How to Start Your Fitness Journey
Sometimes the hardest part of getting fit is getting to the starting gate. No matter what you’ve tried beginning your fitness journey to achieve weight loss seems further away than the nearest gym.
Below you’re going to find some tips that are going to help you kickstart your strength training journey the right way. We know it can be overwhelming, and that’s why we’re here to help.
Get ready to get fit now!
Start Out Small
If you jump into attending group classes every day of your first week, the outcome is going to be that you’re burnt out. Instead of doing this, start out by taking baby steps.
If you’ve never been to a fitness center in your life, allow your body time to acclimate itself. Workout for fifteen or thirty minutes each time you go to the gym, and as you become used to going to the gym, you can increase the time you spend there.
If you’re seeking out personal training, your trainer can set a time for you to come in and adjust as needed.
Define Your Fitness Goals
What do you hope to accomplish as you work out? Do you want to lose weight and become leaner?
Are you hoping to implement healthier habits into your daily life? If you don’t know what your goals are, it can be challenging remaining motivated when you’re tired and wanting to skip a workout.
During these times, you can remind yourself of how close you are to your goals and keep moving forward until you achieve them. After you define your goals, we recommend finding a way to celebrate when you reach these milestones.
This is another way to ensure you stay motivated to achieve these prizes.
Meet With a Trainer
Above we mentioned briefly sitting down with a trainer to set a time limit for you when you begin to work out. Now we’re saying to meet with a trainer to gain a better understanding of what to expect as you continue to work out.
Trainers not only can provide advice on the world of exercise, but they can also demonstrate the proper form you should use as you work out. When you don’t approach functional fitness or strength training properly, it increases the likelihood that you’ll injure yourself at some point in your fitness journey.
A personal trainer will also help push you when you don’t think you have anything left in the gas tank to give.
Get An Accountability Partner
All things are better when you have someone to do it with, and going to the gym is no exception. We recommend you find a friend who enjoys working out or has the same weight loss goals as you, and take them to the gym with you.
It’s much harder to back out of a workout when someone else is relying on you to go. This also ensures you’re holding each other accountable and sticking to the goals you’ve set for yourselves.
When you’re working out, you’ll find it’s easier to push through challenging parts of the exercise because you’re spending time interacting with your partner instead of focusing on temporary discomfort caused by the exercises.
Be Flexible
No matter how hard we try, life can get busy and that means there will be times that you can’t get to the gym, no matter how hard you try. Don’t beat yourself up, just do your best to tackle it the next day.
A setback in your journey only becomes permanent when you decide that you don’t want to continue your strength training. With everything available these days there are tons of ways to still get your workout in.
For example, if you find that you don’t have the energy to drive to the gym, you can always try an at-home workout.
Get a Physical Examination
Before you work out, you need to know what your fitness level is. A physical examination can not only give you this information, but it also makes it easier to understand what point you’re starting at because you’ll have information about things like:
- Body mass index
- Ideal weight for your height and age
- Personal flexibility level
- Body measurements
These things are beneficial, because as you progress through your journey, you get to watch the numbers change before your eyes. These things help to function as motivation as well.
Visit a Class
As mentioned before, exercise is much more fun when you’ve got a partner. But, what about when you have several partners and an engaging teacher?
If you’re not ready to tackle exercising on your own, try one of the group classes offered in your gym. You might find yourself feeling the burn as you bop your head to the latest musical hits.
Or you could peddle uphill with a ton of other cyclers as your class trainer cheers you on and lets the class know that they can do anything. Each time you attend a group class, you’ll leave knowing someone else when through the same thing you did.
If they can do it, you can too.
Your Fitness Journey: Ready, Set, Go
This fitness journey is your own, meaning you’ve got to personalize it for your weight loss goals. The first thing you need to do is start small compared to jump right in and taking on too much.
If you need that extra push to get through and finish a workout, think about tapping into personal training services offered in your gym. The only gym that can help you improve your physical health is Fitness CF.
We’ve got several fitness locations, so you’ve got no excuse but to get up and get physical. Contact us today.