Beginner Fitness Advice

 Welcome to the fitness section!

This is the fun section here, maybe you already read through nutrition and realized just how crazy this is going to be. Well boys and girls, put your seatbelt on because we are in for a trip.

Rule #1: you can’t outwork a bad diet. I’ve tried it, it can’t be done. Maybe you’ll get jacked or lose weight but you won’t have the definition you want amongst other things. You are what you eat. 

Rule #2: we all got to start somewhere. If that means bench pressing the bar for three sets of six then that’s what you gotta do. Ain’t nobody gonna walk in and bench 315 right out of the gate. 

Rule #3: your heart is more important than your biceps. Do your cardio. 

Now that we got all that figured out and laid out we can really dive into the deep end here. So  how does a new person or any person go to the gym day in and day out and make any kind of progress? Well, one of the easiest ways to really make some progress is to find a program that works for you and stick with it. That could be a programs that 4 weeks, 6 weeks or even 12 weeks or you can just do what I do and do the program and start over and do it again. Where do you find these programs? The internet is a beautiful place. I prefer programs from Jeff Nippard. I did his upper/lower split and now that was a 4 days a week program and currently  am doing a body part split that is a 5 days a week program.  There’s also people like Derek Weida that have home workouts or body weight workouts. These are both very good if you don’t have access to a gym or maybe you don’t have the funds for a membership. The important thing is to get moving and be consistent in what you’re doing. So pick a program and stick with the program. 

Another helpful tool when lifting weights or whatever program you are doing is to track what you’re doing. You want to be able to see what you did last time and slowly increase that over time, we call this progressive overload. Progressive overload can be more weight, more reps or longer time under tension. Progressive overload by more weight is simply that, adding more weight and keeping the reps the same and time under tension pretty similar. So let’s say you’re doing 175lbs for 5 on bench one week, the next week I’d increase that to 180 for 5. That’s what adding weight would look like for progressive overload. More reps would be 175 for 5 and then the next week try 175 for 6+ reps, also very effective. For more time under tension it’s simply just taking longer to do one rep or maybe the whole set. My preferred methods of progressive overloading is more weight or more reps. Some ways you can track your progress is the old fashioned way with pen and paper, just write your exercises in and how much and how many. There are also some pretty good apps for your cell phone. Some more in depth than others and some of that depends on the persons experience levels with lifting. If you have more experience maybe you want something more in depth. Personally, I use a book off Amazon. There are some good ones that help organize your lifts and can add cardio and even nutrition to your program. Keeps it’s all in one place and I can throw it in my bag. 

If you’re new to lifting and unsure of what to do on certain lifts, I recommend watching videos. Jonni Shreve is one of my go to people for this on YouTube  he talks about the lift then shows you how to do it properly. It also helps to record yourself doing the lift and making sure you have good form. Form is more important than lifting a ton of weight because you can’t lift any weight when you’re hurt.

Be safe about what you’re doing too, use the safety rails on equipment and if you’re doing a lift and something doesn’t feel right then rack the weight and figure out why. Maybe you didn’t properly warm up or stretch. Some stretching and a good warm up go a long way before your working sets. You’ll definitely want to do maybe a 5-10 minute walk to get the blood pumping and heart rate up. Then I usually stretch out whatever group of muscles I’m working that day and maybe the muscles I worked the day before just so I’m not stiff. Sometimes you have to warm up the whole body if you’re doing deadlifts, squats, bench, rows or overhead press. If you’re unsure of what stretches to do, the internet is a great place to look. Watching videos of different stretches have helped me learn a lot about stretching and have improved my lifting and overall mobility. 

I think with these topics here, most people can be off in the right direction. I’m always available to help or recommend different things to watch or read or certain programs. To summarize this article, be safe, use great form, stick to a program, track your exercise, educate yourself, and most importantly have fun because if you aren’t enjoying it, you aren’t going to stick with it. 

As always, thanks for reading and be sure to check out my other sections on nutrition and future fitness sections as well. Please reach out if you have any questions or comments or even concerns.