What stops you from going to the gym?
For me, it’s that I can’t be bothered. The gym is too far away, and the effort to get there is just too much. In short, I don’t go because I’m lazy.
But what would happen if you remove the friction? What would happen if you literally moved into a gym? If you lived at the gym? As in: you slept at the gym, socialised at the gym and ate all your meals there? Would it change anything? Would you become a gym person?
After a couple of months travelling where I didn’t hold back on alcohol and carbs, I decided on radical action to get over my gym-phobia.
I flew from France to Thailand, where I moved into a four-storey gym adjoined by 17 hotel rooms. I lived there for a week, taking as many classes, ice baths, saunas and scoops of protein powder as I could handle.
Unlike a wellness retreat, the gym at Action Point, in the southern tip of Phuket, is open to the public. It has a weights room, a yoga studio, sauna, cold plunge, swimming pool, cafe and cardio room. It is so close to the accommodation, I was able to get out of bed at 7.20am and make it to a 7.30am class.
‘Rinse and repeat, all week’
A day living at Action Point looks something like this: wake up at 7.20am, grab a protein shake and drink it quickly before a 7.30am Morning Mobility (stretch and movement) class. Then it’s up to the cafe, with its swimming pool and views across Phuket. For breakfast? Eggs, of course! Or a protein hotcake as heavy as a shot put. Cross training starts at 9am, while at 10.15am – one floor up – you can take power yoga.
For lunch, more protein. At 1pm there is personal training, or a one-on-one Muay Thai session. The afternoon is set aside for recovery which may involve an in-room massage, a nap, an ice bath and sauna, then an early dinner at 5pm with your training mates and, three times a week, a knowledge session on mindset or nutrition. In the evening there is yin yoga, maybe some singing bowls or meditation, and an early bedtime of 8pm. Spending 11 hours in bed at night is easy when you’re tired from all the exercise.
Rinse and repeat, all week.
When I arrived, my fitness was very poor. Yes, I had been biking around France, but it was an electric bike, and I was only riding to restaurants.
So, I was always going to find the first few days a shock. My first personal training session focused on the right way to do squats. I bounced up and down, trying to get lower each time, departing from my natural sitting range (bar-stool height).
The next day, I am broken! The only way I can get out of bed is to commando roll on to the ground, then hoist myself up to standing by gripping a chair. Leaving breakfast, I cling to a hand rail to go down two stairs, like an elderly person.
‘I worry I am now mostly protein’
But my program also included recovery. Action Point manager Chris Lawless tells me this helps prevent injuries, and I was grateful to be returning to my room for a massage. Or as Charli xcx put it on B2b: “Took a long time, breaking muscle down, building muscle up, repeating it.”
Then there’s the food. This wellness retreat is not of the White Lotus variety. It’s more of the white protein variety. I try to shovel in a recommended 120g of protein a day.
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Instead of not being bothered going to the gym, I now can’t be bothered to leave
Residents of the gym ignore the siren song of pad thai and coconut milk curries and instead eat high-protein, low-carb and sugar-free versions of the same dishes, made onsite at the gym.
By the end of the week, as I eat eggs again for breakfast or face down an enormous plate of chicken or prawns, I worry I am now mostly protein. If I do a plank, I can taste the return of the morning’s protein shake.
I never really feel hungry.
“Brig! You’re going to be all protein soon!” a worried friend texts me. But I need the protein for all the exercise I’m doing.
Towards the end of the week, I am exercising all the time, recovering from exercising all the time, or cramming in another protein shake trying to “hit my macros”.
Staying at Action Point has definitely removed the friction of getting to the gym.
Instead, I develop an inverse problem. Instead of not being bothered going to the gym, I now can’t be bothered to leave.
There is lots of free time if you want to take it (after all, it’s not possible to work out 24 hours a day – or is it?) but everything is here, it’s so comfortable. I can get to my classes in less than a minute, I can train anytime I want, I can go to the cafe and order a protein shake and feel confident that I am on my way to 120g.
When I do leave to go to the beach, it’s unpleasant. It’s the rainy season, the water is foamy and brown and when I enter the surf, a strong current deposits me down the other end of the beach, like I am a parcel of protein.
As I shake off the sand, I long to return to Action Point. Life lived according to the gym timetable doesn’t contain too many dangers or surprises.
‘It’s easy to think of staying here for ever’
I’m not the only one to feel this way. People keep extending their stays. One week becomes two, becomes four, becomes “I’m moving to Phuket and going to this gym all the time”.
It is tempting. A storm races across the sky. You watch the rain bounce off the swimming pool as you sip your thick protein shake and contemplate an ice bath. Each day you get better at Muay Thai. You contemplate entering a seniors competition. Classes feel like a community – people are friendly, a mix of Thai and foreign – it’s easy to think of staying here for ever.
Each day I get stronger, more flexible, fitter. I can walk down stairs again! But then again, I am living at the gym.
The war in my head, that is always in my head – the battle to go to the gym – has quietened. Of course I will go to the gym today. I’m already here.
