Two Gyms

If you take a tour of my college, they show you two gyms. They describe one as the gym for “more chill workouts” and the other as the “serious free weight gym.” These descriptions annoy me whenever the tour comes through the chill gym and I’m standing there panting with my red face and calloused palms.

Today I needed a trap bar for deadlifts, so I went to the serious gym, which is also the football players‘ gym. It was empty, and I posted up in the corner to start my workout. I had done only done a tiny bit of my 50 minute workout when the entire football team came jogging into the space and set up in a giant formation that surrounded me on all sides.

They are yelling, “Come on! Come on!” They are pulling up the leg of their shorts to get their giant thigh muscles out, and rolling up their purple t-shirts to reveal their Brad Pitt abs. They are all 20 years old and 6 foot 2 with thousands of dollars worth of tattoos. Someone blows a whistle and they all begin squatting in unison, up, down, gritting their teeth.

I am already done with all my impressive lifts (note: I don’t have any impressive lifts) and I’m surprised by how embarrassed I am to be doing core strength on a Swiss ball. To be doing lateral steps ups with dumbbells. To be doing hip thrusts at all. I feel like we are an active demonstration of gender and age. How covered up I am, how little yelling I’m doing.

I am also surprised by how pressured I feel to concede, to give up territory, to agree that what they’re doing is more important than what I’m doing. Not pressured by them, pressured by myself. They’re athletes, they’re serious, I should be in the chill workout gym, as I’m just a middle aged lady clinging to the possibility of health, a ship that has clearly sailed.

But one of my life practices is that if I feel a little fear, a little intimidation, the only option I give myself is to head directly into it. This is how I learn what’s real and what’s fake. This is how I learn who I am and who I am not. The football players deadlift in unison, clapping for each other, and I do every single hip thrust I had planned. They form a circle and slam medicine balls into the ground, and I goblet squat over and over. The whistle blows an infinite numbers of times, and I turn up the Nine Inch Nails in my headphones. I stay as long as I intended to stay.

Is it a big win? Yes. Every win is a big win, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

As I am leaving, the football players huddle up and someone screams, “WHAT ARE WE DOING NEXT ON THREE!” Twenty testosterone fueled voices respond, “ONE TWO THREE HOMEWORK!”