My 7 Day Challenge With FitStar: Intro

It’s not easy being a shy, unfit geek at the gym

Intro

We all have those hopeful new year resolutions, but somehow fail to tick them off. I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2014. One of them happened to be getting back into shape and getting my fitness level up.

In the process of trying to get fitter I made a few major mistakes.

Mistake #1 (Joining the Gym)

So I did the obvious and joined my local 24/7 gym. As embarrassing as it is, I have never stepped inside a gym and have no idea how to use the damn equipment.

After a few late night session, I felt the need for a personal trainer. That led me into making the second mistake.

Mistake #2 (Personal Trainer)

I’m a proud man. The kind that likes cool tech toys, woodworking and martial arts. I love my hard drink with a medium rare steak. But there are rules that I live by. Most important rule…

Read the fucking manual

I didn’t want to. I decided to pay someone a ridiculous amount of money, just so they could teach me the basics. So I did.

My experience was mostly positive with the personal trainer. We seemed to share a lot of the same beliefs when it came to fitness and health. Although there was one slight issue.

My wallet hurt more than my body.

And trust me, I hurt a lot.

Realising that, I decided to stop seeing my personal trainer, and took matters into my own hands. And that’s when I made my 3rd and final mistake.

Mistake #3 (Forgot my own rule)

I forgot to read the manual. I trusted my personal trainer so much, I followed him and did exactly as he told me to.

I learned it was so easy to follow, so I forgot to learn.

I went back to my old routine of going to the gym during the night. The warm up session was good. I felt confidant. I knew what I was doing.

I jumped on the first machine I saw. But it didn’t feel the same. The seat was low. The weights were off. I just knew this is not the correct position for my workout, but didn’t know what was wrong.

At that moment I realised:

My personal trainer was a successful leader, but not a successful teacher

And that was it for me. I left the gym, knowing I’ll never go back, and trust me… I never did.

Enter FitStar

One lazy afternoon, while freeing up space on the iPad, I saw the FitStar app, hidden inside the abandoned “Fitness” folder. Feeling guilty about my fitness, I decided to give it one more try before deleting it forever.

I tapped the icon and I was hooked.

I’ll be sharing my experiences with FitStar here on Medium and for those of you who dig the 140 character action, I’ll be posting regualr updates on twitter.

Thanks for making it this far

I know this is a longish post, and really appreciate you hanging around. I’m experimenting with different article length and delivery methods. I’d really appreciate some feedback if you can spare a few seconds.