For those ladies (and guys) afraid of the weight area

Until last night, I was one of you.

About 6 months ago, I decided I wanted to get on the lifting bandwagon after seeing some awesome results here on MFP. I belong to a Planet Fitness and there are no barbells. They have dumbbells up to 75lbs/34kg, 2 racks of fixed barbells going up to (I think) 100lb/45kg, 3 Smith machines, and a plethora of other weight machines and cardio equipment. There is also a smaller room off to the side that has pink mats on the floor, and that is where they keep the very light dumbbells. That is where I have seen most of the women using the (very light) weights. And, of course, there are always tons of "bros" out in the main weight area using the heavier dumbbells/fixed barbells and taking videos of each other lifting heavy on the Smith machine.

I spent the past few months reading and watching videos on exercises and form, knowing I'm basically limited to dumbbells for the time being (I will not use the Smith machine). I practiced without weights at home to make sure I felt comfortable with the movements (and mostly so I wouldn't fall backwards at the gym while trying to squat...) Once I felt more comfortable with the movements, I wanted to find a decent full-body dumbbell-only lifting plan because I would find it easier to follow a plan than to find my own way at this time. This was actually harder than it sounds... or maybe I just made it really difficult. Either way, I finally settled on this plan from muscleandstrength.com.

I finally decided it was time to go to the gym and give it a shot. I guess I wasn't as confident as I thought I was. I would go to the gym, hop on a treadmill to get warmed up, look longingly at weight area the entire time, and then chicken out and either just run or hit some of the weight machines. I never saw a single woman pick up a weight (save for the aforementioned room with pink mats and 2-5lb dumbbells).

This brings us to last night. I decided enough is enough and I was going to suck it up and do this. I went later than normal in the hopes that it would be less crowded (it wasn't). I hopped on one of those stair machines to get my blood flowing. After about 5 minutes, I started to feel myself chickening out again. I went into the locker room to calm down and look at my list of exercises again. I felt a little better after trying to memorize the list. This was my moment. I walked out of the locker room and made a bee-line to the weights. I picked up 10lb dumbbells (started light only because I knew my stabilizers had never been worked on all those machines), and just did my thing. No one bothered me. Nothing terrible happened. I had no idea why this seemed so scary before. The only time anyone spoke to me was when one of the guys asked if I was using an empty bench I was doing my dumbbell curls next to (not a ton of space). I was now just one of them.

And then there was the bonus moment. Another woman walked in towards the end of my workout. She did not smile or speak to anyone. She looked at me, nodded, and picked up two 75lb dumbbells like they were nothing and proceeded to bench them. I said a silent "you go girl" and carried on with my workout.