New To The Gym? The 7 Most Important Lessons You Should Learn
So you’ve made the decision to live a healthy lifestyle. Fantastic! That’s great news, and may be one of the best decisions you could make.
You’ve begun to eat naturally nutritious foods, exercise, and may have even joined a gym. Entering a gym for the first time, or even after a long period of absence can be quite an intimidating, overwhelming experience. The seasoned pros with ballooning muscles, grunting and groaning… It can get rather nerve-racking.
Here we share with you the 7 most important lessons you should know if you are a gym-going newbie.
- Learn the muscle movements before using free weights
Each muscle group that you train requires specific movements. For example, to train your biceps your flex your arms by moving them from waist height up to your shoulders. Beginning any of these exercises with free weights can be rather daunting. This why exercise machines can be great to begin with, so that you can get used to the initial movement.
Free weights are still well worth getting to know, and on whole are more beneficial. They are however more difficult to begin with, as they employ the smaller muscles around the larger ones, which stabilise the weight and keep the movement smooth. The machines however help to isolate the larger muscle so that you can work on it, whilst helping to perfect your form. Once you are confident with using the machines, and used to the movements, you can then move on to use the dumbbells, barbells and all that fun stuff.
- Concentrate on your breathing
Breathing during exercises is extremely important, as unsurprisingly it delivers oxygen to your muscles, allowing you to work harder. The correct way to breathe during exercise is to exhale as you lift or push the weight, and inhale as you return it to its starting position. This is important and will pay dividends from the beginning.
- Begin with low weight, high reps
When starting out in the gym, one of the hardest things to work out is what weight you should begin with. Too heavy and you risk hurting yourself, and way too light and you won’t feel the benefits… However, as a beginner, it is best to start on the lighter side. Pick a weight that you comfortably do around 12-15 reps with. This is to get your form perfect, and so that you are getting as much as possible out of each rep, in a perfectly safe way. Once your form is on point, you can then begin to increase the weight and decrease the number of reps.
- Train your whole body every other day
When we are training what we are in fact doing to our muscles is tearing microscopic fibres, and then building them back up again through correct nutrition and rest. This is where the term being ‘ripped’ originates. When beginning it is recommended to do full-body workouts every other day, so that all of your muscles are getting attended to, and getting the kick-start they need, and this also gives enough time for them to recover. Once your body is used to it, and you have made progress you can aim at individual muscle groups during each session.
- Focus on the ‘larger’ exercises first
There are broadly two types of exercises you can perform; isolating exercises and multi-joint. As it may sound, isolating exercises aim to single out specific muscles, and multi-joint uses various groups of muscles. An examples here would be a bench press, which primarily exercises the pectorals, but is supported by triceps and shoulders. An isolating exercise would be a tricep putdown It is recommended to perform the larger exercise first (the bench press) so that the isolating exercise can be performed after. If you were to train your triceps first, your muscles may be too tired to perform the bench press, which trains more of your muscles.
- Reward your muscles with quality nutrition and protein
As mentioned above, once your muscles have torn, during your resting period they will begin to build up again. This time is just as important as the time that you spend in the gym. Providing your body with quality protein is what your body will be craving. Nutriseed Superfood Protein is a new generation in plant-based nutrition, providing organic earth-grown protein, perfectly balanced with nutritious superfoods. For more information on Nutriseed Superfood Protein please click here.
- Have patience
Like many new ventures, training in the gym takes time. It takes time to get your head around exactly what you need to be doing, and it also takes time for your body to adapt to your new lifestyle. Think of it like a marathon, not a sprint. Be consistent, keep going, and you will be rewarded with a healthier lifestyle and the body you’ve always been after.
Don’t feel disconcerted or intimidated. Get in there, give it what you’ve got and become the you that you want to be.
