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Tips for gym regulars to survive New Year’s resolutioners

Are you a gym regular? Your workout world is about to get very busy.

With the New Year, comes a flood of people who have resolved to get in shape for 2020. Gym memberships have been selling like hotcakes and for regulars at the gym, this means you need to prepare for a little unexpected chaos in your daily routine.

Image and fitness consultant Aaron Marino has made a video of tips for regular gym-goers to survive the rush of resolutioners.

“What we have adopted as a lifestyle is what 99.5% of people who are non-gym-goers are committed to doing this year,” Marino says in the video. “Like a swarm of out-of-shape locusts they take over and envelop our precious fitness center, totally throwing off the balance of the fitness universe.”

Here are his six tips:

1. Keep it in Perspective: “This is not your first rodeo — you see it each and every year. Like salmon swimming upstream to get to the promised-land and spawn. This is only temporary; it shall pass.”

2. Switch up Your Gym Time: “Go in the morning. Resolutioners like sleep more than they like results. A fitness center in the morning remains reasonably unchanged from the New Year’s resolution rush and so this is a great time to get up and workout at a different time.”

3. Change Your Routine: ”Everybody, their mother, and their brother does chest on Monday, right? Not you. You know that all the benches are going to be taken, all the dumbbells are going to be confiscated. You are going to do legs on Monday. As the week progresses, the gym starts to thin out. By Friday it’s a veritable ghost town because resolutioners, they like to take Fridays off.”

4. Take it Outside: “Go out and do your cardio outside of the gym. It’s a perfect opportunity to throw some headphones on, get one with nature, get in your happy zen place and there’s nobody to tell you there’s a 20-minute time limit.”

5. Take Some Time Off: “This is a perfect opportunity for you to give your body and your mind a much-needed rest.”

6. Go back to Tip 1: “Understand that this, too, shall pass. New Year’s only happens once a year. The next three weeks will be a little bit unfortunate for us gym-goers, people who have made it a lifestyle. But you’ve got to give it to the little guys that are trying, right? Hopefully they stick to it.”

He says by the end of it there may be a few salmon that made it upstream, who could become your new gym buddy.

Michelle Murillo

Michelle Murillo has been a part of the WTOP family since 2014. She started her career in Central Florida before working in radio in New York City and Philadelphia.

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