Well, let's answer that as yet un-asked question.
I'm a skinny guy who, until recently, thought Jim was just a slightly old fashioned name. (That would have worked better as a spoken joke. Never mind.)
I'd signed up for a gym some time last year, but only visited it occasionally and lacked any real motivation to keep it up. Not even the £30 leaving my account each month was enough to convince me it was worth it.
So, in short, I haven't written much about going to the gym before because I'd rarely been to the gym before. Obvious, really.
However, since January all of that has changed. This skinny guy has been going to the gym 4 times a week. He's been making wholesale changes to his diet and generally trying to look after himself a bit more. He's been lifting heavier things, eating bigger meals and looking worse in his skinny jeans. Now feels like a good time to tell you all about it, because I'm far better at words than I am at working out. It's a lot less sweaty.
Now, this isn't going to be one of those Metro style stories about a man who stopped drinking and eating shit and now looks amazing, because like hell have I stopped drinking and I didn't eat that much shit anyway. Also, I don't look amazing; I just look slightly less gaunt than before. Result. Actually this will pretty much be the opposite of a Metro story. Instead of 'Fat man loses weight, looks great, makes ex sorry she left him,' this will be more 'Skinny man gains a stone, looks alright in the right light, makes sarcastic observations about the experience.'
Let's go!
The 10 things a skinny guy has learnt about the gym.
1. You don't even look like you lift, bro.
It can be an incredibly daunting thing, walking into the weights room of a gym for the first time when you're a 10 stone, 6ft 1" guy with arms like an octopus. Everyone else in there looks like they know what they're doing, like they've been doing it for a while and like they could, if they so desired, use you as a weight alternative.
You walk in and feel straight away like you don't belong. Your arms don't look good in a t-shirt, your legs don't look good in shorts and your fringe doesn't really look good anywhere.
But I didn't go into the gym without an idea; I went in with a plan. I knew I wanted to gain a bit of weight, so I asked a man with 'staff' on his shirt if he could help me do that. He wrote me a week's worth of exercises, booked me in for a couple of training sessions and made me feel less like I didn't belong and more like I did belong at a designated time the next day. After those two sessions were done I at least had a clue how to do things, and I definitely had the motivation to do it more.
I don't look like I lift, bro, but I'll soon look like I'm struggling at giving it a go.
2. Everyone knows more than you.
No matter what you were told to do by the trained instructor, everyone else knows better. Whether it's just watching people do stuff or you've actually gone with someone else (which helps. Weights get heavy.) you'll soon find that you're doing everything wrong.
"No mate, you don't do it like that. Here, do it like this, it hurts more that way." I went with a mate from work a couple of times and he worked me that hard that I couldn't open doors for the rest of the day. He did know more than me.
On the flip side of that is the people who think they know more, but are actually just using gym sounding words. I don't listen to them, I just watch them as I get my breath back.
3. Grunting isn't sexy.
"I am man. Hear me roar, or squeal slightly as I lift this heavy object."
I never knew a man's voice could get so high, but having witnessed a guy who was, admittedly, pretty ripped, scream as he raised a dumbbell above his head, I have been educated. Is laughing at them a gym faux pas? I did it anyway.
4. Men will do anything for dat ass.
I'm pretty sure a good number of men only go to the gym to see girls in tight gym shorts. I'm also pretty sure a good number of girls only wear those tight gym shorts because they quite like the attention. What I know for definite is that when one of those girls walks in, those men instinctively add extra weights to the bar and make louder noises as they lift it. They also do a lot more posing and a great deal more flexing, all while the girl starts doing squats right next to them, making them lose all power completely.
Ah, nature.
5. It's better to lift little than get crushed under a lot.
One of the first things I was told is that it's better to do a lot of reps with a light weight than it is to do a few with a heavier one. While you might look daft towards the end of those reps when someone walks in and sees you struggling underneath an empty bar, you don't look half as daft as the guy struggling to get out from underneath a full one. Did I learn that lesson the hard way?
No, not at all.
6. Gym friends are useful.
I seem to have befriended the guys in the changing room. I see them every day when I go and, despite not knowing any of them by name, we all have each other's backs. If they're stressed about work, I listen to them rant. If I've forgotten my pound for the locker, they lend me one. It's mutually beneficial and not at all as homoerotic as it sounded in the first sentence of this paragraph.
7. Addictions are real and dangerous.
Tea. I love a good cup of tea. I might even love tea too much, but I ain't ever gonna quit. I might make a cup now. But who knew I could feel the same way about working out? Not me, and not anyone who's ever known me. Flouncy, bouncy Ash in his skinny jeans and over-sized t-shirt, just being all quirky and not being able to carry boxes.
Well screw flouncy Ash, because current Ash feels awful if he ever misses a day. I go 4 times a week on my lunch break, and if for any reason I have to miss one it plays havoc with my conscience. I find myself looking in the mirror at night and thinking all the hard work hasn't been worth it. I doubt that I'll ever be able to look as good as I'd imagined. I use heavier pots and pans to cook my dinner in the hope it will do some good.
Exercise releases endorphins, and when I don't get my fix, Ash mad,
8. I'm hungry.
One of the big challenges I face in my quest to be a little bit bigger is my appetite. It's historically been quite small, and it really needed to grow if I was to do the same. Fortunately it all forms part of quite a nice circle. The more I work out, the more I want to eat. The more I eat, the more I can work out. Obviously it has to be the right food which I'm still mainly guessing about (protein and stuff, yeah?) but my hunger has got so much bigger that I'm starting to think I might be a danger to small animals.
9. It's nice when people ask if you've been working out.
Well yes, actually I have, and I totally was not wearing this tight fitting shirt in the hope that you would notice.
10. It's even nicer to know that you're trying.
To sum up, I know I'm never going to be massive, and I never really want to be. Guys, you look weird and you take up too much space on public transport. But it's not about being big; it's about being healthy. I've always struggled to put weight on ever since I stopped being a chubby toddler, so that feeling when I saw the scales tick over to a full 11 stone was one of sheer pride. The kind of pride I normally only reserve for when a line I've written gets published.
Trying is more fun than the idea of getting there. Setting goals and working towards them is incredibly rewarding if you do it right.
Really, I just love a challenge. If someone tells me I can't do something, I want to do it even more.
More often than not, that doubting voice is my own.
Let's silence it with POWER. HUH. I AM MAN. HEAR ME GASP FOR AIR.