Personal Narrative: My Gym Membership

We stopped at the closest Snap Fitness, hoping that no one would be there, but we had no such luck. We walked in barefoot, none of us daring to put our heels back on from the night before, walking through the people working to the back of the gym, hoping, once more, for showers. Instead we found a single sink. Making do we washed the makeup off of our faces as best we could, and repeated our barefoot walk through the gym. Getting back into the car, food became the next priority. There was a McDonald’s across the street and we pooled our money to get each of us breakfast sandwiches and parked in the Walmart parking lot and ate. We began cleaning up the car, clothes and shoes and jewelry and blankets back in bags. Then, once more, we sat. It

Our hearts pounding and stomachs filled with excitement and nerves as we step into Georgian Court University’s gym. The day has finally come The Shore Conference Championship for girl’s volleyball! The gym is huge nothing like we are used to, you could practically see yourself in the hardwood floors. We are the first team to arrive so we get a feel for the gym before anyone else gets there. Including ourselves there are four teams that will have the chance to play in the final to win The Shore Conference. The first game is the semi-finals our opponent is the team Barnegat. Barnegat is known for there tall middles who like to hit the short corners, so knowing this we had to make adjustments that we are not so familiar with.

Have you ever had a person in your life you never thought you could be friends with, but you ended up being best friends? Picking a point in my life that I know impacted my life in just one choice was easy. For me, Joining Cannon Falls Weightlifting team, was not only very enjoyable, but it gave me the opportunity to become friends with my now two best friends. So many questions to how in just ten months we went from strangers to best friends.

I am proud to be part of a community that supports each other, respects milestones, and strives for more accomplishments. The weightlifting community in Vancouver, British Columbia has been a vital part of my life for the past five years. Anyone can be a part of it if they have a passion for the sport and common goals. A weightlifter is supported when they ask for a spot or look for information online. They cheer you on as you seek a new personal best. When a weightlifter achieves a milestone in their weightlifting career, those around them recognize it. When I reached the milestone of being able to squat three hundred and fifty five pounds I was showered with encouragement and advice on how to improve even more. Weightlifters who are more

Everyone has something they’re talented at, and many people have to try multiple things before they find their talent(s) that they have. As a child, my parents like many others had me participate in multiple activities. For example, I took dance classes, played a great amount of sports, and was a participant in many plays. In my freshman year, I tried running track and field. During the course of it, I developed shin splints and I proceeded to go to the athletic trainer. The athletic trainer here, Todd Korabek, has a system that works for the whole program. New injuries will see an aide, and that aide will then write up a card for them which lists their name, sport, injury, and body part. The aide doesn’t write the injury because only the athletic trainer can diagnose. After the athletic trainer treats all old injuries, he evaluates the new injuries, which happened to be me at that moment. Watching the aides assist Mr. Korabek really inspired me and his profession intrigued me.

My first year of high school, I had experience with injured football players during my physical education class. We had a certified trainer who would come in and check them out. She was excellent and all of the football players and staff loved her. I was so interested in her work and later thought about making it my career goal. As time passed, I transferred schools. At my new school, there was an opportunity with two other girls to join the football team. One of my friends that I already knew before I changed schools. He introduced me to the girls and the helped me get involved. The job was to assist the athletic trainer and also help the football coach with any laundry, equipment, etc.

The first time I realized that I wanted to be an athletic trainer was during my eighth grade summer at camp. I was working on a project where I had to find careers that I was interested in. Doing this project helped me realize how many job choices there were, but only one intrigued me as much as this one. My choice to major in kinesiology was made clear during my freshman year after I job shadowed an athletic trainer at my local college and high school. High school has helped me realize who I am and what I want to become, and college will help me become that person.

After waiting three weeks, I was finally cleared to play basketball again only to suffer another one. I was out after receiving an elbow to the head in a previous game giving me my first concussion. Walking onto the court at Eden Valley High School, I could feel the nerves rush through my veins. The whistle blew and the game started. I was going up to grab a pass when an opponent ran into me. Black. In those moments I was unconscious, I could only remember colliding with my opponent. I woke up in a car, my head aching as I sat up and saw bright beams of light off the street lights. The light stung my eyes and made me feel like the world was spinning a million miles per hour. “Stay awake sweetie we are almost home,” whispered my mom. Every heartbeat thumped in my head like a bass with the music to loud. I was so discombobulated and hurt I just laid there in the back seat

There is one place where I go to when I have any problems. Stress leaves my body when I’m here. It’s also a place where I can go to make myself stronger, faster and better at sports. It allows me to get stronger and live a healthy lifestyle. This wonderful place of meeting my goals is the weight room.

I was stoned the first time I went to a gym. I came in with some friends and we were all non-stop laughing. Everyone must have thought we were crazy. The first thing we did was go to the locker room to change out; we felt like we needed to calm down. We still couldn't take each other serious, so we decided to start working out. We started out with biceps, doing simple curls. Well, not so simple since every time we curled up a weight, we would act like Goku going super saiyin from “Dragon Ball Z.”

I will never forget the day that I abandoned my trophies. They formerly stood, luminous yet dust covered on the highest shelf in my room, tall and proud, unlike my contempt. Gilded basketballs no longer rounded, resembled deflated balloons. As I ripped them off their ledge, lint covered my hands, reminding me of wiping my shoes off every chance I could on the court. But, that life was long gone, and it didn’t have the power to affect my future anymore.

It all started on June 2014, I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I was underweight and was always out of breath. I ran like a turtle. At that time, I weighed only 115 pounds. I wanted to make a change for the better, wanting a better lifestyle. So I decided to sign up for the gym. That day changed my life forever. The gym made me fit, healthier, but most importantly it made me a better person which is who I am today.

Throughout the year in blended guided fitness my level of fitness did not change drastically because of my continued commitment to swimming. In terms of all my fitness testing throughout the year, beginning with the sit ups i showed a significant improvement, with a base line of thirty-two and ended the year with eighty sit-ups. I think the major reasoning for this improvement is dry land work that I participated in during my high school swim season, which focused on abdominal strength and building muscular endurance. The next fitness test I had was the push up test, my baseline for pushups in September was 10 push ups. My score increased to 12. Although it was not as much of a drastic improvement as my sit-ups, I still think it reflected

I began to slack off on my exercising, being that I could already lift a great deal more than any of my friends, not to mention I had gained an additional five pounds bringing my total weight gain to twenty pounds. Adding even more difficultly to maintaining my exercise routine, I took on a career as a traveling salesman, requiring me work long days and living out of hotels most of the year. I also continued in poor eating, abuse alcohol, and sleep for only a few hours a night. Over the next two years of irregular and undedicated exercise, I had lost ten pounds and nearly all my strength. I began to notice my life style had suddenly taking a toll on my overall health, sending me to the emergency room on several occasions. I soon realized that I needed to make a change in my life style or it was going to destroy me. I again turned to exercise for the answers I needed to make the change. I had heard many times before, while talking to other people who worked out, that it is very important to eat healthy, get enough sleep, and avoid alcohol if I wanted to see results from exercising. I was always quick to brush off advice like this, because I seemed to be making progress without following such strict rules, but I knew now that I need to make a change. I set out to achieve a healthy life style and began to use exercise as a source of

In today’s busy world, it can be hard to find the time to even think about one’s fitness, let alone actually do anything to maintain it. The average person has school, work, family, pets, and many more distractions in their life to ensure their fitness is left on the backburner. However, when the thought of exercise does eventually enter their mind, the thought that often comes forefront is that of the gym. The concept of a gym is simple, populate a building with the necessary equipment for a variety of physical activities, attracting people who want to get that perfect body or even just get back in shape. However, many people who have never frequented a gym often come up with a plethora of reasons not to go.