On The Right Track

Four lessons from the gym floor that will transform your vinyl game

Photo by Ingo Ellerbusch on Unsplash

In certain intellectual circles, such as music writing and record collecting, I often get dismissive curious looks for being a fitness freak.

I lift weights six times a week, with the occasional swimming session on top. I track my progress and calories, and get really cranky if I can’t complete all my scheduled workouts in any given week.

According to my calculations, I reckon I have spent, so far in my life, more than 6,000 hours —and counting— on the gym floor. There’s no easy way of telling you, my beautiful vinyl lovers, that if I wasn’t writing about vinyl, I would most probably be writing about fitness.

Believe it or not, there is a surprising number of parallelisms between these two seemingly disparate worlds.

A while back, I wrote about the importance of discipline, one of the main crossovers between fitness and records. I was positively surprised by how well it was received.

Today I am bringing you four more lessons from the gym floor that will help you get stronger—not just lifting weights, but digging those crates too.

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Build successful habits

Success is often a combination of multiple factors, but the main difference between a pro and an amateur is that the former has built the necessary habits to succeed in the first place.

If you are serious about any activity, you need to make sure you perform it regularly and consistently.

Don’t worry too much at first about the best hour of the day or the length of each session. Start by getting your arse in there often.

Visit your local store. Visit out-of-town stores whenever you can. Check what’s happening online. Daily if possible.

Frequent browsing will give you a great overview of that magic price/availability/condition triad. If you want to make wise choices, you need to know what’s moving where.

Same with spinning: it doesn’t matter whether you do it in the morning or in the evening, with or without headphones, while doing other things or as a standalone activity. Regular spinning sessions will enhance your audio perception, sharpen your vinyl cleaning skills, and help you address system malfunctions as and when they occur.

Follow your passion

A healthy, athletic body is one that is exposed to different types of shock at a progressively increasing rate of intensity. To perform at your best, you need a certain amount of variety in your exercise, whilst always making sure you are actually making progress in all areas.

But the moment you choose an activity you hate just because the general wisdom says it’s good for you, the excuses to skip the gym will start piling up.

A very similar principle applies to your records: variety is important, but make sure you actually enjoy all the music you’re buying. Gently pushing yourself out of your comfort zone? Absolutely. Allowing spontaneity and intuition to guide you every now and then? Hell yes. But trying to build the most diverse collection in the world is at best unrealistic and, at worst, completely pointless.

For what? For whom? Don’t spread yourself too thin. Focus on what you know. Nurture what you love. Follow your passion—build from there.

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Beware of fads

Remember Peloton bikes? Power plates? Intermittent fasting? In the fitness world, there’s a constant flurry of new and supposedly ground-breaking trends. Some are so ground-breaking that they end up slipping through the very same cracks they came from.

I don’t mean to brag, but I have a six pack all year long and, believe me, I wasn’t particularly blessed in that specific genetic department. The abs didn’t just randomly appear overnight. I put in a hell of a ton of work each day.

One thing I learned in all these years of sweat, blood and tears is this: if you want to condition your body efficiently and successfully, all you need to do is move a bit more and eat a bit less. That’s it. It’s that simple. You will certainly need to fine tune the details later, but how you actually get there —rowing or running? swimming or lifting? carb cycling or keto?— is irrelevant if you don’t get that first premise right.

I don’t want to hurt sensitivities here, but we could draw some parallelisms with vinyl subscription services, mobile turntables and (yes I’ll say it) eco vinyl. Let’s not reinvent the wheel, folks. There’s no need to fix what ain’t broke. Focus on the bread and butter.

Check who pressed your records. Memorise the names of mastering engineers. Read the runouts. Visit your local stores. Rummage the bargain bins. Build your network of trusted sellers. Browse, browse, browse. Browse until you’re blue in the face (or red in the eye).

I’ve managed to build an £18.4k ($24.9k) collection spread over 596 records. That’s an average of £31 ($42) per record. You can be sure I paid a lot less for the vast majority of each of these releases. I didn’t follow any magic formulas or crazy fads. Just a hell of a lot of crate-digging.

Trust the process. Some methods are tried and tested for a reason.

Photo by Keanu K on Unsplash

Patience, patience, patience

Building a strong, lean and healthy body takes years—certainly not days, not weeks, not even months. Years.

You can try to cut corners, sure, but it won’t be sustainable in the long run, and any small progress you may have made will fade as quickly as you find yourself back at square one.

Results don’t magically appear overnight. The same principle applies to your vinyl. If you want to build a successful collection—for your own personal enjoyment, to pass on to your kids, to benefit from resale value, or a combination of all three— you need time, effort, and a great deal of patience.

This is where a sharp focus on what you know and love will come in handy. Know your stores. Know your market. Know your genres. Know your artists. Know your communities.

The best way to make good use of your time and resources is by keeping yourself informed and visiting stores regularly. Don’t expect a windfall if you’re not showing up in the first place.

Can you think of other lessons (from sports life or other disciplines) that could help you get stronger in the vinyl department? See you in the comments!

Thanks for reading/listening. Happy spinning!