Comments on Rice Home Fitness: Fear and Self-Loathing in the Gym

Hey! Great blog! I totally psych myself out all th...

2007-10-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

Hey! Great blog! I totally psych myself out all the time. There's many ways I do it: justify a non-goal-obtaining behavior. Such as, well I really don't need to do cardio because um, I don't want my knee to get hurt. Is my knee currently hurt? No. Has it hurt in the past? Somewhat. Was it biking related? No. Right.

The other is if I'm running/working out with a friend, I automatically take a passive role and put in about 80%. I suspect I shy away from competition when it comes to fitness, because it feels like my fitness/weight goals are sacred, and letting someone else compete with me (even in a good way) makes me uncomfortable. Solution: I avoid pairing up with people to work out, especially if it's in close proximity. Driving to the gym and splitting up when we get there is fine, but having someone watch me is the quickest ticket to me psyching myself out.

Maybe it's that I'm older, but I set goals knowing...

2007-10-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

Maybe it's that I'm older, but I set goals knowing I will give them my best shot, but they are MY GOALS, and as such, are able to be modified by me. (I was not nearly this reasonable in my 20s and 30s.) What this takes, however, is the ability to be truthful with myself as to why I might be changing what I'm shooting for.

For example, I'm running the Nike Half Marathon in San Francisco a week from Sunday. My goal is a finish time under 2 hours. I've trained reasonably well, but the intensity of the hills on the course is the big unknown. So I'll come knowing what pace per mile I need to hit, doing my best to hit it, but being ok with it if I'm not as fast as I'd like.

Lisa,Thanks for the nice comment. I think that yo...

2007-10-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

Lisa,
Thanks for the nice comment. I think that you pointed out one of the biggest downsides of being extremely motivated by progress (which I am): when you backslide it can make you not want to start again at all. My hardest times in the gym have always been after a long break. The only way I got through it was to suffer through a week and reset the bar to that lower level and gain from there, forgetting where I was at before.

I psych myself out when it comes to running. Since...

2007-10-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

I psych myself out when it comes to running. Since having a few babies, I am much, much slower and have a hard time accepting this fact. Unfortunately this leads to me (sometimes) not running at all, which I know is the wrong attitude to take.

I try to overcome this by making myself go out for a run and leaving my watch at home so I don't focus on time or pace.

I go out to run just for fun and always feel better afterwards.

Great blog by the way!

Lisa
aka: www.workoutmommy.com

Jennifer, thanks for commenting and helping me to ...

2007-10-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Jennifer, thanks for commenting and helping me to not look like a fool.

Squatting is a hard exercise It's painful, exhausting, and the form is very difficult. I think it's awesome that you're doing it, because too many people avoid it, and it's inarguably one of the best lifts for overall strength

I know what you're talking about, being worried that people are judging you on your form. I have a tight, shallow chest, long forearms, and an inability to support a lot of weight with my elbows very far behind me due to too heavy tricep-dips nearly ripping up my shoulder. So I can't lower the barbell to my chest. I know that people obsessed over range of motion see that and think
1. I don't know how to bench or
2. I'm using a reduced range of motion to cheat more weight out of pride
and it makes me not want to barbell benchpress at all. I guess I have to be more like Kanye and ignore the haters.

Anyway, for you, the good news is that if you're practicing your squat on a weekly basis, you're going to get your form down before long and you'll be confident about it. Until you get it down, maybe take those sets you're not squatting and supplement with heavy leg press.

I just added your blog to my feed after seeing you...

2007-10-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

I just added your blog to my feed after seeing your guest post on another blog and I've become a big fan - working on becoming a smaller fan.

If by psyching myself out, you mean rationalizing why it's okay that I didn't meet my goal - then yes. I've just started lifting and I'm still convinced I'm doing squats wrong. I walk in with a goal but usually when I'm 1/5 of the way done, I've already started talking myself out of it. I'll usually do one or two more sets and then move onto something else. A solution might be to lower my goal but it's not that I can't meet my goal, it's that I convince myself that I looking like a fool while doing it. *Whew* How's that for a response?