Detours from home: What’s a gym rat without a gym?

[Editor’s note: Detours from home is a Rappler column where readers can share about the new things they have been doing while in quarantine. This essay is a story of how a gym rat is navigating a world without gyms (at least at the moment). You, too, can share your own Detours from home story.]

This is such a gym bro thing to say, and even though I am not technically a bro, I’m going to say it anyway: I miss the gym.

Before the gyms closed down, I was squatting and deadlifting weights that are heavier than my own body. Not impressive I know, but for someone who just had her gym membership seven months ago, it wasn’t bad. I was doing two-hour workout sessions four to five times a week. One time, the strict, intimidating coach struck up a conversation with me. He said, “You know, you’re one of the regular regular people here. You just come here, do your own thing, and leave. That’s good. I like that.” I nodded in acknowledgment. I knew I was there a lot.

It’s not because I want a long, healthy life, or because I was training for a competition, although those reasons are also acceptable. I go for fun. For me, the gym is a relaxing place. (Smash-cut to me with 140 pounds of metal on my back, dripping with sweat, grunting through my last few reps.) I can pop my wireless earphones in, and just forget about the world. That is until someone hogs three pairs of dumbbells or forgets to rerack, then I’m reminded that the world’s kind of annoying.

But I swear that even then, the gym is nice. It could certainly do anyone good like it did to me.

My body leaned out. When I lift up my shirt and see my abs peek through, it gave me confidence. It got harder to resist the urge to flex when I pass by mirrors. I liked seeing the materialized form of my hard work.

It made me strong. Before weight training, I struggled with five-liter water containers. Now I take care of the water dispenser at home. I’d lift the large water jug with ease, and my mom would say, “May silbi din pala pag-ji-gym mo, ‘no?”

Then the quarantine happened, and I was left with a creaky bench and a pair of 15-pound dumbbells—the weight I use for my warm-up routine. As the months passed by, not only did I get physically weaker, I also felt the slow decline of my mental health. I’d sigh a lot. I gained six pounds because I turned to food to make me feel better, but then I ate so much junk that I just felt even worse, and then I ate again. I had no gym to help me out this time.

As a last resort, I decided to give cardio a try again. The first run felt like death. I hit it way too hard, way too soon, my ankles felt weird the next day. But when they started feeling better, I tried again.

That’s what I do now to take my mind off things. I run. I don’t think about infectious diseases, or my 60-year-old parents being susceptible to them, or our barangay having the highest number of cases in our town. I don’t think about how I’ve been stuck at home for months and I haven’t really achieved anything but how could I? Is it just me or does nothing feel real anymore? I gather all these things and carry them around with me until I want to run. I can’t carry anything on a run.

I control my breathing as I push my weight on one leg, land on the other, and repeat. On some days, my body feels heavy and I am hyper-aware of this process, of the impact on my foot as it lands. On better days, the ones that I like, I forget that I’m even running at all. It feels light and effortless. I even look around. 

My cellphone camera can’t capture it but in real life, the late afternoon sky always reminds me of a landscape painting – faint pinks, lavenders, and brighter yellows on the otherwise blue sky. The colors blend into each other like paint on a canvas. 

When you look up, you see clouds sculpted so beautifully, it looks like it was painted by hand. Flocks of birds dance in the sky. On the ground, old trees tower over everything else – me, the two-storey houses, electrical poles – and their leaves make a rustling noise in the light breeze. 

I pick up my pace and I let the chilly air kiss my skin. When I run out of breath, I let myself slow down. I take it easy. Because in those moments when I’m heaving and gasping for air, my heart pumping hard to supply the oxygen I need, I’m reminded that I’m alive. Stuck and quarantined still, but alive. I keep running until the loudening sound of crickets tell me I should be going home. 

I still prefer lifting, still crave for the time I can hold a barbell again. But until then, I’m glad I can put my running shoes on, and if I’m lucky, I get one of the better days. – Rappler.com

Joselle G. Agas is a self-proclaimed gym rat residing in Bulacan. When she’s not talking about lifting, she’s busy trying to finish her undergraduate thesis, and looking at cat pictures online.