Many who pursue muscle gain or weight loss feel that joining a gym is a prerequisite, and so, following a rather calorie friendly December, millions crowd the lobbies of local gyms, signing up for a multi-year membership, believing that they’ve just made the initial leap towards a bodybuilding or weight loss transformation. But if we analyze the number of people who continue attending the gym after their contractual commitment, we find that the once motivated fitness enthusiast fueled with desire for substantial change suddenly fails to walk through the gym’s front door as February approaches.
Many assume that laziness is the natural enemy that interferes with pursuing a pattern of muscle building or weight loss consistency, and never analyze whether in fact the gym environment itself may be offering an insurmountable obstacle for many, eventually causing a large number of men and women to quit the pursuit of muscle building or weight loss completely.
But why? Is it possible for the gym to actually reduce motivation, when in fact such surroundings should be conducive towards achieving significant results? The true reasons will be found within the first few workouts, and clearly becomes one of the main reasons why most lose their toleration for gym attendance long before achieving their physical fitness goals.
Let’s pretend that you are ready for an intense weight training workout session, and you encounter numerous friends who decide to train at the same time as you. What will most likely happen now? Will they experience the best weight training and cardiovascular workout session of all time, or will the next hour that follows focus upon discussing yesterday’s Monday Night Football showdown? Let’s instead assume you visit the gym and happen to do so without meeting any friends, but as you scan the territory, quickly sense that each machine you are planning to use is occupied, with a 20 minute wait for each. Do you think this will lead to a productive weight training workout session, or encourage a trip to the local fast food drive thru to try and gorge the anger away?
Oh, and let’s not neglect the most many additional common excuses to skip the gym for a day, such as bad weather (five feet of snow might make traveling the freeway inconvenient), car breakdown (a flat tire always interferes with melting a spare tire!), and traffic (wouldn’t want to be late for dinner)! Some may believe that these unexpected circumstances cannot occur regularly, but once momentum is hampered, and a workout is missed, the brain becomes far more lenient of the next skipped weight training workout session, and this attitude will soon lead to another habit, one which is much more enjoyable; furniture sitting, without the distraction of a gym visit for your weight lifting workout.
Is there another option? I perform my weight lifting at home, having produced over 60 pounds of new muscle and lost 50 pounds of fat, without a gym membership, proving that neither muscle increase nor fat loss requires waiting in line for machines or paying expensive bodybuilding gym fees. In fact, my muscle gain and fat loss success was produced in my basement, with standard weight training equipment, and I was able to achieve far more discipline with my weight lifting workout regimen than most who must combat the inconvenient gym environment, specifically because I am in control of my environment, and can eliminate distractions that obstruct my ability to perform my weight lifting workout.
This is not to say that achieving a bodybuilding caliber physique or producing consistent weight loss is impossible through gym training, as many with such memberships achieve very impressive results, but for those who have the option to purchase some basic weight training equipment, I believe doing so is extremely convenient, offers a controlled environment, and is far less expensive over a several year period than joining a local gym facility. Achieving success in muscle building or weight loss is in large part due to mental focus, a factor which suffers greatly when subjected to an uncontrollable set of circumstances, and this is why I have always trained at home, and produced very impressive muscle building and weight loss results specifically because I have always been able to proceed with my weight lifting workouts in a methodical fashion.
Don’t reject the idea of performing your weight training workout sessions at home until you’ve experienced the inconveniences of attending a gym, but if you choose to sign up for a local gym facility, please make sure not to sign a long term deal until you have regularly trained for three months and have ensured yourself that the inconveniences and obstacles will not interfere with remaining faithful to your weight training workout routine.