Gym Tales: I'm Afraid of The Gym

The gym door is a glass-toothed predator.

Outside, the world is soft; inside, the air is a thick, humid soup of iron.

You approach its mouth…

Hand twitching as you press the entrance card against its red-nosed sensor.

The screech of a mechanical taunt pierces your eardrums, its fanged doors slowly open, and suddenly, you’re pulled into the belly of the beast.

A gulf of heat hits you first.

Then, the salt-sour stench of a thousand lungs follows.

To the left, monstrous groans rip through the air.

To the right, steel plates crash like falling guillotine blades.

You are a peeled prawn in a pressurised tin of sweat-slicked bodies.

You are the "Other." The outsider.

A glitch in their system, a mistake that shouldn’t be there.

You wait for the red-faced gods to turn.

Surely they’ll smell the fear on the skin of this out-of-place alien?

But then, the metamorphosis begins.

Weights clash as you move, strain, and groan.

Your own blood rushes to the surface, dyeing your skin that same frantic crimson.

The "Other" dissolves. You now blend in.

You realise how the hive works: every red-faced alien is trapped in a private war with their own self-consciousness.

They aren’t judges, but viewers of a movie in which they are the main character.

The beast isn’t eating you; it’s just a room full of people too busy drowning in their own reflection to notice you’re finally learning how to swim.

So keep moving.

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About The Author

Coach Alan is a qualified ITEC Level 3 Personal Trainer with over 9 years of coaching experience, and the founder of Mind Body Training, where he works as an online personal trainer in Ireland to help clients achieve sustainable fat loss and long-term behaviour change. He is also a qualified Integrative Psychotherapist, having completed his four-year training with the Irish Institute of Counselling and Psychotherapy (IICP). His coaching approach is informed by evidence-based principles from psychology, nutrition, and exercise science, with a strong focus on mindful habit formation and realistic lifestyle change. You can learn more about Coach Alan here.

Mind Body Training provides coaching, education, and personal training services, not personal therapy or clinical counselling. Clients seeking therapeutic support are encouraged to work alongside a different qualified mental health professional where appropriate.