If you’re looking at this blog post right now, and reading these glorious words of mine, then congratulations: you’ve decided to make serious changes to your lifestyle. You’ve finally decided to take the plunge and are now prepared to work hard for that glistening beach bod. But the problem is, you don’t know where to begin. All those machines, all those sets and reps and different workout routines and whatever else. It’s daunting, right? Well, here are a few tips to get going.
Familiarise yourself with the gym.
For your first day I’d advise going at a time you know will be quiet – late at night or early morning, say. You’re going to want to try and learn where everything is, what each machine trains and how to use these machines; you’re also going to want to get your hands on a few of these machines, even briefly. By the time you leave, you should at least have a basic idea of what each machine trains and how to use it.
What are you trying to achieve?
Next you need to ask yourself: what are my goals? What do I want to get out of this? Somebody who is looking to lose weight would, for instance, have a far different workout plan to somebody who is purely looking to gain muscle. This is obvious enough. And both of these will, of course, have a different approach than somebody who is looking to both lose the fat and build the muscle. A larger person would be more inclined to ease into a regime of exercise, perhaps going 3 days with plenty of hiit training and cardio. A smaller person is likely to dive in to a 5 day week of strength training, hitting every muscle hard, with a little cardio to round off.
Decide how many days a week to go and put together a workout plan.
After that, you’ll want to start thinking about how often you want to go to the gym. If you only have time for, say, 3 days a week then you put together a plan that fits that and stick to it. Same goes for 5, 6 or even 7.
For the plan, you want to make sure you hit every muscle group and also include a little cardio. The muscle groups you’ll focus on are: chest, arms, back, shoulders, core and legs. You’ll also want rest periods splitting these up. So if it’s a three day plan, you might want to go something like : Monday (chest and arms), Wednesday (Legs and abs) and Friday (back and shoulders) and perhaps round each day off with a little cardio. If it’s 5 days, maybe go for a push-pull scenario. Or 7, you could dedicate each individual day to a particular mucle, hitting the cardio and abs twice a week. Either way, lay it down at the start and stick to it. Try a few out and find one to suit you.
Look up a handful of workouts and get cracking!
By now, you’ve been to the gym, you know where everything (sorta) is, you know how often you’re going to go and what you’re gonna train on each day. Now you need the actual workouts. This one isn’t so difficult to do, as all you need to do is type in “chest workout” on google and 56,000 will appear. You can even get celebrity ones, so you’ll be spoiled for choice.
The key here is to not to dive in, choosing a new workout every week, but selecting one or two and sticking to them for a while. Perfecting them. Making sure each movement is correct. When choosing what weight to start at with any given muscle, I find it a good starting point to find out how heavy it is before you fail around 10-12 reps. If you pick up a set of 12kg dumbbells, for instance, and you’re still going after 16 reps, I think it’s a good indicator to increase that weight. Providing you’re doing the movement correctly, of course.
And there you have it, a few key things before you start the gym. If you’re a complete beginner, or perhaps a little self conscious, a good idea would be to bring a friend (if only for the first week) and complete a week’s workouts when the gym is fairly quite. It’ll give you that confidence to carry on alone.
The Writer's Block 