By Kennedy Coyle

With enough dedication, you, too, will get the kind of shoulders that distract the girls in the back of the classroom. 


It's like an addiction. Hours spent in the crowded weight room, the smell of bodies and disinfectant bottles they give people for the benches that no one touches — not anymore: it’s intoxicating. The protein powder I choke down is dulled only by the lukewarm water in my shaker bottle. There's a kind of alluring promise there, across from a guy whose shoulders are bigger than my head. The whirr of the fan in the weight room seems to whisper that enough dedication, consistency, and you’ll be strong. No, not strong. Hot.

I’m no athlete, I know. I’m not really training for anything.

That’s what we do it for, right? Who cares if I can’t do a push-up or touch my toes. Once I hit 30 pounds on the bicep curl, all my problems will disappear like dust in the wind. My knees ache for days after three sets of squats, but pain is just weakness leaving the body. I once saw that on some guy’s Gymshark shirt.

My body should act as proof of my dedication. Toned thighs and bulging muscle, washboard abs–your own body proves that you’re hard working, respectable, fit, sexy. Beauty takes strength’s hand and proclaims to the world that this person is someone to look up to. They can do the things you can’t. They could eat you for lunch. If you don’t want The Look, what are you doing it for?

The girl doing farmer’s carries up and down the weight room has definition in her forearms I can only dream of.

God, doesn’t it just make you miserable? Three years of dedication and you think I’d see some progress by now.

I ought to up my macros. Maybe two scoops of protein powder this time, if I can stomach it.

I choke it down and barely gag.

Two days a week turn into four, then five. Soon enough, the gym is my second home. It’s my own personal panopticon. When you first start going to the gym, your trainer insists that no one’s watching you —they’re all focused on themselves!

But I open my Instagram feed to girls in pink Lululemon sets laughing about the view from their Stairmaster watchtowers and want to curl into myself all over again. Anyone could be watching. Sure, bad form may injure me.  Worse, even, it might embarrass me.

Eventually, I start to forget. Sometimes, I even like their eyes on me, wondering as I stare in the mirror to watch the form of my lunges if the girl behind me is looking at the outline of my deltoids press against my skin, if the guy to my left was watching the way my quads had just started to gain some definition.

I start to plan my weeks around it. I hit arms on Monday, legs on Tuesday… When can I squeeze in some cardio? Maybe if I skip class on Thursday. I’m up early on Sunday mornings for my very own Church of the Divine Body: an empty weight room. My routine in my notes app is my bible, the Nu Metal blaring over my headphones are my hymns. I start all over again on Monday. I don’t look forward to it anymore, but I have to go.

Progress. It’s all about progress.

My knees ache, my hamstrings are so sore they feel like they’ll snap with every step, and the second they recover I turn right back around and make them sore again. It hurts. My whole body hurts. I catch myself leaving the locker room trembling, more stressed than I came in. Something’s wrong. This wasn’t how it used to feel. I try, but can barely remember a time when I enjoy it anymore.

On Tuesday, I skip leg day. Then I skip arms. On Saturday, I barely leave my dorm room. Monday, I muster up the confidence to pull on my bike shorts again.

Dread begins to follow me into the locker room.

What am I training for?

When I’m finished and panting, sweat beading down my forehead, I don’t feel energized. I don’t feel any better than I did when I left my room. Dread still lays in lead piles in my stomach. I realize that this is it. I can’t do it anymore. Oh, God, I’m exhausted. Six days a week and I still don’t have the Look. Maybe I never will. I don’t want to be here, I realize, and set down the hand towel I’d picked up. I can’t do it anymore.

I don’t see the inside of the gym for the next two weeks, maybe three. When I do crawl back, I do so slowly, nails against pavement, with closed eyes and deep breaths. This is for me, I tell myself. I’m trying again, for me.

I want it to feel good again. It doesn’t at first. The weight room is the same as ever, and it feels like nothing’s changed. I sit down on a bench and close my eyes, take a deep breath. I want to feel alive again, to feel my body. To push it to its limits, take a break, then to do it all over again. I want the burn that comes with a good set of squats. I start slowly and keep my eyes off my reflection, only glancing up to check my form. A tall order in a room full of mirrors, but I manage.

It’s not a bad habit. Far from it. Eventually, when it becomes just another part of my routine, I look forward to an hour of real motion in between the long hours of sitting in lecture halls. I feel home in my body then, the burn in my core, my legs, my arms reminding me that I’m not a brain swimming in formaldehyde. Flesh, blood, sinew, tissue, every interlocking part that makes up my physical form. I’m alive. I start to get to know my body, and listen to what she tells me. She’s not half bad.

It takes me a long time to find what I need. I step on the treadmill no longer to watch the little meter counting my calories to rise, but to feel my heart rate quicken, my lungs expand and contract, pulling frigid air into my chest. Endorphins, serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine flood my brain, chasing cortisol from my synapses. My pounding heart pierces through my stress and I feel like I can think for the first time in weeks. When I stop and my heart rate slows, I’m calmer than ever. Ready. Eager to take on what’s been plaguing my Canvas page for a week now.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better. It takes slow deliberation and careful reminders. Jealousy is natural, but I now only succumb to it occasionally. Eyes to yourself, kid.

Reminding myself that I’m alive–by sitting myself inside my body rather than above her– is a painful process, but worth it. It’s too easy to take your body for granted and fall into the same everyday rhythms. I’ve got to be careful, lest I fall into that age-old trap of imitation. When you start to imitate, to copy every fitness routine you see in hopes of achieving The Look, you become deaf to your body’s own cries.

Maybe I’ll never have forearms like the girl I stare longingly at in the weight room. Mine aren’t as strong, but I’m up another five pounds on my bicep curl. I will be healthy, be fit, but I know I can never ignore her. She’s speaking to me for a reason. ■