We’ve all been through it—you just had an embarrassing gym moment and you're 100 percent positive everyone else saw it. You either tripped on the treadmill, or even tripped just walking toward the treadmill, or maybe you put too much weight on your bar and now you’re struggling to lift it. Embarrassing gym moments happen to the best of us, but how we deal with them truly shows our character.
If you have an embarrassing gym moment, chances are nobody else saw it. People at the gym are usually caught up in their own world with their headphones on in the middle of their reps. They are most likely looking at themselves in the mirror. In most cases, you're off the hook and you can move on to your next exercise. But, let’s say someone does happen to see you in all your embarrassing gym moment glory. Uh oh, you’re caught, what do you do? In those cases, I like to laugh it off. Give a good giggle to the person watching and move on. What else can you do? No one is hurt and it will make for a good story to tell your friends and family later. No harm, no foul.
There are also those times when you’re working out in a Group Fitness class and you go for your step … but you don't quite make it. BAM! You’re on the ground, flat on your back in a group setting. Now you’re sure that people saw you; there is no way anybody missed that! Sure enough, people come rushing over to ask if you’re okay. Then, to top it all off, they make sure your bench is set up correctly because that had to have been the reason you fell, right? Not your pure clumsiness and lack of execution to get your foot on the bench properly. No, it was definitely the bench.
So, now you have all of the attention on you and it’s definitely not what you signed up for. What do you do? In this intense moment (yes, it happened to me), I picked myself up very quickly, let out a good chuckle (do you see a theme going on?), assured everyone I was okay (well, except that I just landed on my tush and it twinges a bit, but I can’t let anybody know that), and tried to catch back up with the instructor. It might take all the energy you have left not to run out of that classroom, hoping they won’t remember your face, but no, don’t let that silly fall ruin your workout! You came to get a killer workout in, and by gosh, you’re going to finish it.
All in all, embarrassing moments happen all the time in many situations. Sometimes you get lucky and nobody sees it happen. But those few times that you weren’t so fortunate to get away with it, don’t panic. There’s always a way out. Don’t be too hard on yourself, laugh it off, exchange smiles and move on. Learn from your mistakes! Well, unless it’s tripping over your own feet … there’s really nothing to learn there. If you learn to laugh at yourself every now and then, you won’t stress out about the little moments. Plus, chances are you won’t make the same mistake twice.
