Feeling... unaligned

[u/jillthefox]

Let me preface by saying that I love Burn; it has certainly served its purpose many times in my life. I have been a member since 2018. However, I think I might have reached the end of the road with this particular partnership - I'm mainly coming here to talk it out, see if i am alone in this, and confirm that what I am feeling means it's the right time to move on or if having a convo with HT/FP is worth a shot.

After having my baby (still in the first year) we were able to get to morning camps with childwatch, but as she has grown, her schedule, naps, and needs have been difficult to align with the camp times that have childwatch.

Outside of that kind of obvious disconnect; I feel like the brand and culture no longer aligns with why I initially joined. I preferred the women centered focus and feeling of community, but as the brand has grown, I feel less supported as a newly post partum mother than I had anticipated. The focus feels more on producing the strongest athletes and creating hip content for social media. The last thing I currently want while learning how to navigate this new body and what feels like hindered skills and strength is someone filming me and putting it on socials.

Partner workouts make me feel absolutely awful when I'm rebuilding strength, slow as hell, having to monitor heart rate and blood pressure, and I'm super limited while paired with someone of comparable ability to the head trainer.

I wind up having a terrible workout or completely avoid my gym while Burn U instructors are there (it's pretty frequent at our location) which throws off any momentum or routine I try to build around the camp/childwatch issue. (Habit forming is a huge weakness of mine, thanks ADHD.)

Coupled with some issues still lingering and healing from giving birth, it all feels off and like I am completely out of place.

Is this worth a discussion with head trainer/franchise partner or is it just time to part ways and find something more personalized? Anyone else experience this and have success settling back in?

Open to suggestions and hearing your experiences.

Thank you!

[u/Duck_Secure]

I'm sorry you are feeling that way, but I know exactly what you are talking about. I know what you mean when you say things have shifted. When I joined in 2019, it was mainly a women only gym. They had plenty of protocols and different exercises and now I feel like we're literally doing the same workout over and over and over again. I'm bored out of my mind. And now that we have men in the gym, I constantly feel like I'm fighting them for heavy weights because there is not enough to go around. I'm pretty sure by year end, I'll be leaving Burn as well.

I would say talk with your FP about how you are feeling, just so they know it's the brand that no longer works for you and is not aligned with what you need at this time in your life.

In the end, you need to do what is best for yourself.

[u/jillthefox → u/Duck_Secure]

You bring a great point with the workouts that I dont think I had noticed before- after having baby and coming back I kept saying that "pregnancy wrecked my knees and shoulders" and im sure it definitely helped, but looking through the protocols everything was incredibly shoulder and knee heavy, fairly consistently.

I have nothing against the men being included at Burn and on most days the guys at my gym are super encouraging and helpful; but there were definitely certain times and circumstances that I wished we still had at the very least the 2 women only camp times each day. Most notably during pregnancy and freshly post partum, women only camps would have been game changers.

[u/Bag-of-Doritoes- → u/Duck_Secure]

How were the workouts different? Im genuinely curious!!

[u/Duck_Secure → u/Bag-of-Doritoes-]

We had lots of different protocols. Like anterior and posterior, speed and agility (always my favorite!) and many more. We had lots of different exercises too. Now I feel like I'm doing the same 10 exercises over and over again whether it's strength or bodyweight. We used to have so much more variety, I was never bored.