Do you have to be a certain type of person to enjoy the gym?

What if working out feels like something that “just isn’t who you are”?

This recently came up with one of my hybrid coaching clients. They want to improve their health or fitness, but the gym felt misaligned — like something they should do rather than something that fits into their life.

So instead of forcing more gym sessions, we started looking at how training could feel more enjoyable, more supportive, and more realistic. The goal wasn’t to turn them into a different person — it was to help movement become something that belonged in their life.

Big gyms can be intimidating. For many people, they’re unfamiliar environments filled with unspoken rules. What should I do? How does that machine work? Am I doing this right? If you don’t spend much time in gyms, it’s easy to feel out of place before you’ve even started.

Then there’s the physical discomfort.

When you follow a structured session that challenges your current strength or fitness level, it is uncomfortable. And naturally, the mind steps in with thoughts like “this isn’t for me” or “I’m just not good at this.” That’s not weakness — it’s your brain trying to protect you from something unfamiliar.

But if the goal is to improve fitness, strength, or how you feel in your body, some discomfort is unavoidable. Progress only happens when we challenge your current capacity. That means there will be moments where you feel unfit, where it feels hard, or where you want to stop. That’s not a sign you’re failing — it’s often a sign that you’re doing exactly what’s needed to move forward.

If we never challenge where we are, we simply stay where we are.

This is why learning to notice your thoughts during a challenging session is important. When discomfort shows up, instead of immediately deciding “this isn’t for me,” it can be helpful to pause and reconnect with why you wanted to improve your health or fitness in the first place.

It might sound easy coming from me because coaching and training are such a big part of my life. Movement has been woven into my day for years, starting with military training and continuing ever since. Daily exercise was part of the structure, so over time it became normal. Because of that, I can now walk into almost any gym — commercial or hotel — and know what I want from a session.

But that confidence didn’t come overnight. It came from repetition, from having a reason to show up, and from gradually becoming someone who moves their body regularly.

And something interesting happens when movement becomes consistent: you start to notice how much worse you feel after a few days of not moving. That’s usually the moment people realise that exercise isn’t about being a “gym person” at all — it’s about how the body and mind respond to regular movement.

Daily movement doesn’t mean the gym every day. In fact, for most people, that’s when training starts to feel like a chore. Structured gym sessions need recovery to be effective. The days in between are where enjoyable movement comes in — walking, Pilates, mobility work, or anything that helps you feel better in your body.

When those pieces work together, training stops feeling like something you force and starts feeling like something that supports your life.

You don’t need to change who you are to benefit from movement.

You just need an approach that works with you, not against you.

This is exactly what hybrid coaching is about — combining structured training with movement that fits your lifestyle, your energy, and your goals, so progress feels sustainable rather than overwhelming.