Me, a Bodybuilder?

A  couple days ago, I wrote about my boyfriend, Rocky, and his love of bodybuilding. Those who know me well know I’m also a fitness junkie, just in a very different way. I grew up competitively dancing, so I’ve always had a lot of energy. Now that I no longer dance (except for teaching), the gym fills that void for me, and allows me a mental break from busy days. 

Although we’re united by a shared love for fitness, Rocky and I view going to the gym very differently. For me, it’s a fun hobby–something I do mostly so I can eat as many sweets as I want without seeing the consequences. I like chatting while I workout and taking lots of breaks to find the perfect playlists for my routines. For Rocky, the gym is like church. It’s almost sacred, and it’s all business. No time for socializing or messing around. 

Although in 2020, he was the one who taught me how to work out in his grandparents’ gym, in the years since, we’ve parted ways in our fitness journeys. Sure, we might drive to the gym together, but while I love hot yoga and hip thrusts, I leave the heavy upper body workouts to him. I can’t remember the last time I tried to do pull ups or dips, probably because I find them incredibly discouraging. So today, for the first time in years, I let him coach me through his upper body workout. And boy was it grueling. 

To prepare for my “day of pretending to be Rocky,” I started out by eating–you guessed it–chicken and rice. After a shaker of pre-workout, I was ready to go. I walked into Gold’s Gym (which for those who don’t know, is a very serious bodybuilding gym) thinking it was going to be a light-hearted experience. Nope. From the moment we walked into the gym it was all business. I realized quickly that in the years since Rocky helped me in the gym, he’s earned a degree in exercise science, which means he A) really knows what he’s doing and B) takes the gym very seriously. He trains people for a living now, and he expects anyone he trains–even me– to take it seriously, too. 

We worked on mind muscle connection–something I had learned about in textbooks when studying to become a personal trainer myself. Even though I know all about it on a scientific level and can explain it to others, I struggle to fully incorporate it into my own upper body workouts. There’s a difference between knowing about something and feeling it. 

Today, I felt it. We sat down at the vertical row machine and I got to work. When I finished my first set, I looked up at Rocky, expecting him to lay on the praise.“I’m 100% sure you could have done 6 more,” he said. There wasn’t any judgment in his voice. He was just stating a fact, and one that I knew deep down, too. 

Truthfully, I was partially annoyed at being called out. But I’m not a quitter, that’s for sure, so the truth was the best motivation. The next time I tensed my muscles and pulled the bar up, I felt it, not just in my body, but in my mind and in my heart. I practiced actually connecting my mind to the muscles I was working, and embracing the exercise, instead of counting the moments until I could be done with a set. 

And as a result, I had the best workout I have had in a long time. Part of it was tough love– sometimes we need the people who care about us the most to push us the hardest. And part of it was allowing myself to look at the gym from a new perspective. It’s easy to become stuck in a routine of working out because I have to instead of wanting to. It’s easy for fitness to become another box to check on my perfectionistic to-do list. But working out with Rocky, someone who truly loves the gym, was refreshing. I left feeling empowered instead of just relieved that it was over. 

While I was driving home, I realized this mentality can be applied to a lot of things, and that’s kind of the whole point of this project. Although we can choose to robotically push through life, check off our lists, and accept mediocrity, we can also choose to be exceptional. We can choose to put our all into small things, like working out, every day. And that, I think, more than fitness itself, is what transfers into happiness.