Why “Beginner Bootcamp” Makes Sense – Psychologically

Fitness gurus will often talk about why a particular routine or set of exercises works to help the body, but they almost always look at these things from the physiological standpoint and rarely include the psychological aspects. Without getting our minds and spirits engaged, even great routines for the body will quickly be dismissed and result in another failed attempt to get in shape.

That’s why we started “beginner bootcamp” with the goal of first figuring out the “mind’ side of things (initially, what would make women want to start and stick with working out) and then moved onto the exercise routines. Both are important but success won’t happen long without both.
We started the unique “beginner bootcamp” approach for the women in the Inspired Fitness Network because we are all aware of how it feels to be “the beginner” at almost anything. It can rank up there as one of the most intimidating feelings some of us experience. The joy and excitement of future possibilities are often overshadowed by the heat of the spotlight we feel shining on us and every “newbie” mistake we make.

Whether it was our first attempt at golf, or skiing, or Salsa Dancing, we can all remember a few of our novice attempts that ended in utter disaster and caused us to shrink away in humiliation, at least in the moment vowing never to be the “beginner” at anything again, ever.

For instance, did you know a 12-pound bowling ball could roll (ah, bounce) across THREE entire lanes if you slip on your approach? Neither did I until my “beginner” attempt at bowling. In fact, it felt like the entire bowling alley and I found out together that it doesn’t take much for a fairly uncoordinated teenager to quickly slide down the lane in the wrong direction while simultaneously “pitching” the ball to not one, not two, but three lanes from its intended target. Not one my finer moments, but definitely a big “beginner” moment.  Result? Haven’t been bowling since.  Maybe I needed a “beginner bootcamp” for bowling.

So, while it may be universal to feel some level of apprehension or embarrassment during these start-up periods, some of us let the fear of the beginner spotlight prevent us from taking up endeavors that could ultimately be not only enjoyable, but life changing! This was actually what led us to start the Inspired Fitness “beginner bootcamp”. We were finding story after story of women that wanted to lose weight and get fit but simply HATED (and no, hate isn’t too strong a word from what we heard) the idea of going to the local gym, health club or fitness studio. The idea of being the only “beginner” in a gym full of “meatheads” was way more intimidation than they wanted to face. The aerobic and fitness classes weren’t much better – the “gym bunnies” had simply moved from the weightlifting area to the Spinning Class.

So, these women faced the same dilemma we all do when we long to start something new – be it losing weight and getting fit to starting painting with watercolors. Pure fear and “beginneritis”.

There are really only 2 options to conquering this fear (3 if you count not even attempting something new in the first place, which doesn’t make life much fun to live). You can do what some attempt and basically “fake it ’til you make it” — which is to say you start, stumble along and hope you can make it over the novice hump and awkwardness of standing out. While this is an option, it usually is the one that ends in the standard pattern of Start, fail, Quit. Fail with a small ‘f’, in that we simply don’t get over the beginner hump fast enough for the positive feelings to outweigh the insecure feelings and thus continue that activity.

Many businesses actually build their entire model around this approach. Gyms and health clubs for instance. They sign members up and put them under a contract, knowing darn well that 80% (or higher) of members will quit going within a month, yet be obligated to continue paying through their contract. Their existence absolutely depends on the Start, fail, Quit pattern. If all members that a gym actually sells showed up for the full term of their contract they’d have members on top of each other. If you walk into a gym with 5000 paying members at any one time you’ll only ever see about 100 to 200 people – and most of them are in pretty good shape. They’re the very few that made it over the Start, fail, Quit hump.

And the other 4800 members? They’re at home on the couch just as the gym counted on, but still sending in their monthly dues. It’s not the gym’s fault per se; it is simply human nature that they’ve been able to build a business around.

Other examples of the Start, Fail, Quit model include snowboarding, rollerblading, and even golf for many. All activities that were so appealing that you spent significant money to gear yourself up, tried it a couple of times (or once), got disheartened and quit.

So, if the approach of “just stick to it until you’re comfortable” doesn’t work, at least for most of us, and most of us would like to venture into new activities to live life to the fullest, what other choice do we have?

The only other option most have (other than employing an expensive one-on-one tutor which is normally economically out of reach if used for long periods), is to surround yourself with beginners just like you in a safe, supportive and motivating environment and find expert instruction to bring the group together and lead everyone through the beginner stages. With a set of peers that will help pick you up and keep you motivated you’ll find you lose most of the beginner stigma and will concentrate on the benefit and joy derived from the activity instead of the embarrassment of being “the beginner”.

It’s amazing to see the difference when a beginner “messes up” in front of a group of their beginner peers versus the same rookie mistake in front of non-beginners — everyone is able to laugh together as opposed feeling singled out.

So, the truly beginning artist needs to look for “Watercolor 101″ class with primarily all novice students. The aspiring, but very beginning and out of shape runner might get with a group whose only goal during the first month is to simply jog a mile or two without stopping, instead of joining the group training for the 1/2 Marathon. It is just too easy to have your spirit broken if you’re in the bottom 10% and everyone else is excelling. Having a motivated spirit and mind is equally, if not more, important to having a motivated body. Find a group of your peers with very similar skill levels and goals to help carry you through the start-up stage. You’ll find the bond amongst the group will be far tighter than being in a loose-knit group all at varying levels. You can also leverage that bond when you feel like quitting and use it to motivate you and hold you to a level of accountability that you need to succeed.

This is the real secret to help us beginners flourish. We need support and motivation, while still keeping us accountable to our group for our sometimes slow, but steady, progress.
By finding a group of beginners all at relatively the same level, led by an expert instructor, you’ll soon get past the beginner stigma and will find yourself enjoying more new activities in your life than you ever imagined.