It's All About the Environment

I'm sure in looking at the title of this post, a few of my friends reading this are hoping for an erudite post on greenhouse gases, carbon footprints and the magic of Al Gore's haircut... but I'm terribly sorry to disappoint. This is all about your gym/training/fitness environment and the power it has on your results.

I've come across several good pieces (all from pretty different points of view) and each with a common theme - if you associate yourself with positive influences and people, you're going to get better results. Is this high level nuclear physics? Hardly, but I've found that these kinds of statements are of the kind of thing people nod their heads in agreement to, but then do nothing to put into practice (and I can be just as guilty as anyone else in this regard, fo' shizzle). I found three little nuggets of goodness on the idea of environment and what it can do for (or against) you:

MSNBC has a piece about how gym friendships create a positive peer pressure environment which keeps people working out. It's like a nice little support group to keep you on the right track. However, I personally prefer the next 2 pieces since they are much less fluffy and get into the meat of the discussion a little more.

First, Jason Ferruggia (a pretty cool guy I had the chance to meet and buy a beer for once) wrote a piece called "The Company You Keep" over at EliteFTS. What I love about this piece is that it is like the MSNBC piece, but really magnified to show you how the people you choose to work out with (whether as a workout partner or just the people who surround you in your training location of choice) impact your progress like few other things. I can personally vouch for this because when I've been at the "chrome and fern" style gyms (see photo), it's just not the same for my training.

How driven do you feel to do better and get stronger if you are surrounded by people who put in zero to no effort? Who look like they are killing time or using the gym as purely a social environment as opposed to improving themselves? I contrast that against situations where I was with people who, for example, were stronger than I was... and suddenly... even in the course of a single workout, I was stronger too and lifting weight I never previously did. It's not magic at all, but it just seeing these other people and what is possible, things can suddenly become possible for you too. While you may not want to train to become huge or deadlift 700 lbs, I think there is a lot to be taken from Jason's article.

The last piece is by Chris Shugart over at T-Nation and this one is from the other side of the
motivation spectrum: toxic people. You hopefully recognize these people around you and how they can slowly, subtly kill off your positive attitude and motivation through cutting little comments that can erode your will over time. Again, you may realize there are negative people out there and can identify them a lot of the time... but what happens when they are not Betty Busybody from the office and instead... they are your spouse? Parents? Best friends? Do you recognize the insidious little game being played right in front of you by someone you love and trust?

Give each of these articles a shot since they have 3 different approaches to the common theme of what you surround yourself with will undoubtedly affect your success.