Reintroducing Fitness Into my Life with Form 50 Fitness
This month makes 4 months since I started working out at Form 50. It also made 4 months of me consistently working out since the pandemic started.
My fitness journey in the pandemic started like most of ours. I brought equipment to workout from home and created my own routine. I also started running to keep up with the cardio progress I made before the pandemic. But I hated running outdoors, and I hated working out from home just as much as I hated running. Over time my discipline and motivation to keep up my routine fell.
At the beginning of the year I decided I was ready to reintroduce working out back into my routine. This journey was way harder than I thought it would be. The hardest part of getting back into a workout for me was discipline. The last 9 months of my life had no sense of discipline or structure making simple tasks like working out consistently seem like a tall mountain to climb.
The gym was my first step to starting exercise and didn’t go as planned. Being back in the gym was overwhelming, a feeling I never associated with the gym or fitness before. I didn’t have the same stamina I had before the pandemic and I was overwhelmed by the amount of options now available to me. It was too much too fast. Because I was so overwhelmed I didn’t know how to spend my time at the gym. I would do one machine and waste over 30 minutes trying to figure out what I should be doing next, causing me to leave even more overwhelmed and defeated than whenI walked in.
I needed help. I needed guidance. I needed support. And the gym didn’t have it.
Over the summer I decided to restart this journey with workout classes to find the support I needed to complete a workout for longer than 30 minutes and bring structure back to my workouts.
My first class was a yoga class. Although this wasn’t the long term workout for me, it definitely was the restart I needed. That class challenged me in ways I hadn’t been challenged the entire pandemic. It allowed me to reconnect my mind and body while working out. I was finally feeling engagement in my abs while working. This was all because of the guidance of an instructor that I couldn’t figure out by myself.
So what brought me to form 50?
I missed the pain. I missed the burn I felt from my high intensity workouts before the pandemic. I wanted a workout that would challenge me and felt me feel like myself mentally and physically again.
Form 50 was originally supposed to be one of many different workout classes in NYC I was going to try. I knew it was like Pilates which is something new I wanted to try, but was also more intense than traditional Pilates which intrigued me enough to sign up. I figured a Pilates inspired class would be intense enough to feel a burn and slow enough for me to be able to keep up.
My first class showed I truly had no idea what I was walking into. THIS. CLASS. WAS. HARD. Within the first 10 minutes I wanted to quit. My abs were on fire, my arms were being pushed to their absolute limit and MY POOR LEGS! The second best decision I made for my body this year was staying and completing the class, the first was signing up.
After 50 minutes I burned almost 500 calories, completely sweated out my clothes, and gave my abs the beating of a lifetime. I hadn’t had a workout like this in over a year. This was exactly what I was looking for.
I knew i was more than capable of compelling an intense workout. I had done it hundreds of times before the pandemic. But like most things in my life now, that’s who I was BEFORE. Post pandemic me needs help when it comes to structure and routine and that’s okay.
Right now Form 50 gives me exactly what I need to be successful fitness wise.
It’s a structured class led by a trainer. Meaning I don’t have the overwhelming feeling trying to decide what to do for a workout
It’s only 12 people per class allowing me to feel more open to being vulnerable knowing there’s less people around
I have a coach pushing me to be my best for 50 minutes straight, giving me the confidence i need to complete the workout and the excitement to come back again and again
We all have had interesting journeys with our bodies this year. Ive accepted the fact that my lifestyle is not the same as it was before the pandemic started, meaning my body will not be what it was before the pandemic. But I’ve also learned that I can workout for fun and for my health. I now can see the slow progress of my body becoming what I truly remember it being: strong, healthy, and more than capable.
The past 4 months have been the shift I needed in my workout life. I have been able to find a workout routine I love that isn’t a traditional gym. Ive been able to find the motivation and confidence I need to bring fitness back into my life without the pressure to look like who I was before the pandemic. Ive been able to see significant changes in my body from working out and have the joy of knowing these changes didn’t come from workouts I found stressful and miserable.