Why We Complain Every Single Workout (And Why That’s the Point)
Published by Ryan Nolan | Spite Fitness | Santa Rosa, CA
Nobody talks about this enough.
You’re allowed to hate it.
Not love-hate. Not “I hate it but secretly I love it.”
Just hate it.
And still show up.
That’s actually the whole point.
Most Fitness Culture Gets This Wrong
The message is always the same:
Fall in love with the process.
Find your why.
Make it a lifestyle.
And for some people, sure. That works.
But for a lot of people, it doesn’t.
A lot of people are never going to “love” working out.
They’re going to tolerate it.
Grumble through it.
Complain on the way there.
Complain when they’re done.
And then come back next week.
That’s not failure.
That’s consistency.
And consistency is the only thing that actually moves the needle
Fitness Myths That Need to Die
Let’s just get these out of the way.
Because the fitness industry has been lying to you, and it’s one of the main reasons people give up before they ever get started.
“You have to love the process.”
No. You have to tolerate the process long enough to see results. The love — if it comes — shows up months in. Not day one. Not week two.
“No pain, no gain.”
Pain is your body signaling something is wrong. Discomfort is different. Discomfort is the work. Learn to tell the difference, and stop punishing yourself into injury.
“You need to go hard every session.”
Intensity is the fitness world’s most overrated metric. The people who last aren’t the ones going all-out every session. They’re the ones who show up when they don’t feel like it and do something — anything — to keep the habit alive.
“Cardio is the best way to lose weight.”
Cardio burns calories. Muscle burns calories at rest. The smartest long-term strategy almost always includes resistance training as the foundation, not an afterthought.
“Soreness means it worked.”
Soreness means your muscles experienced something new. That’s it. You can have an incredible workout and feel nothing the next day. You can also be wrecked for three days from something ineffective. Stop measuring results by how much you hurt.
“You need to be consistent seven days a week.”
Two to three days done consistently beats seven days attempted and abandoned. Every time. Without exception.
“More is always better.”
More is better until it’s not. Overtraining is real. Recovery is where adaptation happens. Rest is part of the program.
“Running is the gold standard for fitness.”
Running is one tool. It’s not even a particularly efficient one for a lot of people. More on that in a second.
Running Sucks. We Still Do It.
Here’s the truth.
Running is uncomfortable.
It’s hard on your joints.
It’s humbling in a way that most workouts aren’t.
And most people who say they “love running” either built up to it slowly over years, or they’ve blocked out how bad the beginning was.
I don’t love running.
But I believe something simple: we should all be able to run a mile.
Not fast. Not without stopping. Not beautifully.
Just… be able to do it.
Because mobility, capacity, and endurance matter. Not for aesthetics. For life.
For being able to sprint after your kid. For stairs at 70. For being capable in your own body for as long as possible.
So we didn’t start a run club because we love running.
We started one because running together is completely different than running alone.
How We Built the Anti-Runners Run Club
It started simple.
We had members who wanted to get more cardio in but hated every traditional option. Treadmills felt like torture. Solo runs felt lonely and easy to skip.
So we just started meeting on Fridays.
6am. Spite Fitness parking lot.
A quick warm up. Some bodyweight work. Then we run about a mile through the neighborhood together. And we finish at a local coffee shop.
That’s the whole structure.
No race. No pace requirement. No judgment.
The first week, someone said “this is awful” at the halfway point.
Someone else said “that sucked” at the end.
And then: “Same time next week?”
That’s the culture right there.
You don’t have to fake motivation.
You don’t have to pretend you love every second.
You just have to show up.
And honestly, the complaints are part of it.
Because when you hear someone else say “I hate this too,” something shifts.
You stop feeling like the problem is you.
You start realizing: this is just hard, and hard things feel hard, and that’s normal.
What We’ve Learned From Running Together
A few things have become obvious over the weeks we’ve been doing this.
Nobody drops off when they have a group.
Running alone is easy to cancel. Running with 12 people who expect to see you is a different experience. Social accountability is one of the most underrated tools in fitness. More effective than any app, any tracker, any motivation hack.
The complaints bring people together.
Mid-run misery is a bonding experience. Laughing at how bad it feels, commiserating at the coffee shop after, groaning together through the last block — that’s community. That’s what keeps people coming back.
The coffee shop matters as much as the run.
The social moment after the workout is doing heavy lifting. People are building actual friendships. They’re looking forward to that part. And that pull — toward the people — is stronger than any motivation to exercise.
Consistency beats every other variable.
Some weeks the run is easy. Some weeks it’s brutal. Some weeks people walk more than they run.
It doesn’t matter.
Showing up consistently, week after week, builds more capacity than any single hard effort ever could.
A month of Fridays adds up.
Six months of Fridays changes things.
The Bigger Thing We’re Actually Building
The run club is one piece.
What we’re actually building at Spite Fitness is a place where fitness doesn’t have to look a certain way to count.
We built it for the people who felt out of place in traditional gyms.
For the people who never felt like fitness was for them.
For people who got stared at. Who felt judged. Who walked in somewhere and immediately wanted to leave.
That includes a lot of us.
Before I opened Spite Fitness, I was pushing close to 300 pounds. Walking into a traditional gym felt intimidating. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t feel like I belonged.
I built this gym for the version of me that needed it most.
That means:
- Coaches who guide, not judge
- A community that actually talks to each other
- Classes where showing up matters more than performing perfectly
- A culture where it’s okay to be exactly where you are
We’re an OUT Foundation Level 2 certified gym — one of only 26 in the country. That means our team is trained and held to a standard around inclusive, affirming fitness spaces for our LGBTQ+ community.
Inclusivity here isn’t marketing copy.
It’s the foundation everything is built on.
Misery Loves Company. Company Makes It Work.
Here’s what we’ve noticed about the people who stick around the longest.
They’re not always the ones who love fitness.
They’re the ones who love each other.
They show up because they don’t want to let their group down.
They stay because it’s where they feel like themselves.
They keep going because someone says “you coming Friday?” and it’s easier to say yes than explain why they’re bailing.
Misery loves company.
And sometimes company is the only reason you stopped being miserable.
That’s how habits get built.
That’s how fitness becomes a part of your life instead of something you restart every January.
That’s how you stop needing motivation, because the people in the room become the reason you show up.
You don’t have to love it.
You just have to keep showing up.
Come Complain With Us
The Anti-Runners Run Club meets Fridays at 6am.
We start at Spite Fitness.
We end at a coffee shop.
No pace requirement.
No experience needed.
No pressure.
Just show up, move, complain if you want, and be part of something that actually works.
Check the class schedule here →
Or if you’re curious about the gym and want to see if it’s a fit:
Book a free tour →
Ryan Nolan is the founder of Spite Fitness in Santa Rosa, California. After losing over 100 pounds and feeling out of place in traditional gyms, he built Spite Fitness to create a more inclusive and supportive approach to fitness. Spite Fitness is a queer-inclusive boutique gym focused on helping people feel strong, confident, and part of a community where they actually want to show up.
