A Confession About the Gym

So I signed up for Planet Fitness for a couple months, hoping that I would actually use it this time instead of cancelling my membership after a month and feeling guilty for wasting money and sitting in an office all summer. I was actually somewhat successful; I went 2-3 times a week for two months, which is a world record for me. Here's what I gained from it:

1. A little bit of muscle

2. A healthy habit

3. The realization that I hate the gym

Yet, I don't hate the gym for the reasons I thought I would. I figured I'd have an issue with self-consciousness, because social anxiety has always been my biggest obstacle for trying anything new. However, I was able to get around that mental block after a few weeks of going with a buddy and blasting music in my earbuds. I also thought I might just hate exercise and give up, but after sitting at a desk all day I was anxious to get out of my chair and wear myself out.

I think what I hate about gyms is that they're just so stagnant. I usually start off on the treadmill, which is running in place until I get tired or bored. For most of the summer, I stayed on the machines and worked out a different muscle group like the gym rats do, but later learned that machines aren't very good for you because they don't move with the natural tendencies of your body (big surprise). Now I just do the Nerd Fitness body weight circuit. 

And I got results: My arms look a little less like noodles and I feel like I'm getting stronger. But yesterday, as I got off a short warm-up run on the treadmill and dragged a mat off the pile, I asked myself, "what am I doing here?" First of all, my workout doesn't even require a gym, but more importantly, I was bored. 

When I took a Karate class, I could bridge the conditioning to better self defense: I was getting faster and stronger and my body was a tool. When I was bouldering once a week, I was getting higher up the wall or moving onto more difficult routes. When I bike or run outside, it's a sustainable mode of transportation. All of these were functional. Doing the same thing three times a week in an air conditioned gym really wasn't.

My school's gym is a little more dynamic with a rock wall, intramural sports and "functional" classes such as kickboxing. The grocery store, though on a dangerous road, is biking distance. I'm hoping I can rework my workout without losing the structure I gained over the summer.

On Productivity Blogs

Around this time every summer I begin to get excited about school starting again: I put my classes in my calendar, buy a bunch of discount school supplies, and, most of all, fall into the rabbit hole of productivity blogs. For some reason I think that just reading about stuff is going to actually make me more productive: in high school I think I spent more time looking up how to get my work done than actually getting my work done.

To be fair, I've actually started to take some of the tips I've seen in blogs like College Info Geek, one of my favorite sources even though I have literally NOTHING in common with Thomas Frank. I think that's what makes him so marketable, he has very practical tips that apply to pretty much everybody. I also appreciate that he's not always right and often contradicts himself. I've been watching him for four years and he definitely helped my college productivity.

I have loosely developed my own style for academic success though, and I was never really sure what it was so it's not like I could hone in on it and improve it. However, on CIG I ran into Tom Miller's Phyzzle and it clicked. Like, his how-to articles are almost to the T in what I do to pass my courses but he actually put it in a step by step process. It's what I should say when people ask me how I did so well on a test: it's how I can cut out the things that don't work.

These blogs are amazing in contradiction to the person I've stopped listening to -- that is, Cal Newport. I'm not going to sit here and bash him, but I'm just going to say that he needs to get of his soap box and leave room for the productivity bloggers who are more practical and don't infantilize their audiences. I think the newer techniques are more mindful of the modern world and actually, in my experience, work without being so dogmatic.