I don't want to go to the gym anymore.
Since taking a long leave from work rather suddenly a bit over a week ago I'm losing my motivation for the gym, which is something that during work I usually stick to pretty consistently. It's not like it isn't always difficult to get myself to go to the gym; because it certainly is. But I just feel like I'm losing a grip on the "pull". I feel like all my hard work has been for not much gain.
My relationship with the gym is a complicated and neuanced one, I'm going to attempt to put a label on all the "strings" and see if that gives me a clearer picture of where I'm at, and how to get back on track.
The physical act of getting my stuff together and getting to the gym and starting my workout. There are a few reasons for this:
Once I'm in the gym and I'm working, I really enjoy being there and pushing hard on my sets. Having said that when I'm there too long I start to get tired and feel like the workouts are really dragging and that starts to suck again.
I really want to be a healthy person with a healthy amount of muscle and just be healthy. I want to take care of my body so I can enjoy as much of life as I can for as long as I can. I can see the irony while writting this that I currently don't do anything outside of the gym that I enjoy or that requires a healthy body (lmao).
So at this stage the only thing I really want is to look good, but I don't even look good because up till recently I was eating like as asshole and I carry a litte bit of extra body weight at the moment.
Surely not as bad as the issues that come from not going to the gym. But my weirld "pelic floor urethra" pinching thing sucks and the occational low back pain from squatting also sucks (was much better until recently when I stopped working out so consistenly).
Despite working consistenly for several years at this point I am consistenly seeing bodies online that I compare myself too that make me feel like I am wasting my time in the gym. Some of these physiques are from people who have either:
However, some of these physiques are from people who claim to have trained as long as me and look far better than I do. Which makes me feel like all my work is for nothing cause I'm either not working hard enough, not eating right or making some other basic mistake that is making all my time in the gym an absolute waste.
This is confusing to me because everyone is different. We can't entirelly rule out (although it probably isn't the case) that I am doing everything perfectly right and this is the limit my body is capable of growing with the amount of training I'm doing.
However at the other end, we can't rule out that I am not doing everything perfectly wrong and that my results are the worst possible results, given the stimulus, food, etc that I am providing my body.
Obviously, the truth lies in between these, though we cannot be sure to which end they sway.
I guess if I wanted to be sure, I would want to "perfect" my nutrition, and then tweak my training for optimum growth. Even writting that sentence exhausted me.
In an ideal world I want to fuck around in the gym, do whatever I want, look jacked and eat whatever I want whenever I want with no consequences. That sounds great. That also sounds like what I would tell someone to do if I wanted them to make as little progress as possible (asside from doing nothing, of course).
Acutally I don't believe that last sentence. This isn't ideal, but someone doing that would surely look better and be healthier than someone who did nothing. So perhaps then this is a balancing platform (yes, like the one in national treasure). At the moment, I want ot look better, but I also want to do less. In my head these two ends are on opposite sides of the platform; but I don't thing that's really accurate when I think on it more closely. In order to optimise growth, I'd have to optimise nutrition (specifically protein + calories) and optimise stimulous.
Potentially I don't have to be training more so much as I have to be training more effectively/efficiently.
I have a certain capacity for work, the amount of work I want to do. Then I have a goal. What I have to do is keep my actions as in line with my goal as I can. If I think there's room to improve one of my outputs, I can try and either attempt to increase my effectiveness, increase my capacity or accept slower results. Maximising your outcome is only possible if you maximise your input, which may not be in line with your other goals.
My next question to myself was immediately How do I know if I am overworking myself or just being lazy?
Perhaps it doesn't matter. If your being lazy its because your body is in a state where it is overwhelmed. People don't want to "Be lazy", this is just an insane concept invented by capitalist sadists. People inherently love working hard towards a goal that they want to acheieve thats literally what dopamine is (exccentuated only by testosterone). So by definition the work you are doing is exceeding your capacity in some way and you feel depleeted. Perhaps you're in a situation where you're prioritising gym over friendships and social activities, which is effectively reducing your capcaity. Perhaps your ego has you doing psychocitc sets in order to look like Sam Sulek and from your first workout of the week this is delivering unneccisary fatigue that you carry with you the rest of the week.
Decide how much effort you want to apply to each of your inputs. (Diet, time in the gym)
Decide on a goal.
Target, Step, Measure, Adapt. (Science)
If "pushing yourself a little harder" than you already do (convinced not a thing) caused you to blow up in size would you actually want to do it? or would you cause yourself to hate it all and want to never go there (kinda like how you feel right now?)
Adding more volume at a lower intensity might make your training more palatable/effective thus increasing your output? Maybe its the other way around? Maybe eating more or weighing less migth have that impact?
Maybe training half as much would double your gains but you've been overtraining for 2 years?
Consistency is great only if you're sure that what you're doing is optimal. Otherwise you'll get really far in the wrong direction. Generailites are a great jumping off point (if you lift heavy 3 times a week you'll grow), but only for a certain time.
"Step" should be synonymous with "execute". "Step" for a workout regimine could mean 3 months. That's the minium amount of time a person could spend on such an endevour to ensure that "measure" would actually display any useful information. If I measure my lawn every 3 minutes I'd be sure it wasn't growing. Just as if you dont measure you can never be sure of any change. But by the same measure if your goal is to grow lawn that is 3cm long, you'll want to measure it more frequently than annually. Then how does this play into the whole "have habbits not goals" "the person who likes walking will walk further than the guy who likes the destination"
Sure, that's great for a guy who doesn't care where he's going.You can enjoy walking and want to acutally get somewhere too, you fucking jack-off. Once you know where you're going, focus on the walking. Once you've been walking for a while, make sure you're still going the right way. Eventually you'll get there. Tiny steps in the right direction are more valuable than giant steps in the wrong direction.
I think I'm satisified as to where I'm at right now (with reguards to the gym). I've been working with a trainer, and she has been the one primarily keeping check on if I am improving. But I want to take over on that, so that I can set my own goals, fiddle with my own training and be the master of my own time / destiny a little more. The only lever I have in my current situation is work harder, and with that I'm not getting any feedback so it feels like I'm not doing anything. I need to control what I'm doing so I can know what is and isn't working.