In much better shape, and perhaps without all the maladies that now afflicts you.”
“Why didn’t you help me stay the course?”
“I tried, but you would not listen. I had hoped in my relentless pursuit to change my physique, you would have followed.”
“What a shame!”
“Uh?”
“If I knew then what I know now, I would have learned how to use the gym.
B.M.Booth (NASM-CPT)

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