The Yips

"The Yips" is the 10th episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother. It originally aired on November 26, 2007.

Plot
The episode begins with Ted expressing the gyms as the biggest rip off in the world. When he feels that he is getting out of shape,he decides to join a gym and asks Barney for advice. Barney shows him around a gym, where he visits yet never works out. He rather "invests" in the gym, which includes signing up girls who are fat at the gym so that when they get hot, they come back to him to thank him. Ted convinces the whole gang to join the gym together. While they're all working out on their first day, Barney tells Ted that he just met Rhonda, the woman he lost his virginity to when he was 23 (see First Time in New York), but she did not recognize him.

Barney recalls his story about losing his virginity. He had been asking his gay brother James (though he was not gay then) for advice. James suggests Barney visit Rhonda, whom they call "man maker" since she seemed to be hooking up with a lot of guys, and Barney ends up having sex with her. Meanwhile Marshall is struggling in the gym because of his trainer, who is very stern and makes him work out a lot more than what he wished for. This leaves him whining in pain most of the time. Barney tries desperately to get Rhonda to remember him and this leads to Rhonda revealing the truth about what really happened that night. She tells him that his brother James came up to her earlier and pleaded her to make Barney happy by sleeping with him. He ends up sleeping with her as a bribe to sleep with Barney. This blows Barney away and he decides to check on himself by going to the Victoria's Secret Backstage Party with Ted & Marshall.

Once they're at the party, Barney loses all his confidence and throws away horrible pick up lines and is unable to score on anyone. Heidi Klum tries to help him out and suggests that the only way to cure "The Yips" is to go to the source, i.e Rhonda and earn your confidence back from her. Taking her advice, Barney visits Rhonda trying to have sex with her again. She declines saying that she is no longer the "man maker". Barney is then seen without a suit on, claiming that his "sexual history was built on a rotting foundation of lies" and that his identity was lost.

Marshall & Lily want to quit the gym as they were not satisfied but Ted tries to stop them claiming that the gym was a great idea. He even claims that the gym helped him clear out any sexual tension that he had with Robin. Then the gang recalls that Ted never really worked out at the gym the whole week, giving lame excuses such as "brought the wrong shorts!". They then decide to punish Ted by assigning Trish, Marshall's trainer to Ted, thus making him work out a lot. Watching him work out, Robin also claims that the sexual tension between them is gone.

After hearing about Barney's condition, Rhonda visits him trying to cheer him up. She claims that sleeping with her again was not going to solve his problem at all. She tries to spend an evening with him without any agenda but still ends up sleeping with him. This time, she enjoys sleeping with him and Barney leaves a very happy man, claiming "Daddy's back!".

The episode concludes with Marshall, Lily, Ted and Robin agreeing that joining the gym was the best decision that they ever made and Future Ted counters it by saying that they never went back to the gym again.