Mirror mirror go away (or at least while I’m doing squats)

What do you think? Mirrors. Do we need them or are they just causing us to worry way too much about how we look?

Today I realised how great the world just might be if we ditched them. Or at least, in gyms.

I can’t even remember which fairy tale it was now, but there is certainly something reminiscent in this idea of the one where the main character looks into the pond, sees her reflection for the first time and suddenly becomes acutely self aware of her appearance.

Today, I did a workout during lunch time. It was in a gym studio that is surrounded by mirrors. I’ve been in there many times before but as it was quite a packed class, I stationed myself in the only space available — which just so happened to be a corner where both walls were mirrors.

As the workout kicked off I realised not only was I getting a near 360 view of myself, but that both mirrors had slight bends to them. One making me look slightly rounder, the other slightly slimmer.

During the course of the 45 minute session, I became quite distracted by the effects that these two mirrors had.

For example, when I was doing burpees I saw myself in the slimmer mirror and felt a lot more positive. My form looked good and, while I know it was an optical illusion, it seemed like I was jumping higher. However, when I was doing lunge jumps, which required me to turn on my side and confront the tubbier reflection, I felt somewhat demotivated. I even felt like my technique shifted in an attempt to look a little bit leaner. I also started thinking about what a ‘light’ lunch would be.

Later on this afternoon as I was walking down Oxford Street. I noticed again that owing to the different make up of certain glass windows that my, and everyone else’s reflections were slightly warped versions of reality. And, just as in the gym, the effect of seeing my reflection caused me to change something about my posture or expression.

Having experienced the effect of physical self awareness today, I’ve since been trying to imagine a world without mirrors. It has made me wonder if sans reflections I’d have ended up concentrating a lot more on the workout than (what may read as) an exploration of my own vanity. I imagine the primary reason for mirrors in gyms is for the purposes of making studios look bigger and for technique correction, however, they certainly have an odd effect on the psychological levers too.

While my opening statement was a bit sensationalist (I mean, we need a little bit of mirror in our lives) I think there’s some validity to having some time apart from our own reflections. There’s a lot of pressure to look a certain way and the impact this can have on our mood or motivation is quite extraordinary. When it comes to task orientated activities, surely a break from physical distractors would be a good thing as a means of maintaining focus?

I’ll mark this post as a starter thought and kick it about with some proper research and reading over the weekend. To be continued.