Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 114: Gym Anxiety *TWO* Causes + Tips & Solutions

Episode Date: August 5, 2021

In this episode, Danny goes over what he believes to be the TWO primary drivers of gym anxiety and some tips for how to manage them/make it better.---Thanks For Listening!---Grab the new Female Physique Advanced HERE!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE!Want Coach Danny to Fix Your S*** (training, nutrition, lifestyle, etc) fill the form HERE for a chance to have your current approach reviewed live on the show. Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Sign up for the trainer mentorship HEREFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!Support the Show.

Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about a subject that is a little bit more prevalent than it has been at any point that I've been working in the industry. And that is gym anxiety, or anxiety that is spiked by going or being in the gym? Now, many of you probably aren't familiar with anxiety as an emotional state or the way it feels, but I'm sure most of you are. At some point in your life, you've no doubt felt anxious about something, whether it's a big event, a big project, something that's due at work or school, perhaps a challenging conversation or meeting your girlfriend or boyfriend's parents for the first time. There are a lot of things that can induce the feeling of anxiety within us. But one thing that I found is extremely prevalent is the gym

being a source of anxiety or going to the gym being a source of anxiety or the people in the gym being a source of anxiety and how that feeling, that sensation of anxiety can actually make your workout quite a bit worse. So I want to make sure that we talk about that as much as possible today, break it down, give you guys some tips. I'm going to actually give you the two things that I think drive this the most and some really actionable things you can implement to combat it. As somebody who worked in gyms for over six years and who's worked with thousands of clients, I have dealt with my own gym anxieties as well as people who have been members or even clients of mine in the gym, working with them on this, trying to communicate to them to make the gym as inviting an environment as possible.

And I'm going to share with you some of the insights I found where this stuff comes from and how you can maybe manage it. But before we get into all that, I got to first say, I am not a psychotherapist. I am not in any way, shape or form an expert on anxiety, depression, or any of those emotions. If you are struggling in those areas and it's become debilitating, I strongly recommend seeking counsel from a licensed practitioner in the field of mental health. I see a therapist on a semi-regular basis. It's fabulous for me and my mental health, and I recommend it for everybody. So without further ado, guys, let's go ahead and get into the episode. So how many people exactly are struggling with gym anxiety? This is a rough form of research, but I did poll everybody on my Instagram and 78% of you said that you get occasional gym anxiety. I then went on to

ask if you wouldn't mind sharing with me how it is that that anxiety impacts you and shows up. I want to read some of these because I think it's really beneficial and I think it'll give you guys some, you know, maybe some comfort in knowing you're not the only one who struggles with these things. So for example, and again, these are all your guys' stories and anecdotes, so I'm just sharing anonymously what you guys submitted to me in terms of what the manifestation of this gym anxiety looks like. One response was, I get nervous waiting for equipment because I feel weird just standing there. Another, I'm not going back to the gym because of the weight I've gained.

So that's another way that anxiety creeps in. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody is watching. I have a lot of frustrations in the gym. I don't know if my form is okay, and that leads to a lot of frustrations in the gym. I don't know if my form is okay and that leads to a lot of stress. I want to perform exercises and lifts if there are a lot of people and I don't feel 100% confident in my form and technique. Newbie here, not being aware of some of the gym etiquette makes me anxious. I'm a noob at the gym. Looking dumb or weak with free weights is terrifying. I lost a lot of weight and sometimes

I still feel eyes on me even though they're not. I disinfect the gym equipment because of COVID. People just stare. How to not feel stupid doing hip thrusts and bridges. I am humping a bar in front of people. Mostly comparison and negative self-talk when I think of gym anxiety. I feel anxious when I can't gym. I'm usually able to at different times, but if I'm not, I'm really irritable and annoyed that day. For me, the gym after work is sometimes what I need to take the edge off on the day. So some of you guys have a therapeutic relationship with anxiety in the gym, but a lot of you have gym-induced anxiety. For example, another response, gym anxiety gets in the way of an effective workout and impacts proper breathing technique for me. I've never been to an actual gym because I don't know how to use the equipment. So these are some

of the things that you guys are experiencing, and I have found that gym anxiety is really common. Now, speaking from my own experience, I have felt myself to be pretty comfortable in the gym for most of my lifting career. Now, everybody is different. I do recall specifically when I first started lifting in my late teens, early twenties, I did get a little bit of anxiety in the gym because I didn't know what I was doing. Another example I can think of is when I moved from my hometown, a very small town that I grew up in to the town that I went to school in to do my undergraduate work, I was a little bit anxious being the new fish in the gym. And then whenever I would go to the campus rec,

which was an occasional pit stop, most of my workouts were done at my place of employment, which at that time was a 24-hour fitness, I would get a little anxious there too. And this was even as a certified personal trainer, so you would expect that I would feel about as comfortable in the gym as anybody, but that wasn't necessarily the case. So I deal with my own anxieties in the gym, but for the most part, I feel that I'm quite fortunate. The way

that this really came onto my radar was with my clients. A lot of clients would articulate to me very early in our training relationship that they simply weren't comfortable in the gym. They didn't feel like they knew exactly what it was they should be doing and that they were really thankful that I was there as their coach to make sure that they were doing things properly. with the idea that what they're doing might be getting judged by the other people in the gym. I wasn't somebody who ever really grew up experiencing a whole lot of that judgment because I went to a really small, super uncrowded gym. Another thing that has become a very, very obvious source of gym anxiety for my clients, most of whom are women, is the unfortunate, kind of pestilent men who are classifiable as, let's just call it, creepy. There are no shortage of creepy people, male, female, or otherwise, that simply don't pick up on the social cues that we might all want to subscribe to in public places.

For example, there are a lot of people who stare. There are a lot of people who attempt to create or start conversation that is not wanted or warranted. And this particularly or disproportionately impacts women at the gym. So we might take a chance here to unpack that a little bit today. But now I feel like we've got a really good baseline for what it is that we're talking about when we talk about gym anxiety I want to share with you guys what I think the two biggest problems are what the two biggest causes of this are and some of my solutions okay so again this is all purely anecdote I'm not an expert but I do think that a lot of this stuff is fairly, fairly true.

So number one, I think the number one driver of our anxiety in the gym is that we generally are hardwired to fear the judgment of other people. Nobody wants to look silly. Nobody wants to look stupid. Nobody wants to look like they're doing anything wrong, whether that be in any setting, right? If you think about it, you're probably uncomfortable doing things incorrectly or being judged for doing things incorrectly in any setting, whether that's a professional setting, an academic setting,

or even a setting like the gym where you're just exercising. Nobody wants to have all eyes on them if they're doing something silly. And I think that we have this natural fear of that. I think it's baked into our human brain. We want to fit in. We want to go with the grain. We want to be sight unseen. We don't want to attract too much attention for doing anything wrong. Additionally, we live in a society where judgment and comparison run rampant. So a lot of our default behavior is judgmental. So those of us who are struggling with gym anxiety, those of us who maybe are fearful of other people's judgment, probably spend a considerable amount of our time judging others as well. I think a lot of us judge people pretty constantly. It's a very normal human behavior.

Can it be unhealthy when it's done to the extreme? Absolutely. But I want to make it clear. I think it's very normal to feel intimidated in the gym, right? And it's very intimidating for those of us who have not been, let's just say, familiarized with gym culture to walk into a gym for the first time and feel super comfortable. It's pretty unreasonable to assume that somebody who might be deconditioned, completely unfamiliar with things, showing up to something for the very first time, is just going to feel great about it. I'll give you a couple examples where I really got an idea of how it was the gym anxiety that I have not experienced feels for people who have, right? Because remember, like I said, I have kind of always had a fairly good time in the gym. I feel very comfortable and I couldn't really connect with this until I started

golfing. And let me tell you a little bit about that because guys, golf is hard. Very, very hard. is hard. Very, very hard. And going to the driving range is very similar to going to the part of the gym where all the squat racks are. So all the driving range platforms are lined up in a linear fashion. And wherever you're hitting on the driving range, you can see down the range to your right, down the range to your left, all the other people hitting. And when you're new, you don't hit the ball far, your swing doesn't look very pretty, and every time you hit the ball and it makes a crappy little dunk and the guy next to you hits an absolute laser that just sounds like perfect, it becomes very apparent very quickly who the newbies are on the driving range. And while my anxiety was never too bad because I understood fundamentally that all of this stuff takes time and I have

eventually gotten better at golf, but it's not easy. And so some days are better than others. Some days I feel like I've got it all together. Some days I don't feel like I have it together at all, but there are always people who can watch and see how you're doing. And I think that's a phenomenal example of how a lot of novices feel at the gym. You're going to look around and you're going to see people doing the gym equivalent of hitting the ball 300 yards. You'll know very quickly that these people have been golfing for a considerable amount of time and that they're doing really, really well, right?

And that they're hitting the ball a lot further than me. And I wonder if they see me not hitting the ball very far. But as I got better and better at golf, which did take a considerable amount of time and a considerable amount of practice, I noticed a lot less people looking at me. I noticed a lot less people, you know, perhaps seeing what I was doing at the range. And here's the big kicker. I don't think anybody was ever looking. I just became a lot less concerned. Once I got to a place where I was one of the harder hitters on the range, if you will, I didn't really pay attention to what other people were doing. Occasionally, if somebody right next to me was hitting the shit out of the ball,

I would notice. But truth be told, I think a lot of our fear, our fear of being judged, perhaps puts up a level of sensitivity to other people that's going to lead us to believe we're being judged or watched more than we are. And I've noticed in the gym that when I go, I don't pay very much attention to the other people there, right? And so intimidating as it may be, and it's very natural to feel intimidating going to the gym, and you can definitely see people around you doing a really good job, you shouldn't let any feelings of being afraid of embarrassing yourself or being new get in the way, because truth be told, I have found that not so many people are really judging you, or not as many people might be judging you

as you think. And when you settle in, once you finally get going, right, once you're there, once you're working out, a lot of this stuff seems to settle. I've had very similar experiences at the driving range, not that it's the same. But to expand on that, I think it's important to acknowledge that anybody who is going to judge you at the gym, maybe these are people who are very fit and just plain rude. Maybe they're people who are very fit and just plain rude. Maybe they're trainers who are pretentious and stuck up. Those are not healthy people and they're not in a healthy place. People who operate exclusively from that place of judging others to make themselves feel better aren't worth your fucking time, straight up. Anybody who's going to

operate out of that space is suffering in a way that probably is much more than your own suffering, much more than your own anxiety, right? People who are like, wow, I am going to identify somebody in this gym who's clearly new and I'm going to make them feel bad by staring or laughing at them. This stuff is extremely rare and it only comes from unhappy people. So that's something that you can do. Another thing that's worth considering is whoever you are, whoever's in your circle, right? Even if you're brand new to this, even if you're just getting into gym culture, going to the gym, or maybe you've been working out for a long time, but you still struggle with gym anxiety. There are no doubt a lot of people in your life who are inspired by how consistently you go to

the gym and how regular of a routine you make it, or the fact that you're taking this on for the very first time, right? This is not something that a lot of people have the strength and the courage to do. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook.

But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. So just doing it is probably inspiring a lot of people around you who are just as if not not more, anxious than you.

And so some of the judgment that you're receiving is positive. I would even say most of the judgment that you're receiving is positive. More people in the gym and more people in your life are happy for you to be going to the gym and excited that you're working on your health than have any judgment to pass at all. have any judgment to pass at all. And I think it's important to frame that, that at any point when you go into the gym, more people in your life and in that gym are going to be happy that you're there doing your best than are going to be passing judgment. And that's a very important way to frame things because I genuinely believe this is the case. I don't think that most people have the time to simply sit around and just judge people all the time. And I think that there's a lot of people in the gym who And I think that there's a lot

of people in the gym who are so hyper-focused on what they're doing, they're not going to be focused on you anyway. Also, for what it's worth, in life, not everybody's going to be happy, kind, and nice or like you. And while nobody should make you feel bad, there are just some assholes out there. And those assholes are definitely not nearly as important and their opinions aren't nearly as important as your health and your comfort in the gym. So don't let them get you down if they are out there, right? Another thing, again, I hit on this earlier, but people are just so focused on themselves in the gym. A lot of our worries, like, I'm just worried that other people are going to see me. People are

so worried about looking at themselves in the mirror, what they look like, how their outfit in the gym looks, how their own form looks, that they're not necessarily concerned with you. And this is something that I've noticed is I can go to the gym for years. I've been lifting at a couple of gyms for years and I'll have people walk up to me and be like, oh, hey, I've seen you at the gym. And I'll be like, oh, hey, I didn't know you went to the gym. They're like, yeah, we go to the gym at the same time all the time. And I'm just, maybe I'm not observant. Maybe I'm just totally checked out, but I'm not that aware of who else is there.

So a lot of the people that's judgment you might be afraid of are totally checked out. And they're not that concerned with whether you're there doing the form right or whether you're there doing the form wrong, because they're so focused on what it is that they are doing. Additionally, the expectation that you have to be perfect is silly, right? Again, going back to the golf thing, if I was insistent on having perfect swing and hitting the ball straight every time, I would have never gotten any better at golf. If I was afraid of going to the driving range and people seeing my really crappy swing

and my really bad contact and me swinging as hard as I could and the ball rolling a foot off of the driving range bat, I would have never gotten better. We're all allowed to work on our technique. We're all allowed to actively be pursuing improvement. And the gym is a place for that. All of our lifts are skills.

So if you're somebody who's doing a lot of our lifts are skills. So if you're somebody who's doing a lot of cardio or a lot of machines because you're nervous to go and attempt to do the free weights because of the potential of getting judged, it's very understandable. However, as is the case with the golf swing, you develop technique and competency in your lifts over time and you get better by practicing. And you are every bit as much entitled to the ability to practice and improve as everybody else. Everybody in the gym is looking to improve something in some way, whether it's their mental state by quote unquote blowing off some steam, whether it's their physique by lifting to build muscle, or their strength by lifting to build

strength. Everybody's in there because they're trying to do the same thing that you are, and that's improve some area of their life. And we are all entitled to that space. We're all entitled to that desire. And quite frankly, that judgment-free space to improve ourselves. The gym is one of the few places where you can say almost everybody in here is trying to improve something. And so that also helps a lot from my experience is knowing, even though you might be considerably more fearful of judgment and more anxious than others, at the very root of what it is that we're doing, every single person in that gym is there for one, at least one singular commonality or common reason. And that is to

improve something in their life. We all have at least that in common. And that's a really big deal. And that really levels the playing field. I want to touch on this because I feel like I have some responsibility to do it as somebody who has a mostly female following. And that is, I do want to highlight some tools or tricks that women can use to hopefully minimize the amount of uncomfortable experiences they have with, let's just say, creepy men at the gym. Okay, first and foremost, I'd like to highlight that I believe almost all men at the gym are just fine. And I don't think that they're going to bother you. And I don't think that they are going to attempt to make you feel uncomfortable, but I'm not so tone deaf that I would go, okay, they're not out there at all because I have experienced creepy men who have made me feel

very uncomfortable at the gym and creepy women who have made me feel very uncomfortable at the gym. And this is as a man. And so I know societally speaking, women feel these encroachments much more so than men because it's been much more normalized. seem to be commonly complained about by multiple people, meaning every gym has a couple of these creepy people. So how can you deal with this? Number one, let management know that you feel uncomfortable and that you feel like a particular member is a little bit perhaps encroaching on your space or staring or giving you looks or signals that make you feel uncomfortable. It's very unlikely that these people will be kicked out of the gym or be told to stop, but it's important to put that shit down, to get it in writing, metaphorically speaking,

to make sure that management and the people in the gym are aware that there are members who are actively making people feel uncomfortable. that there are members who are actively making people feel uncomfortable. And like I said, it's not necessarily a quick fix, but getting that put down is really important. Most gyms have an operating procedure where there has to be some form of complaint made prior to them approaching a member. So getting that done, even though it might be uncomfortable in its own right,

is certainly worth it. Second, do bring headphones to the gym. Headphones seem to be a very effective way at communicating to people symbolically that you are not looking for extraneous conversation. Thirdly, if you can, get a trainer or a gym partner. Again, I understand that having a personal trainer might be cost prohibitive. Having a gym partner might be time prohibitive or schedule-wise quite difficult. But one thing that I've noticed is these creepy people do not approach my clients ever when they're in a session because having a trainer provides some barrier or protective force field against these creeps. And I think that having a gym partner can be somewhat similar.

Fourthly, I think that eye contact is a really big thing. And people don't particularly like when people are trying to force the issue with eye contact. But one of the things that I think a lot of people will do when they're uncomfortable and they accidentally make eye contact is we default to like an eye contact is we default to like an awkward smile or we default to like making, you know, Hey, like I'm not going to be overtly rude, but I think this is a time where, you know, putting a face on that says I am not here to be fucked with is very important. So if people are insisting on making eye contact with you, be sure that it is stern. You have every right to give

them the quote unquote resting bitch face and say, Hey, please leave me the fuck alone. I'm not interested in this. And, uh, something that I have found is extremely effective. Um, and clients have told me that they have done this is if you have somebody who is kind of really forcing the issue with making eye contact, make the eye contact, give them a stern face, and let them see that you are getting up and you are walking all the way across the gym. Go find something else to do. I completely understand that that is off-putting

and that that's somebody encroaching on your space, fucking up your workout, but it's a very clear symbol of please stop bothering me. I am giving you a look of frustration. I am standing up and I am exiting the space because you are bothering me tremendously. And a lot of these creepy people just do not get social cues.

And that is a pretty obvious social cue of, please leave me the fuck alone. Lastly, if it gets bad enough, you are well within your right to say, hey, I feel like you are staring at me. It's making me very uncomfortable. If you could please avert your gaze, I would really appreciate that. That is quite possibly one of the most embarrassing

things to be told. It will completely humiliate the creepy person unless they are, like I said, completely, completely out to lunch with regards to social norms and social cues. And while that might be way beyond your level of comfortability, it is a perfectly fine last resort and very much within your rights in that space to go, hey, you know, I've noticed you kind of looking at me and it's making me really uncomfortable. If you don't stop, I'm going to talk to the manager. I'm just not vibing this. Please stop. Those are just some things that I think could work for you if that is a source of your gym anxiety, which I know for a lot of you it is. Another thing that I would recommend before we move to the second most prevalent cause

is just try to practice perspective, right? And that is if you are new and you're brand new to the gym, you're just getting started. Everybody else in that gym at some point was just like you and they were just getting started. They were just getting their feet wet. And you are totally entitled to be a novice or a beginner. So moving on, you guys, to the second what I would describe as cause of gym anxiety. And that is we make a lot of assumptions. And I don't think that assumptions are particularly healthy.

And one of the things that we are doing in the gym when we are thinking that people are watching us is we're making an assumption. We are assuming that people are judging us. We assume that we look silly and that people think we look silly. We assume nobody else in here feels the way that I feel. I'm the only one who feels anxious and uncomfortable. And we assume that people care. And I know that that sounds like a little bit perhaps mean, but like it's a little narcissistic to assume that everybody in the gym is concerned about what it is that you're doing.

Because in truth, like I've mentioned previously, most people are concerned with what they're doing. So try not, if you can, try pretty hard to avoid making assumptions about what it is other people are thinking or what it is that other people are judging you for, because that is an assumption. And I think one assumption that's safe to make is that most people in the gym are completely out to lunch focusing on their own stuff. And so we fear people's judgment and we make a lot of assumptions about how we should behave or what other people are thinking about how we're behaving that I don't think help. And so some bonus tips for you guys to help you manage your gym anxiety. Number one, get a program, a lifting partner, or a trainer. This will give you an additional layer of focus, something to be

focused on, whether it's focusing on executing your program, focusing on being a good workout partner and supporting your training partner, focusing on what it is that your trainer is trying to communicate to you. And all of these kind of give you an extra buffer and an extra layer of defense, if you will, against anxiety in the gym. If you feel like your anxiety is extremely, extremely common, it doesn't go away. It's constant. It peaks at the gym, but you have low levels of anxiety all day. I would strongly recommend working with a mental health professional. Anxiety is very common. It affects a lot of people here in America. I was reading recently as much as 20% of Americans have experienced anxiety within the last couple years. And to be honest, that number seems really low. But getting a mental health professional on your side so that you can get helpful tools,

everything that we talked about today is just a way of framing it, a way of looking at the gym, a way of potentially unpacking where a lot of these anxieties come from so that you guys might have some things that you can implement. But getting somebody on your team who can give you tools, who can help you work through some of the foundational elements of causalities, if you will, of your anxiety could be really, really helpful. Another tip that I have, and it's kind of a bonus tip, is reduce the amount of pre-workout you're taking. Anxiety and caffeine tend to be pretty closely correlated. So I think that it's important to acknowledge that if you're pounding back a ton of caffeine before going to the gym and you already deal with anxiety in the gym, you might be exacerbating that and you might

be expanding that anxiety's ability to really impact your workout because you're spiking your, you know, caffeine intake by two, three, 400 milligrams. And I know for me, from personal experience, caffeine is really, really closely tied to my levels of anxiety. And so do what you can to minimize that. Guys, before I let you go, I want to remind you that my new online coaching and fitness education company, Core Coaching Method, is live. You can go to corecoachingmethod.com, download free guides, read awesome blog articles, apply for in-person coaching, apply for online coaching, apply for Zoom coaching done directly from your home with a Core Coaching Method coach who's going to guide you and cue you through

the movements. We also have telehealth physical therapy designed specifically for lifters. Whether it's mobility that's keeping you from reaching your maximum potential in the gym or pain, core coaching method has everything you need there to help, including one-off macronutrient consultations, programming consultations, and even fitness business consultations for trainers or coaches who want to take their fitness business or social media presence to the next level. You'll also find my newest program, Female Physique 2, on corecoachingmethod.com. This is something that I am extremely proud of. It's a phenomenal 12-week program for women. It starts with a two-week movement prep phase,

a four-week strength phase, a four-week hypertrophy phase, followed by a final two-week high rep polishing phase that I quite enjoyed implementing with some of my in-person clients. So this thing is battle-tested and I think you will absolutely love it. Go on over to corecoachingmethod.com and check it out. Lastly, guys, if you wanna support the show,

do me a huge favor. Leave me a five-star rating and review it out. Lastly, guys, if you want to support the show, do me a huge favor. Leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes. It helps people find the show just like you found me here. However that was, whether it was on social media by sharing the story or in the actual podcast apps that you use, reviews make a huge difference, particularly if you are an iTunes listener. If not, a simple share to your story can make a huge difference. That will do it for today's episode, guys. Thanks so much for tuning in. Good luck battling your gym anxiety. I know it's not as simple as listening to a podcast, but remember, and I want to leave you with this, everybody belongs at the gym. We all have a right to the space there. We all have a right to want to improve.

And most people there are really good people with the same exact goal. So try not to let it permeate too much and get in the way of having an awesome workout. Thanks so much for listening and you guys have a good day.