Tips to Help Your Gym Performance Anxiety

Man at the gym
Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

Performance anxiety can come in many different forms. You might feel it before an exam or a piano recital. Or, like many of us, you might feel it at the gym. And when you do, it can really get in the way of your workout, sometimes it’s so bad that you don’t make it to the gym at all. So what can you do to get over your gym performance anxiety? Here are a few tips.

Be Prepared

If you go to the gym with no plan and no routine, it can be incredibly overwhelming. But you wouldn’t get on stage for a concert without first learning the song, would you? Imagine how scary that would be. That’s why you should always go to the gym with a plan for what you are going to do. It doesn’t have to be complicated—it just needs to give you a sense of confidence that you know what you’ll do when you get there.

Visualize

It might seem a little cheesy but taking some time to visualize yourself flawlessly executing your workout before you walk into the gym can help make you feel more capable of doing it in reality.

Breathe

Breathing can help ground, calm, and stabilize you no matter what you’re doing, but it’s even more important in the gym, where holding your breath can truly impede your performance.