6 Tips For Every Gym Newbie to Not Look Like an Idiot

Welcome to the first month of the year, the worst time of the year for knowing what the hell I’m doing in the gym and giving a real crap about fitness. Why? Because right now, every single weight room has been flooded by all you clueless newbies with New Year’s resolutions.

I know you guys have good intentions: You’re on little two

-week journeys to look like Dwayne Johnson or get abs of steel or reclaim your high school bodies. But you haven't had focus for fitness in years, and now you’re bringing that trash to the gym, along with the fitness tracker your cousin got for Christmas. And you have no clue how to hit those goals.

Here’s a start: No gym regular actually cares how many steps you’ve walked today, or how many fitness tracker achievements you’ve scored, because fitness is not a video game. Yet here you are in my gym practically playing one, which is why the biggest weight you’ve picked up so far is your 6.14-ounce iPhone X.

Look, I know you’re a newbie. And deep down, I’m cool with it. Way back when (I’m lying, but it’s for a good cause: You), I was too. But I was a good newbie who followed the rules of the gym. You should too.

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1

LOSE. THE. PHONE.

I can’t tell you this enough, because it’s setting you back, and it’s in my damn way. Leave it in your locker, or in your car, or in your dog’s mouth, or, really, anywhere but the gym floor. Have a web workout you want to bring to the gym? Print it out and bring it with you on real paper. No, a few sheets won't destroy an entire rainforest.

When you bring your phone to the gym floor, it’s an instant distraction, keeping you from focusing. When you’re not focused in the gym, you’re in somebody else’s way. Gyms are tight with equipment, and the last thing we need is a human obstacle texting or surfing the web.

You’re undercutting your own workout and making a public ass of yourself all at once. And then you dare put your phone where I could be training? Newsflash: An empty bench is not a freaking wireless charging dock.

(Newsflash No. 2: Walking on a treadmill and talking to your BFF back home on the cell isn’t a workout that’s going to get your body the way you want it to be. Really, all you’re doing is walking and talking without actually going anywhere. If that’s your workout, walk out the door and don't come back.)