My Yoga Practice Made Me a Better Gym Rat

(Photo: Canva)

I am a gym rat insofar as I go to the gym about five mornings a week. That is huge for me. If you had told me three years ago that I would be a regular at the gym, I would have laughed, and then desperately asked you to list your top fitness tips. I saved workouts on social media, actively envied friends with healthy exercise routines, and mourned a youth squandered on creative art rather than sports.

As it turns out, all I needed to hit the gym was more time on my yoga mat.

After completing my 200-hour yoga teacher training this spring, I felt more in touch with my body than ever before. Suddenly, I could name each muscle group that was firing or stretching, and sense exactly which way I needed to move when my back was feeling tight. I was also in a fundamentally open space, soaking up new experience like a sponge, or a really deep, drawn-out breath.

This mix of mental and physical knowledge was invigorating, as if I had discovered a part of being a person that I had actively missed out on. I’ve always been really good at the mind stuff (at times to my own detriment), but everyone, look: I’m in a body!

With this new perspective, I upped my gym attendance from a couple times a month to every weekday. Soon, I found that it wasn’t a lack of natural physicality or athleticism that had kept me from a regular workout routine but a lack of discipline and willpower. More importantly, I discovered that I didn’t need to force my way into some new exercise-obsessed identity, but simply flow into the shift in lifestyle. Breathe, and show up, just like I do on my mat. Breathe, and lean into the discomfort. Breathe, and push for one more rep.

Your definition of a gym rat may differ from mine; I don’t prioritize fitness over everything and likely never will. But I am proud to say that everyday exercise no longer feels like an impossibility, or a burden, or a chore, but a privilege. I am an embodied and yoga gave me the tools to truly recognize that.