We all remember our first time right?
Well in this instance you can get your mind out of the gutter because i'm talking about my first time in the gym.
Ok so little backstory first.
Ever since I was a little kid, probably pre teens, I've wanted to be a professional wrestler. I vividly remember seeing an episode of WCW Worldwide on the TV, (it must have been around 1992) and being instantly hooked. The larger than life characters, death-defying moves, colourful costumes and of course the amazing physical shape these guys were in absolutely blew my mind. I wanted to be Sting, or Ricky the Dragon Steamboat. I wanted to paint my face, dive off the top rope and get the win every time. In my mind, that was the job I wanted and I would do whatever it took to make it happen.
Well where I came from in the small town of Felixstowe in Suffolk in the early 90's, there weren't really any options for Professional Wrestling training schools, so my brother and I would have to make do with copying what we saw on the telly every week, (please don't do this guys, we broke multiple pieces of furnature much to our mums dismay, and how we avoided seriously injuring each other will forever remain a mystery to me). My journey into the world of Professional Wrestling is a story for another day, but it was my love of the business and the goal to be a Professional Wrestler that drove me to a lifelong passion for training.
Back to Felixstowe.
The couple of gyms in town would only accept you as a member once you're over the age of 16, Not great for a 14 year old aspiring wrestler, but not an impossible feat. Heading down to the local Argos store we aquired a home workout kit. Sand filled weight plates which can be used with an adjustable Barbell and Dumbbells, an adjustable bench with leg attachment and the all important poster for the wall showing you all the exercises you could do to work the various muscles of the body with the equipment you'd just purchased.
I was off to the races, training as often as I could with this amazing equipment. My goal was in my sight and the next task was to turn 16, get a job, join the gym and start my Wrestling Training, (by this point my big brother had found a training school in Kent and was already starting to attend. To say I was a bit jealous would be an understatement).
So we skip forward a bit in the story now. At 16 i completed my GCSE's, left school and secured employment at the local Iceland Supermarket. As I had been planning for a couple of years at this point, one of my first paychecks was used to sign up to the Leisure Centre Gym. Finally it was really happening, a proper gym with proper equipment, and the best thing, a free induction with a fitness professional. No doubt they would be impressed with my level of knowledge and ability already. Surely they would understand my goals and teach me how to use the equipment i needed to help me bulk up and get ready for my journey into the ring........... how wrong i was.
I paid my subs, filled in all the paperwork, signed up for the induction and excitedly waited to get started. My induction was booked for a weekday evening, so with my bag on my back I finished work and headed straight down to the gym, where I was greeted at the reception desk by a lad a few years older than me. I say greeted but he was possibly the least enthusiastic person I'd ever had the misfortune to encounter at that point in my young life, (keeping in mind i worked in retail). Without even discussing my goals he proceeded to take out a program card, (yes kids, an actual piece of paper we would use to track our workouts in the days before smartphones and apps did it for us) and direct me to a treadmill, unenthusastically telling me, "this is a treadmill, you're going to want to do about 10 minutes".
Er ok, so a warm up, i get it, lets do it! We program in the 10 minutes on the machine and off I go........ and off he goes...... to chat to a girl over by the desk. No worries, it's not like i need him standing next to me while im running, I finish my 10 minutes and he's wandered off somewhere, so im kind of awkwardly hanging about the machine wondering what to do for a few minutes before he reappears, still deep in conversation with this glrl. No drama, I politely approach and get a disgruntled, "oh yeah, now we do the cross-trainer". As he starts to walk me towards the cardio machines again I had the audacity to ask him something along the lines of, "are we going to do any weights today?". The answer I didn't expect or want came at me, "No, today we just do cardio, because you've never been in a gym before you need to build up slowly".
Looking back now I can completely understand how a lot of people would have been put off by his approach, and while i suspect I'm wrong, I can only hope he was having an off day and was actually really good at his job, but nevertheless, had my mindset not been so strongly focussed on what I wanted to achieve, alongside the limited options available to me in the town, I may well have given up myself that day too. Instead I completed the "induction" as he instructed feeling rather deflated, and pretty soon started training with one of the guys from work who was more than happy to teach me the ways of free weights, resistance machines and all the funky types of lifts you can do.
This experience very much remains at the top of my mind whe working with new clients, or formerly gym members when I would do inductions in my old job.
Taking a few minutes to understand where someone is on their journey, what they actually want to achieve and tailoring your approach as a trainer towards the individual can be the difference between someone feeling confident, comfortable and motivated in the gym, or feeling awkward, uneasy and disengaged.
No matter your age or starting point, that first experience can make or break your enthusiasm when you're entering into the gym for the first time. I can only hope your experience is better than mine, but either way, I'd love to hear about it if you'd like to share.
Jon
