[maxilevi]

There is no negative effect to doing so, why would you not?

[ssl-3]

There's all kinds of potential negative effects.

1. It generally comes at non-zero financial expense.

2. I might not know what I'm doing.

3. I might get hurt.

4. I might cause someone else to get hurt.

Or, perhaps most-tortuously:

5. They're all going to laugh at me.

[phil21]

> 5. They're all going to laugh at me.

I thought this, and nothing could be further from the truth. The gym (and gymbros) have been one of the most positive uplifting experiences of my life so far. I had a BMI of over 35 when I stepped into a gym for the first time ever at 41 years old.

The non-zero financial expense is really the only issue I can see as "real" on your list. You can avoid #3 by spending money on a personal trainer to learn. Gym memberships are also not cheap. The long-term costs of not doing so I would argue are far greater.

[zackmorris]

I know that feeling, I was nervous about the risks you listed when I was broke and started lifting around 2000/2001 anyway. Trust me, the expense of losing one's health due to inactivity is higher than any financial cost. I trained intuitively, which mostly means going it alone at the school of hard knocks by trying everything and keeping what sticks. I got hurt countless times from ego lifting too much weight in my 20s, not going through the full range of motion, etc, but nobody else got hurt on my watch. But athletes pretty much always recover anyway. That's the important part - learning that proper exercise, nutrition and supplementation makes the body fungible, so there's really no limit to what it's capable of. Now I'm one of the biggest guys at the gym as a lifelong natty and nobody's laughed at me since I got the eye of the tiger about 3 months in.

[kayge]

You can avoid all 5 almost* entirely and make amazing progress by doing bodyweight exercises at home, 2-3 times a week :) There are plenty of free guides out there where you can start at almost any level. E.g. can't do a pushup? put your knees down. Still can't? Do it at a head-up incline. Still can't? Push against a wall. Keep track and make progress until you can move to the next harder exercise. And always remember it's a marathon, not a sprint, so be patient with yourself.

* Can't make any promises. You might get hurt. You might need to pay for some kind of pull up system. But generally speaking: the sooner you stop looking for the perfect time/situation and just start, the easier it all becomes.

[SirMaster]

Yeah, I wish more emphasis was put on #3.

I keep getting hurt via various forms of exercise. My last injury was a herniated disc which has cost me so much time and money for surgery and PT and missed work time and such.

So a big #1 and #3 for me...

Maybe they were because of #2, but I tried to learn as best as I could.

I couldn't care less about #5.

A lot of time, money, and effort and I still have pretty much nothing to show for it. I am still quite thin and weak. I wont give up, but it's definitely not as simple as some people make it seem.

[the__alchemist]

Time, and it may be desirable to avoid things you find uncomfortable.

[swat535]

The time commitment is vastly over stated.

It takes an hour at most and you can go twice a week, working different muscle groups. Your muscles need 3-4 days of rest especially as you increase intensity.

So you can only do bicep workouts once a week for example. Even then, any exercise is better than none.

You can even just start at home with adjustable dumbbells and go to the gym when you hit those limits..