Why do you want gyms to open- really?
OK, this is going to be controversial. No doubt this blog post would get me cancelled, if I had ever been established in the first place. But I don’t care, because I feel very strongly about this and it needs to be said.
I’m seeing a lot of people signing a petition to open gyms in this lockdown. They claim that they want gyms to open because of mental health, but I’m skeptical that, for many of these people, this is the real reason. I’m skeptical because I know that in the height of my eating disorder and exercise addiction, I too would have been furiously signing every petition to open gyms that I could find. I too would have claimed that it was because I felt going to the gym was important for my mental health. I might have even convinced myself that that was the reason I wanted gyms to open. But that would have been a lie. I would have wanted gyms to open because I had convinced myself that every day I didn’t train in a gym was a day of sin and shame. I would have wanted gyms to open because I was obsessed with being perfect- perfect weight, perfect body. I would have told myself that by campaigning for gyms to open I was helping my mental health, but in fact, I would have been hindering it. I would have been feeding my mental illness rather than conquering it by reinforcing my idea that working out was important above all else.
People campaigning for gyms to open exhibit a mentality I used to have during my eating disorder, a mentality I personally call “Fitness over health”. Fitness over health is when you prioritise what you view as “fitness”- external aesthetic factors like visible abs, being able to lift a certain weight or run a certain distance in a certain time- over your actual health, which is what you are meant to be actually training for in the first place. When I was suffering from a “fitness over health” mentality I would train whilst undernourished, or I would work out when I was ill and make myself worse. This is another reason I worry about gyms opening, because I know far too many people too obsessed with fitness who would train when they are ill, infect everyone else, damage their immune systems and leave themselves exposed to Covid. People with a “fitness over health” mentality would rather go to the gym and catch Covid than risk their quads becoming less defined.
If you truly and genuinely feel that gyms opening would help your mental and physical health, and you genuinely feel that you need gyms to keep sane. If you feel that working out at home, doing exercise in the park and going on runs simply will not cut it and gyms are totally necessary for your mental wellbeing then go ahead and sign the petition. Go on. I’m not stopping you. But I want you to ask yourself, sit and really think, are you really doing it for your mental health. Or are you doing it because a tiny, evil voice in your head is telling you that if you can’t deadlift at least 50kg then you’re worthless? That if you haven’t reached your goal weight and waist size by 2021 then you’re a piece of shit? That if you don’t go to the gym then you WILL get fat and that will mean failure? Think about that. Carefully. Is you going to the gym and working out really important enough to force thousands of gym workers to come and work in an environment they might not feel safe in whilst you might be enjoying the security of furlough? Is it worth having gym workers being infected and then infecting their household so you can get your reps in? Is it worth it if that gym worker or a member of their household dies? What if you are asymptomatic, but have Covid, and you infect another gym goer who dies. Is it worth it then? If you honestly do need the gym for your mental health because all other forms of exercise don’t work for some reason, then it is worth the risk and you should campaign for those gyms to open. But just think about it.
And I also want to reach out to those of you for whom lockdown increases pressure to work out and “glow up”. I know that during this time there will be a thousand home workouts and fitness challenges circling around, with many claiming this time as “4 weeks to get fit”. Please remember that the allowed daily outdoor exercise is not mandatory, that you do not have to do these home workouts on the days you don’t want to. If I upload a home workout to my Instagram, remember that it is an optional workout- a workout you can do IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT and not if you don’t.
For my final message in this post, I simply want to say- you can get through this lockdown. We got through the last one and we will get through this one, and eventually we will beat this virus.