How To Start a Fitness Journey

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How to start a fitness journey

The eternal struggle many people go through when starting a fitness journey is undeniably the start itself. Maybe the motivation is there, the will to take action is there, but what next? How do you actually start?

Firstly there is the basic fear of the unknown. It’s completely understandable for a beginner to feel that way, fitness is such a wide topic with many information to process. Therefore don’t worry, as you are already making the correct actions by reading this article and informing yourself.

Create a Plan

The first step is making the decision on how you are going to work on your new goals. Are you going to workout at home or will you join a gym? Would you prefer things like pilates and yoga or would you do resistance training? What may seem like a lot of questions to answer already, is much simpler than you possibly think. Basically, by knowing what your final goal is, this question will answer itself.

In case that your initial goal is just to work on your general well-being, improving your flexibility, balance, and work on stress relief, then your chosen activity should undoubtedly be something like yoga, accompanied by a morning or evening run. However, if you wish to build some muscles, improve your body shape, work on your strength, endurance, and simply achieve significant and visible results, then your choice should be resistance training.

With this in mind, in the ideal world, we would be doing both types of above-mentioned activities. As both of them bring very beneficial outcomes. Nevertheless, being a beginner focus on just one thing at a time, and learn how to do it properly.

Get proper information

By doing the first part and successfully choosing your preferred workout method, you’ve done much more than you think. You’ve managed to narrow down the wide topic of ”Fitness” to a much more targeted and direct topic. The next step would be to do proper research on the method you have chosen, which will be much easier now that you know which exact topic to focus on.

First day at the gym

So you’ve finally made the decision and took action to join a gym for the first time. Now what? This is where fear of the unknown takes place again for most beginners. As not only are all the machines something completely unknown, but there is also the fear of looking like a fool, fear of injuries, fear of not achieving anything, etc. It is completely normal to feel that way as there truly are a lot of things to learn and process for someone with no background knowledge about it.

This is where I can’t avoid mentioning the benefits of getting a personal trainer to help you while starting your fitness journey. All the things that you were worried about would be resolved because your coach would teach you and guide you through every step of the way. Eventually, that saves you a lot of time and a lot of energy wasted doing the wrong things. However, if that is something you’re simply not in the position to do, here are some solutions.

Firstly, I would like to remind you that many gyms count on trainers that are not there to charge you for 1 on 1 sessions. On the contrary, they are there exactly for reasons like helping beginners understand the use of machines, or help them with proper posture while doing an exercise. In smaller gyms, that person might be the receptionist. In any case, there will always be someone qualified to assist you. Also, don’t forget to ask while getting your first membership if a coach can be assigned to train you for the first day free of charge, as many gyms offer that for new members.

Come prepared

Another piece of advice that I can give you, in case you would be training on your own, is to come prepared. Do some research on few commonly mentioned machines and watch some tutorials on how to use them. Remember the names of those machines and try to locate them at your gym. Your goal, in the beginning, is to familiarize yourself with as many features at the gym as possible. However, don’t pressure yourself to learn everything in one day, as that would be impossible anyway.

Equally important to ”How to use a machine” is ”How not to use a machine”. Don’t allow yourself any injuries and learn about the common mistakes at the same time while learning how to use a certain machine. Additionally, a useful habit to obtain right from the start is doing a proper warm-up, as well as stretching.

Staying motivated

Be aware that your motivation won’t always be at its highest point. Therefore plan ahead on finding ways to get yourself back on track. For some people that might mean having a workout buddy, or creating a motivational workout playlist. Also, it might mean trying new training styles to keep things interesting. Altogether, what matters is to keep that consistency. As that is your main tool to get good and long-lasting results.

I wish you the best of luck with starting your fitness journey and hope you will enjoy this process already from the beginning. Be strong and fearless, and remember that the only obstacles are the ones we place on our way.