When I walk onto the first-floor weight room of the gym every morning, I’m struck by two things. First, the gym is delightfully empty at 7 a.m. on weekdays -- I have access to any squat rack I want, the stair master is sweat-free, and the dumbbells aren’t scattered on the ground. Second, I’m one of the few girls in the room. If I go later in the day, the room is more crowded, but there are still usually only a few girls in the room.
Throughout my first year at USC, I’ve been asked why I go in the weight room so early every morning, and how I could possibly like squatting with 135 pounds on my back. The truth is, getting into lifting changed my life and the way I see health and fitness. Like so many other college students, especially girls, I struggle with body confidence and often fall into the trap of comparing myself with others. With this mentality, fitness became a negative experience for me. I played sports until my junior year, and so I never really saw the need to exercise outside of basketball or tae kwon do practice.
When I quit basketball during my junior year, I wasn’t really exercising, and I knew I had to get some kind of workout. Strapped for time under a full load of APs and extracurriculars, I would go to the gym and spend 40 minutes on the elliptical trying to sweat away my latest comparisons. My goals revolved around loss – pounds, inches, anything really. Working out was a chore, and I only did it because I knew I had to.
It’s only human nature to avoid doing things we don’t want to do, so when school ramped up with the addition of college applications, going to the gym took a backseat. When second semester rolled around senior year, I suddenly found myself with more free time, and one look at myself in the mirror told me it was time for a change. I knew that if I approached fitness the same way I had during most of high school, it would become a chore, and I would drop it immediately.
Taking advantage of a Groupon, I decided to jump start my resolution to get fit by hiring a personal trainer, and it was the best decision I could have made. Working out with my trainer completely shifted my view on fitness. It started to be about me, and about bettering myself. Switching from endless cardio to a dynamic workout full of kettle bell swings, squats, sled pushes, and tire pulls made my workout fun. I became focused on doing the exercises with better form, increasing the weights I was using, and taking shorter rests.
Over the course of the next few months, I started to fall in love with lifting. I looked forward to my workouts every day, and fitness became about growth and function. I found a huge community of lifters on Instagram and started following them to learn new exercises through the videos they posted. Now, as I head to the gym in the mornings, I’m motivated to conquer my goals of squatting with a higher weight, using less assistance for pull-ups, or holding a longer plank.
The human body is an amazing machine, capable of so much, and lifting helps me push and expand the boundaries of what my body is capable of. I’m always working towards and achieving goals, and this has turned fitness into a source of joy for me. Yes, I get frustrated and embarrassed when I quite literally collapse at the bottom of a squat and have to crawl out from underneath the bar, but that is absolutely nothing compared to the pride I feel when I hit a new personal record for any lift.
Lifting has brought back the competitiveness that I loved about sports. Only, this time, I’m not competing against anyone other than myself. Being one of the few girls on the weight room floor can be intimidating, but I choose to make it empowering. The reality is, everyone in the gym is focused on themselves and their workout, and no one is looking at you. Today, I look in the mirror, and I see so much more than what I want to change. I see legs capable of hiking for miles and doing walking lunges down the length of the weight room. When I flex, I see arms that have visible biceps, capable of carrying all the groceries in at once. Most importantly, I see someone who works out because she loves it, and that motivates me more than anything.
