I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot recently and what actually encouraged me to write about it was witnessing a woman running on the sidewalk with her dog only to abruptly stop to check her phone.
We are a very distracted species these days and unfortunately that doesn’t stop when it is time to hit the gym and get our physical fitness on! It is common to walk into a corporate gym and see the majority of people on their phones. A lot of times people are so tuned into their phones that they temporarily forget that their actually training. You could walk right by one of your best buddies and they might not even know it!
At Force, this is one thing that we eliminate. Distraction. We don’t not allow cell phones in the gym, but we definitely don’t allow them to be a distraction. Sometimes you might have a very important phone call that may in fact be more important than your training session, however, 99% of the time that is not the case. You may also have to do some calculations on your phone or take a look at your training schedule, but we trust people to not allow them to be a distraction for their training session. When you walk into the gym at Force Barbell you are there to train and that is it, all other baggage stays out of the gym. Cell phones aren’t the cause they are just the mechanism and it usually doesn’t stop with them.
It is important to note that just because you came in and finished your training session, sometimes, that isn’t good enough. You could finish a training session but if you aren’t mentally tuned into it, it could be a complete waste of time. Training is not the time to think about your kids, think about your work schedule that day, think about whats for dinner, or even think about how hard that training session might be. Training is the time to center yourself in the present moment and only think about the task at hand at that given second. Not the time to think about, “wow, I have to do ten more sets of this!” This is a mindset that is a hinderance to performance.
The act of being mindful of your training is very hard, but only because we live in a culture that is so distracted all the time and a culture that only further enforces distraction. It doesn’t matter what music is on in the gym, who is there, or what the temperature of the gym is. The only thing that matters is you and the barbell, or whatever you are doing at the time. It is perfectly fine to experience emotion at the gym and let those emotions out. With that being said, leave your drama at the door, leave your frustration about the car that cut you off in traffic on your way to the gym at the door, and leave the conversation with your girlfriend at the door. If it is THAT important finish whatever it is before you walk through the door.
When you walk through the door it is time to train, and have damned good time doing it. Be present to your training session and let go of all distractions. Be right here, right now, in the moment.