The coronavirus has exposed one of my big insecurities, and I'm left to deal with it

It's a beautiful Saturday morning.  I'm inside, and most likely will stay inside for the rest of this day because of coronavirus. 

I've felt a little sick since I think like 2 days ago.  I'm not sure it's coronavirus, but I'm also not not sure it is.  Symptoms actually seem to match, I've just been feeling woozy, maybe a little fever but nothing major, and I've coughed like 10 times over the course of 3 days.  So maybe it matches a little bit. 

Either way, I had to miss a lot of gym time because of it.  I was supposed to go do leg day yesterday, and cardio today.  Yesterday I really didn't feel like I could do a workout, especially something as taxing as my Friday deadlift/ beltless squat day.  So I didn't go and I slept all day, hoping I would feel better by today so that I could just do deadlifts today.  But I woke up, and I felt better, but something was off.  I decided to stay home and just do home leg exercises instead, which was actually a lot more effective than I thought it would be.  But it was really hard to not go to the gym today, especially since I felt fine enough to go do the workout.  I only refrained from going out of respect for the elderly and those who weren't sick yet.  Did my not going to the gym have a huge effect on the number of people who got sick?  I sure hope it really did, because I really wanted to go to the gym. 

But I wanted to talk about this insecurity I have over not working out, or having to skip workout days, not being able to workout the way I want to.  I have this voice in my head telling me, if I miss even one workout, I'll get weak as hell, and I'll have to work back up to where I am right now.  And that may be in more than a week.  You'll suffer greatly for having missed a workout.  That's what I hear. 

It especially sucks since I'm at the point where I won't be seeing great consistent gains all the time.  At least I don't think I will, maybe I can surprise myself.  But the point is, I probably will see a lot of uncertainty in the future.  My job, my working hours, my other commitments, the gym closing, disease spreading, natural disasters.  Sometimes I can't take it, like, why can't gains come more easily?  Why do I always feel like one small slip-up will lead to a disastrous downfall? 

It's also because I get so much information about people who are stronger than me.  I watch YouTube and I see Zack Telander and Clarence Kennedy, Juji and Tom, they're all deadlifting more than my max for reps.  I looked at Twitter to see if my gym chain was looking to close operations temporarily anytime soon, but all I saw were people posting their lifts, they're all stronger than me.  I stopped watching all these videos since I knew I'd be triggered.  I guess that's a good step. 

I know that I get triggered by inferiority pretty easily, and that videos online are the easiest way I trigger myself.  I also know that I really only have to compare myself to myself.  I can't really compare to anyone else.  I gotta look at myself from 2 months ago, go from there.  I've learned a lot, I've been through a lot.  I've had fun.  I've learned patience.  I've learned critical thinking. 

And when I look at it that way, I'm growing even in this situation where I feel like I'm getting weaker.  I was big enough to say, I'll stay home and not risk getting other people sick.  I feel like that's a big jump from just a few months ago.  I want to keep reminding myself that I'll compare myself to my past self.  And just keep doing what I'm doing. 

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