Overcoming Gym Anxiety: 4 Steps to Build Confidence and Get Started

Does the thought of walking into a gym stress you out? You’re not alone—and today’s episode of HealthSpan Digest is your guide to overcoming gym anxiety and getting started with resistance training the right way.

Whether you’re brand new to fitness, returning after a long break, or just feel out of place in the gym environment, Aaron Shaw—Healthspan coach, occupational therapist, and strength & conditioning specialist—breaks down 4 simple and practical tips to help you move past fear and into action.

You’ll learn:

• Why resistance training is essential for healthspan and longevity
• How to start small and build momentum
• How to mentally reframe your gym experience
• What exercises are best for beginners (including a sample 20-minute plan you can use today)
• Why having a plan removes anxiety and boosts confidence

This episode is your no-BS, judgment-free blueprint for getting in the door, building consistency, and feeling proud of your progress—no matter where you’re starting from.

🎧 BONUS: Aaron shares a ready-to-use workout you can bring to the gym today!

Resources Mentioned:

💪 FREE 3-Week HealthSpan Foundations Program

📲 Affordable 8-Week Training Plan – Beginner to Intermediate

📩 Have a question or topic idea? Reach out via LinkedIn or YouTube – Aaron responds to every message.

FREE Coaching Plans at Healthspan Pillars!
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Healthspan YouTube Channel

Transcript

Today, I'm gonna help you overcome gym anxiety. So many people have stress and anxiety related to going to the gym and getting a workout in, specifically doing resistance training. Resistance training that have the benefits that include building bone density, building lean muscle, burning fat, improving cognitive performance, decreasing your risk of cancers, decreasing your risk of Alzheimer's and dementia.

The list goes on and on and on controlling blood sugar. There's so many benefits to resistance training and the best place in society to do resistance training in a structured kind of way is in a gym. But I completely understand that getting into the gym can feel really, really intimidating when you first start out. So today I'm going to give you three ways to get started without having that sense of fear.

Hey friends, my name is Aaron Shaw and welcome back. I'd to welcome you back to HealthSpan Digest. I am a HealthSpan coach as well as an occupational therapist and strength and conditioning specialist. And I know that this issue of going to the gym really holds back so many of us from getting into a fitness routine and sticking with it. It's this gym anxiety. So whether you're new to exercise, you've been doing it for a long time and then took a break and now you're feeling kind of overwhelmed from getting back into it.

You're in the right place. This is the episode for you. I'm going to give you some very crystal clear things that will help you feel a lot more comfortable taking those first steps into the gym. As I said, I am a health man coach and my typical clients are, well, they're vast and include quite a few people who haven't. Exercise regularly in a very long time and to overcome this hurdle of going into the gym to do some resistance training.

Is really kind of the first step of a training plan. So, I mean, I can create a training plan that'll help people get stronger, fitter, more mobile, overcome injuries. That's all well and good. But if you can't actually utilize the tools available to you, meaning a gym, then it doesn't really matter. It can look good on paper, but it doesn't matter. So again, we're going to break down three simple things you can do today. Three steps, three tips that will help you get into the gym and reap all of the rewards and not only overcoming the

stress and anxiety from it, but actually I'm going to say even look forward to it. Look forward to it because you'll have a sense of competency and confidence in doing it. Tip number one, start small and set realistic expectations. I think that too many people go into the gym, look around and see people who have probably been training in a gym for

weeks, months, years, decades, and start to compare themselves to those people, to what those people are doing. So if you walk into the gym and you see somebody who's doing a lifting a whole bunch of weight, for example, or doing exercises that look really scary and overwhelming, maybe lifting a whole bunch of weight over their head or lifting a whole bunch of weight off the floor with a huge barbell, that can be super intimidating.

But that's what we should be comparing ourselves to. We need to make sure that we're starting by setting tiny, super small goals before even looking at people who are doing all of those things. So your first goal might be literally just walking into the gym, walking into the gym, recognizing that it's a safe place for you to be. And it's a place for you to set yourself up for victory in the future.

and really just getting yourself, getting your feet in the door, in the gym for a short amount of time. Even if it's set a timer on your phone, smartphone or your watch for 20 minutes, walk in knowing that in 20 minutes you're going to walk back out the door. doesn't matter what you do, but just that you're in there and you're starting that process. That is success. That is small, but it is a success because you're not going to be reaping the rewards of

weeks and months and years of consistent resistance training. If you don't get your foot in the door to start with, and it is a hundred percent successful. If you walk into the gym for the first time tomorrow and you've looked at your watch and you said, I'm only going to be here for 20 minutes because this place freaks me out. And in 20 minutes you walk out the door. That's a win. You've done something that is huge. That's a big success. If you're not used to doing that. So it doesn't need to be long. It doesn't need to be, certainly doesn't need to be intense. Not only

doesn't need to be, but I would say it should not be an intense workout when you first start. should just be getting your foot in the door. think the default for so many people when they first go in those short sessions and even for longer sessions are walking on the treadmill. You know, they, they feel like I can walk on a treadmill or I can spin on a bike or do a stair stepper or some sort of cardio activity that is pretty straightforward. And although that is

Not why I why I would encourage people to go to the gym in this starting phase. It is okay to do just that. It is okay to walk into the gym, get on a treadmill, hit start, walk at a reasonable pace, maybe make it a little bit brisk or make it a little bit of an incline, but just to do that for those 15 or 20 minutes and then walk out. That is a great start. We can always build from that, but you have to get in the door first. Tip number two.

And this is a mental game. Maybe all of this is a mental game actually, but the mental game here is to focus on yourself, put yourself in a bubble. If you will put your earbuds in and either listen to some music that gets you pumped up or gets you to kind of chill out. Or what I do oftentimes is I get my earbuds in and I just have it on that noise canceling feature where I can still hear stuff out, know, hear the music that's in the gym and hear people talking and weights clanging around and stuff like that.

But to me, is a safety bubble that is just, all I'm doing is thinking about myself, what I need to do in this day, in this moment, and not worry about what other people are doing. Because I get it, you walk into the gym and you can see that it seems, it appears that everybody else knows what they're doing. It seems like everybody else is competent, you know, people may know each other, so you see people doing.

What seems to be really challenging exercises and they seem like they're with a group of people or they know people from across the gym and they're kind of, it's a social scene to it, which is great. And then you may be walking in there feeling like you're all alone, like a new kid, new kid in school and you don't know anybody. You don't know what to do. You don't know where the things are, but that's all the more reason just to create a this again, this bubble around yourself. It's about you. doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter what other people are doing. It doesn't matter how they look. It doesn't matter what they do. is entirely about you. And I can tell you this from the coaches perspective. So again, I'm a strength and conditioning specialist and I've coached people for coached people for a long time. Then when you look around or when I look around the people who are moving their body a lot, or maybe even moving the fair amount of weight or resistance around a lot, they're not.

It's often that they're not doing things very well or very safely. It may look pretty dramatic and certainly if they add some grunt and groan into it, is certainly hard what they're doing oftentimes. But it's also clear that they're not very skilled in what they're doing and they're actually risking getting hurt. So even those people that you look around, you think they're the alphas of a gym setting, realize that they're in their own bubble. They're doing things their own way. They may not even be doing things correctly or safely.

And whatever they're doing has nothing to do with you. It's all about you. It's all about yourself. Create a mantra for yourself. When you first walk in that door and say, I'm here for me. That's it. I'm here for me. Don't care about what anybody else is doing. I'm here for me. This is maybe not about progress or it's about progress, not perfection. So just getting that in there and saying that those things over and over and over again may help kind of drown out that internal.

chatter that we have. And if you're really self-conscious about it, about going into the gym, look at the times at the gym, you know, the gym hours, and you can navigate when things are going to tend to be busier times and see if you can get into the gym when it's quiet. So what you do not want to do is first thing in the morning, cause every gym that I've ever been to has the morning crowd. And I've been in that morning crowd where

standing outside the front door at 5 a.m. and waiting for them to unlock the door at 5 a.m. and there's 20 people that are already going in there because that's the only time of the day that we may have. Same thing in the evening time after work. So there's an after work crew, there's a before work crew, there's oftentimes the Saturday crew. So if you can kind of find yourself, finesse it so you can get in there just after those peak hours or maybe it's midday, that may be a safer

place for you. You may feel a little bit safer and more comfortable going in there and exploring the gym because there's not a whole bunch of people standing around, a whole bunch of people in there. And I totally get how nerve wracking it can be if you think, there's a certain dumbbell that I want to pick up to do a certain exercise. But with all these people standing around, what I don't want to do is pick up a dumbbell that somebody else is going to use. So you say, sorry, you're going to use that. Are you going to use that? And it sets up all of these little barriers with this friction that can happen.

So we want to minimize that friction. that is going at your own time when there's kind of tends to be a little bit quieter and putting yourself in a bubble. It's all about you. It's all about you doing 15 or 20 minutes of exercise and then getting out. That's it. That's all you need to do. Tip number three for overcoming anxiety, go into the gym, get comfortable with the basics and the basics.

There are, there are several exercises that I would consider being basic, maybe even a better word would be fundamental. are some fundamental basic exercises that people should be doing all throughout their fitness career. And the, the fitness industry and certainly social media will highlight what are often dangerous exercises to do, or they look, you know, a little bit over the top or their Olympic lifts and

You know, they're what we'd call compound movements oftentimes, or, you know, picking up a medicine ball and throwing it up against the wall, all of these big ballistic movements. And there's a time and place for those things. And for certain people, those are exactly what they should be doing. But to get started, it is okay. And even suggest suggested to start with simple movements, even starting with just body weight movements. So you can do a body weight squat. You can do.

body weight lunges where you're taking a step forward and stepping back, stepping forward and back, or even side to side side lunges. You can do pushups or just a plank, literally go into the gym, doing body weight squats and doing planks. That's great. You're in this, you are in the space that is going to help you live longer and feel better, have a better mood. Doing those things is very reasonable.

and even encouraged as a starting point and doing them where you don't feel, you don't have to worry about thinking too much about how much resistance, how much, what kind of weight to pick up or what other people are doing around you, because it's, those are a hundred percent legitimate exercises to be doing. No matter what your training phase, everybody should be doing these and they're building blocks for more advanced exercises later. So you should be starting with simple.

you know, at least partially body, body weight focused exercises, or if not body weight, would be very lightweight. Another tip you can do if you are, again, this is the idea of like getting comfortable with the basics would be learning the basic gym equipment. If it's been a while since you've been in the gym or if you've never been in a gym setting before, and I'm actually working with somebody right now who's in her mid forties and she has never been in a gym before ever.

never had a consistent workout or exercise movement routine ever in her life. So the basics for her are literally just learning the equipment. So you can go into your gym. And certainly if you're new to any gym, they should have a personal trainer or somebody on staff that can just show you around, show you how each machine works so you feel comfortable doing them. You don't need to feel intimidated by the machines.

but you need a little orientation. And so that is perfectly legit. And that may be even your first step in this first, your first session or two, when you go to the gym, that's 10 or 15 minutes long. One of them may be walking in and saying, Hey, I'm brand new. I'm trying to up my game. I'm trying to build my lifespan and my health span. And I want to learn more about the gym equipment. And then you can just sit there and follow along and just get oriented. And you'll realize that

99.9 % of the time, whoever is showing you around should be a reasonable human being, likable, an educator teaching you how to do things. And then you can leave. You can walk out and leave. you've already, you've kind of, you you crack through that wall where you can actually start feeling like, hey, I'm a person who goes to the gym and I'm going to start reaping all the benefits of doing this.

And when you're going to lifting weights, lifting dumbbells, for example, not a machine, actually like lifting weight, start off light. Do pick a resistance that you feel that you know with confidence that you can pick it up, move it around and feel comfortable doing it. And that's it. Think about good form. Think about lightweight because you're just starting out. It's not, not about being anxious, not about being overwhelmed.

success is literally going in there, moving your body around, leaving and not feeling like you're going to have a meltdown when you get back to the vehicle. It's just saying like, Hey, I just did this thing. It's not about breaking a sweat, how many calories you burned or how much resistance that you picked up and moved around. Who cares? That's not for this phase. This phase is feeling emotionally comfortable to step into the gym tomorrow and the day after that.

All of us that have spent time going to the gym off and on, even those, if you walk into the gym and there are people who are, we'll call them like maybe a gym rat who no matter what time or when you go, they're always there and they look like they're always at the gym. There was a point in time where they were brand new and they had no idea what they were doing. And I can guarantee you with 100 % confidence that if somebody has been training in the gym for a long time, guaranteed they've overdone it.

guaranteed they've got hurt, guaranteed that they've been struggling with the emotional challenge of motivation. what a lot of us would even say that if somebody is going to the gym day in, day out all the time, they have some demons and they're trying to work out their own demons and they're dealing with their own anxiety and their own stress. And for so many people, so many of us, the safest way to do that and the most, really the kind of the best way to treat ourselves is with doing physical activity and

All to say that it is a safe place for you. You're no different than anybody else has been there and everybody's been new to the game at one point or another. Everybody's had to step into the gym day one and deal with the stress. We've all been there. So it is a safe place for you. But I want to throw in one more bonus tip here. So this is actually tip four, which kind of comes to mind.

I will actually frame this up as this is the one thing. So in each of my episodes, I want to make sure that there's one thing, one specific thing you can do today to extend your health span. What is one thing you can do? One reasonable, kind of simple thing to do today that will literally help you live longer. That piques your interest. You want to live longer by doing something really simple. Today's the day. Congratulations. You listened to the right episode. And if you're listening still, this would probably

Indicate that you are curious about feeling more comfortable going to the gym and reaping all the rewards of resistance training. Do this. The one thing you can do today is have a plan. is so much easier, so much easier to go into the gym knowing exactly what you're going to do. Exactly what exercises sets reps, even again, timer, how long are you going to be there for?

When you walk in there with a plan, it is autopilot. It is brainless. And that's the way I do my workouts to this day. And I go to the gym often and I also train on my bike often. the comfort, part of the comfort of going through that process or part of the, part of the way to decrease the friction or resistance to doing these, what are sometimes physically challenging exercises and activities is having a plan. can, I don't have to be thinking about looking around. What am I going to do next? So I'm going to tell you what your plan is.

So here is your plan. Here's an example plan. Get a piece of paper, get a post-it note, index card or notes on your smartphone. Write this down. First line, gonna be gym day. Next line, three sets of 10 repetitions, rest one to two minutes between each set. Write that down. So you know you're doing three sets.

You know, you're doing 10 repetitions of each exercise. And after you do your 10 repetitions, you're going to rest for at least one, up to two minutes before you go back and do it again. So that is your dosing scheme, as we would say, for these two exercises, I'm going to tell you. The first exercise is when you're to write down, it's going to be single arm bicep curls. So you're going to pick up a weight, go to the, I'm sure you'll have a long rack of weights at your gym.

Pick a weight that is, you think, not too hard, not too hard. And you're just gonna pick up one of them and you're gonna do a bicep curl. Hold the weight down by your side, bend your elbow up so it's bent up, you're curling it, bring it back down. You're gonna do that 10 times in your left arm. You're gonna do it 10 times with your right arm. You're gonna rest for a minute and you're gonna do it again. You're gonna do that for three total rounds. So just with that, you've done three sets of 10 of bicep curls. Congratulations, your workout is well underway.

The next exercise you're going to do, I'm going to give you a variable here. You can either do a leg press machine. So if you've been oriented to the machines, you can do a leg press machine or you can just hold onto two dumbbells and do a squat. And what this will look like is basically you've got a dumbbell on each hand and you're squatting down like you're going to sit into a chair, but there's no chair there. And you stand back up and you do that 10 times and then you rest for one to two minutes and you do another set.

And then a third set. you do three sets of 10. So just with that basic exercises, you've gotten bicep curls. It's great for your upper body. And actually if you're doing a standing, it's even good for your core. You've done either a leg press or a squat. That's great for your legs and your hip and also for your core. That's great. You've done two exercises. You've done three sets of 10. You already knew you were going to do this because you've been writing it down and you're just following along with your plan. And the third thing you can do is a plank.

You can do a plank and just to keep it simple, let's say you do a plank three times. Each time you do it, you hold a plank for as long as you can. So you get down on your forearms or you can do a tall plank, do like you're prepping for a pushup and just hold yourself there. Your back is nice and straight. Maybe think about engaging your abdominal muscles a little bit and you hold that for as long as you can, making sure your back doesn't hurt or you don't have any sort of wrist or shoulder discomfort while doing it. And then when you feel pooped out, you stop.

And you rest for a minute and you do that three rounds, write that down, have it with you. Use that as the guide to overcome anxiety, going to the gym. The key here is you're going to walk into the gym and you're just going to pop open your phone because nobody brings posted notes to the gym. So everybody's going to, you can use your phone and you're going to say, it's going to read, read back to you. It's going to say three sets of 10 single arm, bicep curl, dumbbell squat, and a plank. You're going to do those three things.

You can put your head down, you can wear a hood, can put your earbuds in and have music. You're just telling yourself, I'm just here for myself. I'm just here for myself. I'm just here for myself. I want to live long. I want to be healthy. I want to be vibrant. I want to feel really good. I want to be feel really positive. You want all of those positive hormone juices going through your body from exercise. You do that. If you do those three things within 20 minutes, you're out the door. You're done.

So there you have it. Three ways, well kind of four ways to overcome gym anxiety and to really get started without being afraid. So it's starting small, setting realistic expectations. Next one is focusing on yourself, not others. I can assure you that everybody in there is kind of freaked out about being judged. And so nobody is judging you because they're all, everybody's thinking about themselves. So you just focus on yourself. They'll focus on themselves.

It's a safe place, safe way to go. Third thing is get comfortable with the basics. It's all about you. You don't have to do all these crazy exercises at once. It's just getting comfortable with the basic exercises. And then the bonus is have a plan. If you walk in there with a plan, knowing exactly what exercises you're going to do, how many sets and reps, it's easy. It's brainless. You just have to go in there, be a robot, be a zombie, follow along, do...

Do what your program says and when you're done, you walk out the door. And if you want guidance, if you want even more guidance in that more structure than that, I do have programs on my website. So can check that out. The links in the show notes. have free three week program. have an eight week program. That's entirely app-based, super affordable. And it gives exercises for beginners and maybe intermediate level people who are exercising.

It is not for somebody who goes to the gym five days a week and has been doing so for years on end or doing Olympic lifts or competitive bodybuilding. Not for you. It's for people who are humanoids, realistic, just want to be healthy, active, live busy lives and want some guidance where you don't have to think about things. Also on this program, again, it's called HealthSpan Foundations. It has a whole bunch of videos on mobility, on nutrition, on sleep.

on emotional wellbeing. has nutrition, like at least 10 different meals and ingredients and ways to make healthy meals, healthy snacks. So it's meant to be incredibly user-friendly specifically for, again, people like you and me who I don't want to think about things. I want it to be really easy and kind of brainless yet really healthy. You can check that out. Again, it's on my website. So now you've got action items. There is no need to be

stressed out or freaked out or feeling anxious going to the gym. You are worth investing in overcoming any sort of discomfort you have, sort of emotional barriers you have to getting into the gym. Home gyms are pretty good, not great, unless you happen to be a person who has like a full on suite of all the equipment. But home gyms with a dumbbell and a band, pretty good, definitely better than nothing.

and you can get pretty good workout in, you can get in a workout substantially better with substantially more benefit if you can get into a gym that has more stuff, more equipment. And you'll be more likely to stick with it once you get, once you go through this breakthrough phase than when you're at home. Generally speaking, it's easier to be distracted when you're at home, but if you can get to the gym, get that part of your routine, I am willing to bet that if you are a newbie now,

If you can start taking these tips that I just gave you, implement those really within a month or two of doing this, if you can go to the gym a couple of days a week, you're going to find a friend. You're going to find a community and you're going to realize that the gym is a really, really safe space. And if you know somebody who's also struggling getting into the gym, share this episode with them and say, I mean, buddy up with them. We all, we all need support. We all need a community. And so if you, somebody in your family, a neighbor,

somebody you know from work like, hey, we're all in this boat together. I'm trying to get into the gym. I'm trying to be healthy and active. Let's do this thing together. And you can both follow the same plan, get in, get out, do a few things, call it success, and it's good. Thank you for listening to HealthSpan Digest. My name is Aaron Shaw. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on YouTube if you're not already watching this on YouTube. And you can find me on my website, which is linked to this episode, healthspanpillars.com.

I answer all questions that come my way. whether you're commenting from the YouTube, from the, uh, well, from a YouTube video or from podcast platform, if you message me, I will reply, maybe not within minutes, but I will reply. And if you have any questions or if you're have any interest in a specific topic related to health span, exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, preventative care, shoot me a message. I'll make an episode on it until next time. You got this.