Sometimes we all get sick of the gym.
Yes, even me.
Back in 2016 I had no “balance” in my life. I was working 16 hours days as a personal trainer inside Powerhouse Gym, and then using my laptop in between sessions to build this website you’re reading now, before going home to my three kids.
Tired isn’t the word, mate.
But something was different about this. You see I didn’t just feel sleepy, I felt uninterested, run down, and couldn’t even get motivated to do my own workouts at the end of my shift.
That’s not like me at all.
I had a long overdue catch-up with an old workmate who suggested that I was showing signs of burnout, and that I should give some thought to taking a little bit of time out. Yikes. The very concept of this seemed alien to me at the time, because being in the gym was my entire fucking life!
But guess what…
… she was DEAD RIGHT!
This resulted in a three month period where I stayed away from the gym, spent lots of time with my kids, and limited the hours I worked on my website.
Fucking hell, it felt weird as fuck.
Is this how normal people live?
Yikes!
Anyway, I sought out a bunch of new hobbies during this time (I’ll show you them below) so that when I returned to the gym I knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake of letting it dominate my entire landscape.
A few months later I started getting “the fitness bug” back again, and when I went back to Powerhouse and informed several members of the reason for my absence, they told me they’d also been experiencing similar feelings of “burnout” and “a lack of balance” in their lives, and wanted to know how I’d managed to turn things around.
So take a look below.
You’ll see the hobbies I picked up during my “burnout break” in 2016. I still do all of these things today (2025), and they stop me from falling back into my old habits of letting barbells and dumbbells consume me 24/7.
If you’re feeling the way I was at that time, maybe these suggestions can help you.
1. Get The Fuck Out
No, not the Skid Row song.
Like most people, I was spending way too much time indoors (either at the gym or at my laptop) so I decide to start going for long walks.
This turned out to be a decent calorie burner and a fantastic mood booster.
The kids and I downloaded the Pokemon GO app to our phones and it became one of our favourite pastimes. All these years later, they still bring up fond memories of our epic quests over hills and rivers trying to catch those fucking creatures.
2. Learn How To Dance
My girlfriend loves dancing, and that’s terrifying for an introvert like me.
Plus, many decades of lifting heavy weights have left me with mobility of a brick.
I decided to try learning to dance to see if I could a) impress Sally, and b) acquire some of the fitness improvements it offers (like better flexibility).
And let’s be clear on this; I failed.
I mean, fuck me, I spent the majority of the class looking like a rhino with a lower back itch.
However, it was undeniably fun.
Plus, if you need to butch it up I’d have you consider that dancing offers many crossover benefits which can help you become a better athlete, and Jean-Claude Van Damme was an expert in ballet before transitioning into martial arts and movies. Heck, even world champion boxer Vasyl Lomachenko took part in dance classes to improve his footwork. So there.
3. Follow A Local Sports Team
I’m a life-long Newcastle United fan.
But when my burnout happened in 2016, my club was at its worst. It was owned by a guy who had zero ambition, and when he wasn’t stapling his tongue to his forehead, he was coming up with new ways to drain the financial life out of the club.
My teenage son came up with the idea that we should follow a small, local team alongside our main side, so we attended a few games at First Cloud Arena, which is located next to my gym and is home to the mighty South Shields FC, who ply their trade in the ninth tier of the English football pyramid.
To be honest, we were both surprised by how much fun this was!
It’s something we still do nowadays, and I recommend it to everyone. Our reason for selecting South Shields is because they’re just up the road, but websites like Football Scores constantly updates its list of live scores, league tables, and fixture information, so I guess there’s no real restrictions on who you follow, and you could be as obscure as you want (but if you struggle for choice, I recommend following South Shields with me!).
4. Read More Books
I spent a lot of time reading as a kid, but it’s something which I stopped doing over the years.
When I was nine years old I spent a year in hospital with a genetic hip condition, so my Granda would bring books on fitness and nutrition to educate me on how to take care of my body so that I wouldn’t end up back in a wheelchair when I grew up.
This reading led to me starting out in the gym and eventually becoming a personal trainer, but over the years I just got “too busy” to keep it up. During my time off from the gym I picked it up again, but I made sure to avoid books on fitness and nutrition. I started with Slash’s autobiography and went from there.
Finally Returning To The Gym
Eventually I returned to the gym feeling fresh and full of energy.
I no longer felt like it “ruled my life”, because I now had several other hobbies and interests (none of which were fitness-related) to give me more of that all-important “balance”.
And to make sure I never slipped back into my old habits, I reduced the number of personal training sessions I ran each week (and I increased my prices), then I modified my own workout schedule from a 7-day workout plan to a a full-body program which was done over 3-4 days. Finally, I simplified my nutrition plan to focus only on staying within my calorie budget and getting enough protein per day, instead of trying to track every little thing along the way.
These changes have worked wonders so far, so if you’re feeling like I used to feel, give some of them a try!
