If you are starting out down the gym it can be a pretty daunting place. Here are 5 top tips to help you on your way…
- Start off by working out in advance which days you want to go to the gym for the next month and make sure that you stick to them. Arrange nights out, work and your general social life around it and vice versa. Good planning means you shouldn’t miss a session. Aim for 3 days a week for the first month as you don’t want to put yourself off too early on. Build up to 4 days a week when you feel ready to do so.
- For the first month or two do full body workouts each session. Don’t try and split it into muscle groups or anything more complicated. Get the building blocks in place and work from there.
- Try and do as many body weight exercises as possible. That means LOTS of push-ups, dips, pull ups, sit ups and the plank. Why? Because you need to work up the basic muscle groups to ensure that when you start using free-weights you can manage it without injuring yourself. Also most body weight exercises will actually help work out several muscle groups at the same time.
- Build up some of the basic movements on weight machines and the cables. Cables are really good for all level of gym goers. Machines, however, are the bane of the gym. I hate them – but for beginners it’s a good way to build up some basic strength so that you can start on the free weights.
- Move on to free-weights as soon as possible! Anything that you can do with a machine you can do with free weights. Machines will only focus on a very limited range of motion and a very limited section of your muscles therefore you will never get a proper work out using just machines.
If I can give you one piece of advice – other than to wear sunscreen – it would be to get off machines whenever possible and get onto free weights. It’s the only real way to work out! It’s an oldie, but a goodie…
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