Gyms are weird places. They are air-conditioned boxes stacked with artificial weights which people pay to lift up and down to make their lives harder. If you described this to someone 200 years ago, they probably would have laughed.
Not only were their lives hard enough as they were, but even to the people who did train, they didn’t do so in these insulated environments using fixed axis machines and symmetrical dumbbells with handles morphed perfectly to the human hand. Instead, they would have had their bodies, some basic gymnastics equipment and a couple of heavy stones.
Modern gyms have made it incredibly easy to get in a decent workout. Some of the conventional machines all but remove the skill of executing a movement properly. When you are seated, locked into position and only moving weight in one predetermined direction, its really hard to get an exercise “wrong”.
This means that most have us have become fairly unimaginative when it comes to our training; we’ve all been caught scrolling Instagram for far too long between sets. We don’t focus or pay enough attention to our training and this reduces our ability to actually get anything meaningful from it.
This has been a forced change for me. I haven’t trained in a gym since being overseas. But I still have been training everyday. The fact that exercising isn’t as easy or convenient as it was when I was frequenting the gym has forced me to become creative.
Adaptation from training is a result of an appropriate workout stimulus. And an appropriate workout stimulus is the product of exercises performed with intention; focus; feeling.
Currently, 90% of my training involves body-weight exercises, like pull-ups, push-ups, dips and single leg squats. The other 10% uses random rocks and stones. I pay close attention to how I’m doing a movement to create a stimulus that feels hard in order to produce a strong enough signal.
If we want to adapt, and continue to progress our fitness, we need to do exercises that constantly challenge us. But without a gym, most of us have no idea how. And until recently, I was the same.
I’m learning that creativity and attention are essential in determining a workouts effectiveness: creativity to think outside the box in order to create a challenging stimulus with none of the conventional equipment at my disposal; and attention because I need to make sure that I am feeling the exercise in the way I intend.
I don’t need a gym with the machines and barbells and treadmills and kettle-bells to get in an amazing workout. And neither do you. You only need attention and creativity.
This article was published in the Sydney Observer’s June 2025 Edition
https://sydneyobserver.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Observer0725.pdf
CHANGE IS THE POINT 