Fitness Class Was Really Tough and It Had Nothing to Do With Exercise

But I worked it out.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

The other morning at fitness class I wanted to quit and scream. I didn’t want to do the exercises, and I wasn’t in the mood to hear about some trips a couple of people had recently taken, or the book that someone else had just started that she loved, or a new restaurant that another person had just visited.

The banter and distractions I usually enjoy and appreciate had no appeal for me. What appealed to me instead was letting fly the kettle-bell I was swinging right into the mirror on the wall in front of me and walking out the door.

Swinging the kettle-bell was just one of three exercises we were doing that morning as part of an AMRAP workout— as many repetitions as possible in a given amount of time. We had to repeat a set of three kettle-bell exercises as many times as possible in 30 minutes.

The workout was challenging—constantly swinging, pushing, and pulling a cast-iron ball—but that’s not what had upset me. And I hadn’t woken up feeling so impatient and angry.

What had happened between waking up and getting to fitness class? I had read the news, that’s what. And reading the news had triggered me.

We were about 10 minutes into the workout when I understood the reason for my cratering disposition. After I realized that, my next thought was, Now what? What can I do about this? How can I fix it?

I knew that launching the kettle-bell into the mirror wasn’t a solution, as tempting as that was. It would make a huge mess. It would bring class to an end. It would get me arrested or at least barred from the gym.

So I turned my mind to the only realistic options —staying or leaving. Then I weighed the pros and cons of each one, as I kept swinging, pushing, and pulling that kettle-bell, my hair flying from its loose ponytail, my cheeks puffing like a bellows.

If I were to stay, I would need to figure out how not to scream and properly socialize. I would need to behave myself. If I were to leave, I could scream. That would feel really good. That tempted me.

But then I would be shortchanging myself the benefits of exercise, improved mood among them. This possibility persuaded me to stay even though improving my mood felt like a moonshot.

So how would I not scream? I felt as if I were on the verge of a rant. But like tossing the kettle-bell into the mirror, that’s not appropriate.

In fitness class, we banter or, when we can’t, we pant. But we don’t rant. And as demanding as the workout was, I was not getting the catharsis I needed.

Then it occurred to me just to say that I felt like quitting and screaming. I slipped it in between a swing and a push and a puff when no one else was talking. And the instant I said it, I felt better.

At first everyone thought I was referring to the workout. They laughed. “Well, sure you do!” someone said. Then I explained that my feelings concerned the news.

They sighed. Then I recognized the grief beneath my anger—my sadness over situations that seem so unnecessary and destructive. More than scream, I really wanted to cry.

Feeling like I wanted to cry didn’t feel good but it felt better than feeling so angry I could scream. And I didn’t expect my words to effect any change in my mood. They seemed too slight for all my inner roiling and aching.

But they did. They helped. They brought me to some unexpected mental middle ground where I could finish working out as I worked out what I felt. I wasn’t where I wanted to be, but I was on my way to getting there.

To learn more about fitness class, please see Fitness Class and Feeling Good.

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