this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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No bullshit my homie, a good gym, one that's more focused on strength training in specific, is the best place to start. I can't promise there won't ever be assholes, but even the fairly generic gyms that do more aerobics and cross fit type of stuff are good about it. And the typical weight room, even when it's body builders rather than folks that are strength focused are often going to be more than welcoming.
You have no idea how many really big guys didn't start out that way. A lot of them started lifting because they didn't have a good foundation in physical fitness as a youngster (myself included). So I can promise you that assholes making fun of you are extremely rare.
So, if you ever manage to get past the self consciousness enough to try it, I think it would be the perfect start. Even if all you do at first is go in, do some curls on a machine and walk back out, I promise you that you'll start to see improvement from it in a few weeks at most. And once you see that first little bit of change, it'll help your brain realize that the rest can change too. It's your body, and you can own it the way you want it. It's hard fucking work, every single time, and it never really stops. But it's there when you're ready to do that work.
I can't think of many things that shut up the inner critic more than physical fitness efforts. For me, it was lifting and then marital arts that made things work. Dealing with that kind of self esteem and doubt and fear is a giant barrier for sure (again, I've been there), but if you can get that first step taken, it's worth it.
I've been considering it more and more. There's a gym nearish with a pool, and I'm a very strong swimmer, and it's one of the few exercises that isn't physically painful because of my bad back and feet. But for real, I know no one is actually making fun of me or other heavy people in that environment. It's more my own brain narrating the worst possible opinions and applying them to everyone I meet. Which, funnily enough, is me doing to everyone else what I fear they are doing to me: being unkind.
Oh man! Water exercise is so sweet when you've got a bad back and/or joints. Being able to get a decent workout without being laid up for two days is a beautiful thing for me :)
But, I feel you. I've got that same inner critic sniping away. As I've gotten older, it's less about physical things and a lot more about mistakes made, things that were hurtful that I didn't have the ability to see as hurtful when I said or did them.
But along that, I did figure out that the old truism about having to give yourself something first, before you can really give it to or get it from others holds up. If I'm not kind to myself, if I can't forgive myself, and love myself (at least a little), it's nigh impossible to genuinely give those things to someone else.
I don't know if that actually applies to everyone or not; maybe other people can give truly of themselves without accepting good things from themselves first, but it seems to be the case.
I've been meaning to swim more too. You should do it, so should I.
I went to one of those ninja warrior gyms. Called Ninja Nation, and you do all the stuff from the Ninja Warrior game shows.
I couldn’t do anything there.
Only reason I’m saying this is about the painful joints thing. One of the simplest things I tried to do there is just hang, from my hands, from a bar. I found I could hang for about five seconds.
The other thing I found is that there a sharp pain in my shoulders when I hung from my hands. I thought this was evidence of my shoulders being fucked up. In fact, my self image for years had been “I’ve got bad shoulders”.
But my friend who’s a massage therapist just said “You know you can get rid of that stuff. It’s just because you haven’t hung from your arms since you were a little kid”.
And he was right. I kept just putting my arms into whatever position would cause that sharp pain (a duller pain would have worried me more) and eventually that pain just went away. It was like cobwebs that had built up from the narrowed range of motion I was using my shoulders for.
The whole reason I’m saying this is for your physically painful exercise. Some of that may just be your body sort of shrinking its range out of non-use.
Pain isn’t always evidence that a body part is “bad”. Like if you were on a plane in a tiny spot for twelve hours, your legs would hurt as you finally stretched them out again. But that pain doesn’t indicate your legs are “bad” and it definitely doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stretch those legs.
Just food for thought