In high school, I was the farthest thing from a gym rat. I played lacrosse and I danced year round so I really had no desire to go. There were days when it was raining or snowing out and we were banished to the school gym instead of lacrosse practice. I dreaded those days. Not because going to the gym was particularly hard. Not because I couldn’t lift more than ten pounds (which I couldn’t at that time, but neither could any other sophomore girl at my school). But because it was intimidating.

The gym in my high school was tiny. You may think that would make it less scary, but to me that only meant there was no place to hide. There were only a few treadmills and a single elliptical and then some weight machines and free weights. This meant by the time I got there, all the cardio options were already taken and little high school me didn’t know how to do anything else. My friends were even less enthusiastic about going to the gym and so there I was alone, staring at an abductor machine and thinking to myself, “What kind of evil torture device is this?”

Anyways, I eventually worked it out. Despite that, I did not go back there any time soon. Well, in senior year, one of my friends had been getting more into going to the gym and had a membership to Planet Fitness near school. She asked me to come with her and I agreed, happy to have a fitness buddy so I didn’t look completely lost (at least not alone). We only went that one time and we basically just sat on the bike for an hour, but at least I got to see what the inside of a real gym looked like.

I eventually got a membership to that gym and started going on a regular basis, mostly sticking to cardio and once in a while using the free weights in the unofficial women’s lifting area. I never dared go near anything that looked like a barbell. This was pretty much how it was throughout my freshman year of college as well.

But this year, I decided to get more serious and was going on a regular basis, trying to split up my workout into different days for different muscle groups, but I still really didn’t know what I was doing. That was until a friend of mine told me that her friend was going to start training her in the gym. I decided to tag along, not really sure what to expect. It turned out it was brutal. He did not let up on us just because we were newbies and would make us start over whenever we messed up. I loved it. I’ve always hated when people underestimated me and he really didn’t. He also taught us how to use all the equipment in the weight room. His confidence in there translated into our own confidence. I never thought in a million years I would be one to walk into the weight room on my own and lift without worrying that I was doing it wrong or that other people thought I didn’t belong there. I always felt like I didn’t belong there, so they were probably thinking it too, right? The truth is, no one else in there probably cared what I was doing. But I will say I am very consistently in the minority in there. It is not unlikely for me to be the only girl in the whole room or maybe one of two. Not being an athlete also puts me at a drastic minority.

Now I lift six days a week, which I personally like to split into two pull days, two push days, and two leg days. It’s really easy to find workouts online. Once you know generally what all the terminology means, it’s pretty simple to do it all on your own. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy working out with other people. It can provide you with encouragement to keep going when you feel like you’ve got nothing left to give and provides you with a safety net when you are lifting more than you may be comfortable with. But there is something about going on your own that is a sense of freedom and confidence that you can’t get through anything. It’s like--here I am, just an average non-athlete girl, and I can hold my own.

Lifting in general is one of the most satisfying thing I have ever done. Every day I go in and I can lift a little more or go for a little longer and push myself a little harder, is an accomplishment. Plus you also can feel and see the results. Seriously; I’ve built up muscles I didn’t even know I had! In a few months I have increased my one rep max by 15 pounds. It’s seriously crazy to see the results right in front of you.

So basically, if you have never considered lifting or it always just seemed too intimidating, I promise that like anything else, you just have to keep doing it until you feel confident (or fake it till' you make it). It is definitely not easy, but now that I do it so often, it feels weird to have a day when I don’t. I actually miss it, which is something I never thought I would say about working out. I actually enjoy it. Crazy, right?