Why Working at a Gym is the Best and Worst Job Ever for my Fitness

Hey all, feeling a little remiss about my posting lately, so I decided to throw in a little bit of a different perspective. My fitness routine hasn’t changed all too much (I go to spinning, do my lifting, have started planning my training program for fall races), so I was looking for something to post about. And I decided to look into the interesting phenomenon that is working at a gym or athletic center.

I was looking for campus jobs around this time last summer and immediately thought to myself: why not work at a gym? I spend enough freakin’ time there and I have plenty of health knowledge. I know about all the different parts of the gym and I’m a rare female who isn’t afraid of the weight room and the manly creatures that tend to inhabit it. So I applied to the gym and got a job and have been working there ever since. At this point in time, I work at the front desk, as a fitness and safety monitor, as a class bouncer, and as an attendant in the equipment room. I’m constantly surrounded by the gym and its patrons. Which you’d assume would make it easier and more enticing to work out before or after my shift. I mean, I’m already here, right?

Well, see, that’s the interesting part. Working at the gym gives me plenty of opportunity but oftentimes way less incentive. Being here for the number of hours that I’m already forced makes me want to work out elsewhere…ANYWHERE else. It makes me crave the outdoors or another gym. Which I suppose is good, unless it makes me forsake my workout altogether because I begin associating working out not with the stress-releasing freedom that I previously did but rather the forced time spent working to earn the money that pays for my meals at college. It’s an interesting phenomenon, but it’s true: seeing people working out sometimes gives me that competitive mindset and that desire to get out there myself, but most of the time it just makes me realize just exactly how much of a self motivated person I am. I need to want to do it for myself, not just conveniently be at the gym already.

Now I’m not saying working at the gym is completely bad for my fitness drive or health. Obviously that can’t be the case. I do still come here often to work out. And it also does offer me extra knowledge and opportunities that I may not have otherwise had. I can tell you (as I have been) about all the fitness classes, I know how to reserve different parts of the gym, I can get to where ever you want to get to, I know how to work all the machines, I have friends that are personal trainers, I know when the gym is really crowded and when it’s not, and I just can’t pass up the convenience sometimes. Oh, and I get a decent work-out just from the ten minute walk back and forth every time. But I think the best thing is to have a best friend that works at the gym. So befriend some one at your local gym fast. And don’t forget to visit them…we get pretty bored.

Have any questions for me relating to a gym or athletic center?

Want me to do more reports on the fitness classes? Maybe yoga next?

Please don’t hesitate to comment and follow and all that! I love you all!