I’m comfortable in a terminal. I debug race conditions. I have strong opinions about system architecture, probably wrong ones. In tech, I’m a “Senior.”
Then I walked into a gym last week. Wasn’t a Senior anymore.
I stood there staring at a machine, trying to figure out which way to sit on it, hoping no one noticed. Shaking under an empty bar. Total noob.
Best refresher course on software engineering I’ve had in years.
Looking stupid
The free weights section is terrifying. Felt exactly like my first day as a junior dev pushing code to production. Everyone else looks like they know what they’re doing. You feel watched.
We tell juniors “just ask questions,” but we forget how paralyzing it feels to ask a “stupid” one.
I had to swallow my pride and ask a trainer how to do a proper squat. If I hadn’t, I’d have hurt myself. Same thing happens in code. If juniors don’t ask, they hurt the codebase. Being a beginner again reminded me to go easier on the new folks. We were all shaking under the empty bar once.
You can’t copy-paste strength
I’m used to shortcuts. Don’t know how to center a div? Google it. Copy-paste. Move on.
At the gym, I watched a YouTube video on “best chest workout” and thought I had it figured out. Then I got under the bar. Gravity doesn’t care about your theoretical knowledge.
You can’t copy-paste strength. Can’t ChatGPT your way to a personal record.
Made me realize how much of modern development is gluing things together versus actually understanding them. Lifting forced me to feel the mechanics, not just memorize output. Made me want to go back and understand how my tools work, not just how to use them.
Consistency beats motivation
Coding has flow states. You blink and four hours are gone.
The gym hasn’t been fun yet. My muscles ache. I’m tired. It sucks. I go anyway.
The most valuable code isn’t written during a manic 3am burst. It’s written on a Tuesday afternoon when you’re bored but you write the unit tests anyway.
The gym teaches the same thing. Forget the highlight reel. Results don’t come from one intense session. They come from showing up when you don’t want to.
Ego lifting
The guy next to me is curling my squat weight like it’s styrofoam. I want to grab the heavier dumbbells. That’s ego lifting. Do that and I tear a muscle.
Coding has the same trap. Skip docs because “I’ll figure it out.” Skip tests because “it’s simple.”
Being physically weak forced me to respect the process. Start light. Check form. Rest. Thinking you’re too smart for the basics is the fastest way to break production.
Being a gym noob stripped away the ego I built up in my career. Growth happens when you’re shaking under a barbell or staring at a panic log.
So I keep showing up. Keep lifting the light weights. Maybe the code gets stronger too.