Why I Quit the Gym
A few years ago, I walked into a renewal of my mind and body I thought would not be available in my lifetime. The physiological odds were stacked against me to be healthy and strong enough to do everything I was made for. “I’m just not that kind of girl,” consumed my mind and mouth until it became my identity. But ten jumping jacks at a time, my mind, DNA, and whole identity changed. (Here’s the story about “Why I Joined the Gym”.)
I found my fit with strength training. I love bench pressing, squatting and dead lifting, but not for the sake of an amazing physique. I love commanding my body to get in line with what it was made for – discipline, strength and to be active and ready for anything God would call me to do.
Needless to say, finding a good gym was important to me when we moved to Cape Town. I’m often the only female in the weight room, and I had no idea how much that would impact me.
A year ago, I joined a small gym a mile from our house. I was lifting weights 4x/week and became a familiar face quickly… Because I was the only girl-face in the weight room. There was the guy who cleaned, the guy doing the same 5x5 program as me that always took his shoes off to lift, the guy who headphone-danced while he lifted, the guy who made secret videos of himself and sent loud voice messages between sets, the most adorable elderly man who would curl dumbbells and sweat buckets, and the guys who scream-talked about their favorite protein drinks. We all grew accustomed to seeing each other and exchanged polite smiles as we began workouts.
My persistence in the weight room eventually started drawing unwanted attention. The barefoot guy wanted to compare workouts and the headphone guy wanted to give accolades. I started working out with headphones in, sometimes with nothing playing from them, to send a signal of my unavailability.
Without even realizing it, I dropped my workouts to 3x/week, and then 2. The interactions in the weight room only increased. The cleaning guy started excessively vacuuming around me, smiling and telling me how strong I was. A few more eyebrows lifted every time I went. A few “gentlemen” started offering to help me load my weights on the bar, persisting even when I pretended I couldn’t hear.
When I came home from the gym, I would immediately unload the uncomfortable details of each male encounter to my husband. I just needed him to know. Working out seemed to be getting harder. My schedule seemed to have less room for it. My mind and body seemed unable to tolerate it. One day, a new guy came to offer his uninvited advice to me with his hand on the small of my back. I wanted to scream, but instead I froze- in a scowl, no doubt. Not long after that, I had the world’s worst gym session. I fell out of my squat. I hit the ground, overburdened in every way. Then I dropped a heavy bar on my own chest while I bench pressed and would stubbornly not allow anyone to help me. I rolled the bar down my body until I could sit up.
This wasn’t working anymore. I thought I was broken. I started to believe I had lost all the freedom, discipline and value I had worked so hard in the past few years. Lies and defeat consumed me. I am weak. I am not made to be great. I deserve this.
I threw darts of condemnation and disdain at myself while I lamented to my husband about my failures in the gym. But we’ve got this thing that we do. We help each other see when something stops working.
We have a thing that we do. (He's the best.)
Sounds very cutting edge, doesn’t it? It may not be the most inspirational idea on the Internet, but it has changed us. It’s a strength and guidepost we have written into our family - a series of choices made through many hard days. Together, we have practiced peeling back the failure, disappointment, rejection and anxieties from whatever issue we feel buried in, and say, “When something stops working, it’s God’s grace leading us to do something different.”
It seems obvious. But when the world starts closing around us, we often default to blaming ourselves or others. In the midst of breakdowns in ministry, housing, finances, relationships, schools, visas, and any anything else you could image, we have learned how to say, “Thank you, God”.
Thank You God that you love us enough to let things stop working for us. Thank you that You help us lose the grace for parts of our lives just so You can move us into greater freedom. That’s always Who You are. That’s always what You do.
I wallowed in my gym frustration for a while until my handsome husband helped me see that I was not a broken body. He suggested that, even in the gym, God could be moving me onto something else. I wasn’t broken. It just wasn’t working. “Do something differently,” he said. I met with the gym managers, told them my experience, and asked to be pardoned from my contract. They handled the conversation with extreme kindness and immediately excused me from membership without penalty. I called Chris after the meeting and burst into tears and laughter at the same time.
I didn’t know how oppressed I was. I discounted my experience because I thought about it only in the physical realm.
God was ushering me into freedom I didn’t know I needed when He allowed me to become disabled by oppression. Since then, I’ve found a new gym that I love. I am free to workout anytime and wherever I am in Cape Town, so I just keep a gym bag in the car and am unstoppable! And our insurance pays for most of it!
You can try... but you cannot imagine the levels of joy and shrieking when I found this happy place at the new, oceanside gym. I may or may not have sent Chris Ladd video footage.
When things get heavy and you just can’t stand up under the weight anymore, God might just be extending an extra gracious hand to move you into greater freedom. Take a moment today to evaluate what is not working in your life, and then do something different.
And say thank you to Your Father who lavishes and lifts grace as we go from strength to strength and glory to glory.