Why You're Dreading Going To That New Fitness Class
Don’t let gym-timidation keep you from your goals. (Photo: Maisie Paterson/Tetra Images/Corbis)
It’s 7 p.m., and my calendar alarm is going off. It’s time for the 7:30 p.m. kettlebell circuit class at my gym — a class I’ve been meaning to check out … for four weeks now.
Every week, I plan on going. I set my alarm, get my gear ready in advance, and look forward to trying something new — until it’s time to actually go to the gym, that is. Then I always come up with some excuse.
Why do I do this, I ask myself? I’m a fitness editor who is no stranger to unfamiliar equipment or hard workouts. And this class sounds like fun! So why do I turn and run when it comes down to the wire?
Then, one day, I had an epiphany: The same thing that draws me to the class — its unfamiliarity, its intensity — also scares me. Like everyone, I go through peaks and valleys in my level of fitness, and I had been in something of a low period. And that was messing with my head, big time.
The more I talked with friends and coworkers, the more I realized my experience was a common one. Everyone seems to have one thing or another that they want to do or try (or think they should), but haven’t. So I reached out to experts to get to the root of this seemingly universal problem. Why does exercise — one of the most basic human behaviors since caveman days — give us such a hang-up? And what can we do to overcome it?
Is Fear Holding You Back?
The first step to overcoming your fitness-related fear is realizing that’s your problem, says Penny Levin, PhD, a psychologist specializing in health and fitness. Avoidance is one of the biggest signs that fear is playing a part in your behavior. In other words: If you sign up for a class but then skip it, or come up with excuses to miss workouts, fear might be the root cause.
The next step is to identify the specific fear, Levin tells me. “Until we know what we are afraid of and why we are avoiding the situation, we cannot address our own specific concerns,” she says. “General platitudes like ‘you can do it’ are not helpful. Responses to yourself need to address your specific concerns.”
Related: The Rock-N-Roll Workout For People Who Hate Exercise
Levin asks me what goes through my head when I’m thinking about the kettlebell circuit class. Is there anything specific I’m worried about? Sure enough, I have three distinct fears in my head:
Being singled out and embarrassed by the instructor, which has happened before and made me feel about 2 inches tall.
Not being able to do the exercises, even with light weights, and disappointing myself by how out of shape I allowed myself to become.
That the class will be a terrible time because it’s too hard.
Levin reassures me that all of these are things she hears often and are solvable. She also shared some other common thoughts and fears people have:
I’ll look stupid.
Everyone else is in better shape than I am.
I’m going to hurt myself.
I won’t be able to keep up.
I won’t stick with it, so why bother?
It might also help to think about when it was that you first started avoiding that type of situation, Levin says. Was there a particular trigger? Do you avoid similar situations? And how is this situation different from those you don’t avoid? Asking yourself these questions can help uncover hidden fears so that you can tackle them head on.
6 Tricks To Overcome Your Fitness Fears
1. Focus on why you’re doing it, not what you have to do.
Barry Jay is the founder of one of the most popular intense workout classes in the country, Barry’s Bootcamp. But before he was the man behind the eponymous high-intensity interval training (HIIT) phenomenon, he was a 120-pound guy who had never worked out a day in his life.
“I was terrified,” Jay says of his first workout. “But I kept focused on what I wanted. I wanted to achieve my goal so badly that I wasn’t concerned about what shirt I was wearing or if I would be embarrassed.”
Related: The Weird Way You Can Trick Yourself Into Achieving Your Long-Term Goals
2. Get out of your head.
Your thoughts can be your worst enemy. So when they start mouthing off, talk back to them. “The truth is, you’ll be fine,” Jay says. “Just show up and tell your head, ‘Shut up, I’m working out.’”
If you’re working with an instructor, coach, trainer, or some sort of group leader, make sure to tell them your fear. This serves two big purposes, Jay says. First, simply expressing your nerves typically diffuses them — especially when the pro reassures you that you’ll be fine. Second, it helps you have a better time during the activity, since the leader can give you modifications and pay a little special attention to you.
In my case, Jay advised me to tell the instructor that this was my first time in class, and that I had some (but not much) kettlebell experience. “We’re not mind readers,” he says, “There’s only one way to really know where you’re at, and that’s if you tell us.”
3. Set the bar lower.
Many years ago, Levin tried indoor cycling for the first time. She walked out 10 minutes into the class, she says, and didn’t go back for more than five years. Then finally someone told her that with indoor cycling, “your goal the first time is to stay in the room, preferably on the bike.” She tried it again, stayed the whole time, and — with practice — came to be able to keep up with the class.
Since I hadn’t been working out very consistently, Levin urged me to remember that I hadn’t done this type of activity in a while, and to set my expectations appropriately. Realizing that I didn’t need to go all-out during the workout — in fact, I probably shouldn’t — made it seem much less intimidating.
4. Remember that everyone is too busy to be judging you.
Being embarrassed about what other gym-goers or athletes will think of you was one of the most common fears I heard from friends and colleagues. Levin’s advice if you have this worry: “Most of us are too busy working at the gym to care that much about what other people are up to or how they look, so you can remind yourself that they are really not there to judge others, they are busy working out.”
She adds that even if other people do judge you, you have control over how much you let it bother you. “If others are critical, we really don’t need to get all bent out of shape about it,” she says. Rehearse a short speech for yourself like, “It’s OK, I’m here for me, not them.”
5. Change your plan.
In some cases, your fear might be warranted. For example, an advanced yoga class might be legitimately too hard for you if you’re a yoga newbie. Likewise, if you have an injury, it’s important to get your doctor’s clearance before trying anything new. The big thing here is to not let this keep you from doing anything — simply find something that’s a better fit for you. (Also see: Set the bar lower.)
6. Beware of logical fallacies.
Overgeneralization is the idea that if something happened once, it’ll happen again. Catastrophizing means that you assume the worst about a situation — it won’t just be bad, it’ll be terrible. Neither of these are sound logic, Levin emphasizes, because “you’re predicting the future, which is impossible.”
If something is a new experience, remind yourself that you really don’t know what’s going to happen. That’s just how doing something new works. In addition, accept bad days as part of the process. She stresses: “If you’re going to really push yourself to accomplish things that are difficult in the gym, you’re going to have good days and you’re going to have bad days, and that’s going to be part of the deal.”
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