5 Things I’ve Realized From Going to the Gym

I’m not here to knock on gym goers. I love the gym.

Yes, I said it. I love it.

I am here, though, to give you all the goods and the bads from a runner’s point of view.

 Good: Strength training is a completely different animal.  You feel muscles you didn’t know you had. Your body starts seeing what the lateral movement is all about, which is absolutely necessary. And when it comes down to it, who doesn’t want a round booty and arm goals?

Bad: When I run I love that “zone out” feeling. You too? The gym is not for you on those days.  Our minds have been subconsciously trained to keep busy on a run. You can run dumb in the sense of forgetting everything else and just keep running.  You can not lift dumb. Trust me. You lose count on reps, you go sloppy on form, and unlike the paved path ahead of you on a run, you’re more than likely to bump into something.

Good: In running, it is motivating to hit a new PR whether that be time or distance. In the gym, however, there are way more ways to stay motivated.  There are arguably 700 muscles in the human body.  Tell me the next time you’re bored in the gym.  There is always something you could work on.  I feel like its a whole new game.  There are more variations of workouts in the gym than workouts you could possibly do on a track.  And once you start seeing squat PRs or completion of your first pull up, I promise you’ll start seeing those PRs in your running too.

Bad: Let’s be honest, the best part of being a runner is fresh air. It’s freedom. It’s sunshine, dirt trails, actual hills, downhills that you can fly down, and when you look up you see something other than a scrungy dbag guy doing 3 reps on a chest machine. Whether you run 1 mile or 20, anyone would argue with you its far less boring outside than it is on a dreadmill.

Good: This last one came to me this past week.  We have hit on the benefits of weights but I actually, for the first time ever, found a reasonable excuse for using a treadmill.  Some days its hard for me to run a workout alone.  Guilty of pace pushing and completely blowing up. This week, I set up a workout and once I set the pace, I knew I had to hold that for the entire distance.  It forced me to run the times I needed to the entire workout.  I left the gym loving that pace-setting-machine.

What are some things you love about the gym or being a runner?