Bench Press This

Going to the gym is sort of the opposite experience of going to the doctor. When you go the doctor you never think it's going to be as bad as it is. I always think, oh, I'll go the doctor, they'll take my blood pressure, listen to my heart, prescribe me some meds, and I'll be home, as good as new, in an hour. But then, the actual experience is unlike that, right? You always have to wait, then they make you do something diabolically painful, like blow into the tube, but you can't blow because it hurts and then you cry, and then they make you wait some more, in that awful gown, with only one magazine, usually over a year old, and then they tell you to come back the next day. Right? This is what going to the doctor is ACTUALLY like.

Going to the gym always seems like it will be AWFUL. You have to get to the gym (why is it so out of the way?). You have to go to the locker room and change. Then you have to do these painful contortions to your body. Then the locker room again. And the leaving. And the out of the way-ness. But, it's not that bad. It's fun. Your body hurts a bit, but that's part of the process. And, with the exception of the endless ESPN, it's entertaining. You can see what other exercises people deem fun and important. You can check out all the people who exercise in khakis (yeah, they do that at my gym - why?). You can dare yourself to move up a plate on the lat pulldowns. Or you can just do your workout and stop staring at everyone else. But it's not nearly as horrible as you think it will be.

Until you go on a day when it's packed. And you have to wait in line for every single machine. And your rhythm gets messed up. And then you start feeling the pain between exercises instead of when you're done. Then you decide to give up because if one more undergrad with more muscle in his left arm then your entire body takes the machine before you, you might blow up the entire weight room Ted Kaczynski-like. Then you feel like a complete and utter failure. That's when going to the gym is like going to the doctor.

Lesson learned: Don't go the gym when it's busy. You will not like it.