On comparison (at the gym)

Is it normal to surreptitiously check out your treadmill neighbor’s speed when you’re at the gym? Does everybody do it, or is it just me?

I started going to the gym this month. It’s at my local community center, so the facilities aren’t super fancy, but it has the necessities: machines, free weights, two sad yoga mats, and most importantly, air conditioning! The gym regulars are also quite different from the patrons at a typical private gym. I’d estimate the median age to be 60. Most mornings, I am, if not the youngest, definitely one of the youngest of the crowd.

It’s a nice change of pace to work out with near zero feelings of gymtimidation. By virtue of my being two generations removed from everyone else, I am free from comparing my body, my fitness, my effort to those around me.

Or so I thought until I caught myself automatically checking out how fast my neighbors were walking on the treadmill. My elderly, senior citizen neighbors. Who have forty years on me. I had to laugh and shake my head at the absurdity. Comparison is so ingrained in me, clearly it’s a hard habit to break.

But maybe I’m not alone. The other day I was getting my reps in on the lying leg curl machine when I heard a voice over from the leg extension machine: “How do you work out so well?”

“Sorry?” I asked.

The grandma on my other side at the leg press chimed in before the first could clarify. “It’s because she’s so young. She’s not the same as you, who’s over 80 years old.”

Nonplussed, the first, over 80 grandma continued. “Look, she can do two (weight plates) when I can’t even do one.”

After I finished my sets, I untangled myself from my awkward, prone position and told the first grandma I thought it was admirable how diligently she worked out. She’s literally always there when I arrive, and still working out when I leave. Slowly but surely I see her go through all of the machines. I’m pretty sure she does over 100 crunches at the padded mat with the bar to hook your ankles under (what is that called?)

Anyway, I don’t actually think the first grandma was comparing herself to me. But I do recognize that I subconsciously check out others’ treadmill speeds because I feel I should be walking more briskly than my elders. Which is silly. But also still an automatic response.

Anyway, all that to say, I’m trying not to compare myself as I restart my fitness journey. It’s been three weeks since I started going to the gym and I’ve only missed one day so far (excluding weekends as the center is closed). I’d say that’s pretty commendable. To echo the words I overheard from another grandma, “My goal is just to show up every day.”