Happy crying after her first session

A woman in my CommFit class admitted she went home and cried after her first session.

She hadn’t done any regular exercise in years. Kids and work and life just filling every gap. The usual reasons we all recognise.

That first session, I could see it. The hesitation. The discomfort of putting herself out there in a field full of people she didn’t know.

But she stayed, did the full hour and tried everything I threw at her.

The next week, while we were warming up, I got a couple of minutes with her. That’s when she told me about the crying.

So I asked why.

It was two things.

First, she’d realised she was more capable than she’d been telling herself for years.

And second, and this is the one that got me, she was proud. Properly proud. She’d done something that scared her and she’d stuck with it.

I’ll be honest, I welled up a bit too.

She hasn’t missed a class since. Every week she looks a little stronger and a little more sure of herself.

And here’s what I keep coming back to.

The person with the most to gain in that field isn’t the fittest one. It’s her.

She’s going from nothing to something. That’s the biggest jump there is, and she’s the one making it.

I think a lot of you reading this will quietly recognise the feeling she had walking in.

You’re good at many things. You’re used to being competent, to being the person who knows what they’re doing. So starting something you’re bad at, in front of other people, feels exposing.

That discomfort is the price of admission. And the returns on the other side of it are bigger than they are for almost anyone else in the class.

You don’t need to have gone home and cried to start. You just need to walk in once. Whether that’s my Wednesday night Community Fitness class, a gym you’ve been avoiding, or approaching a coach for help.

She’ll still tell you she’s not a fit person. She’s wrong. She became one the moment she decided to stay.

A quote worth sitting with

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

— Arthur Ashe

She didn’t wait until she felt ready or fit enough. She just started, exactly where she was.

The Saturday Standard

Don’t Put It Down

Grab one kettlebell and hold it for the whole thing.

The catch: every time the weight touches the floor, that’s 10 burpees before you’re allowed to pick it back up.

Pick a weight your push press can handle: 24kg for most men, 16kg for most women; lighter if you’re newer and want to finish.

This isn’t testing your fitness. It’s testing whether you’ll stay with the discomfort instead of setting the weight down to buy yourself a rest. Pick a weight you can actually hold, then hold it.

What’s happening with me

A bit of news from my end. We’ve taken our house off the market and we’re staying put in Whickham.

Feels like the right call for the family and it allows me to put everything into scaling this business properly.

So if you’ve been sitting on the idea of starting, whether that’s the Wednesday night class, 1:1 PT or online coaching, this is me saying the door’s open. Come and have a go.