Being physically active is such a challenging thing to do. For beginners, thinking about fitness centers alone keeps them intimated, but you should not stay in that phase. Get off the four corners of your room and start right!
But, before you begin taking the first steps on your fitness journey, it is best to understand first that the gym is not for everyone. You should know that starting things right is a must; otherwise, you will end up struggling to achieve your dream goal, and later on, you’ll develop bad habits.
Here are several tips to consider when working out at a gym for the first time.
- Think About Why You Want to Start
Before anything else, be clear about your intentions. Ask yourself; why do you want to enroll yourself in a fitness center in the first place? List your crystal clear reasons, but if you have none, better not start working out at a gym.
- Take Baby Steps
As soon as you already determine your clear reasons, start with baby steps. Don’t immediately rush to performing high-intensity exercises. Also, for the first 2-3 weeks at the gym, don’t enroll yourself in full classes yet. Just a 30-40 minute training session will do for the first few weeks. Remember that your body is still on the process of adapting to your new lifestyle, and performing high-intensity exercises will only cause shock to your muscles. After 2-3 weeks, try increasing the intensity of your exercises and adding another 30-40 minutes of your training session.
- Consistency is the Key
Before working out at the gym, don’t even start when you are still in hesitation. Working out at a gym takes a lot of patience and most of all, consistency. You can’t just workout because you are in the mood to and stop for a while the next day. You can’t restart from time to time because it will be harder for you to achieve your goals.
- Get a Personal Trainer
To professionally and properly guide you throughout your journey, getting a personal trainer is helpful and beneficial. The first reason is that you can get a one-on-one training session which makes it more focused on you unlike with groups. Besides, a personal trainer can easily keep a tab on the progress you are making since it is a one-on-one session.
- Buy a Decent Pair of Shoes
A decent pair of shoes at the gym is everything. Wearing old and problematic shoes will only cause adverse effects on your muscle and joint, especially when you are doing moderate to high-intensity exercises.
- Perform Warm-up and Cool Down Exercises
To avoid injuries, you must not forget to perform warm-up exercises before doing any exercise and cool down exercises after the workout. Warm-up exercises prepare your body, especially your joints and ligaments for the workout while the cool-down exercises, from the word itself, helps tone down the physical tension you feel during the session. Doing such will keep you going.
- Take Occasional Breaks
When you feel like your body has already reached its limit, rest. You need to take occasional breaks to keep going. Otherwise, you will injure yourself or experience burn out. While at the training session, you need to exert a lot of effort, but this does not mean pushing yourself to the extent that your body can’t handle it anymore. As much as possible, don’t compromise the needs of your body to rest.
Deciding to wok out at the gym might be the hardest thing you are thinking about today, but this should not intimidate you. Nonetheless, it should challenge you towards achieving a stronger mind and a stronger body. Thus, before you begin, think about why you should start and how badly do you want it.