You started!

The biggest step has been taken, you have overcome the biggest hurdle and that is to set foot in the gym and sign up. You’re here now and it’s time to get into a certain routine. I am all for mixing things up but by routine I mean thinking and deciding for yourself what days and times you’re going to train, what time you’re going to eat food throughout the day and how this new lifestyle is going to fit into your daily life. You’re better off asking yourself these questions before you start on this journey, think about all of these aspects that come with starting your fitness journey. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail, you stepped into the gym because you want to start this so make sure you make fitness, healthy foods and this lifestyle a priority. Have fun with fitness and live your life outside of the gym too though.

You will notice that you start looking around the gym and look at what other people are doing. You’re going to ask yourself questions like: Am I doing the right thing? That person is looking way fitter than I am, I should be doing what they’re doing right? This is hurting why on earth did I start doing this? The answer I like to give you is that you’re on your own journey and you have your specific goals and needs. If you want to do what all the other people are doing, let me tell you that you will get there further down your journey. You just got started and those people that you’re looking at have probably been on there journey for a while longer. Don’t put all of that pressure on yourself, you’re going to progress very soon and you might not even see it until someone else notices it for you because that’s how fast it goes sometimes. One day you will be the person that people look at and go: ”Wow I will never be able to do what they’re doing” Trust me I have been there, you’re going to get there.

Stepping into the gym is the first step, what you do from here is your choice. There’re a couple of options for you to consider after you decide what it is you exactly want to get out of this journey. If you signed up for a regular gym you can do a couple things from here:

-You can get a trainer that will write a program for you

-You can get a personal trainer who can work with you 1 on 1

-You can find yourself a fitness program online –

-Get a friend to workout with you and follow their program –

-You can make up your own program

*If you did sign up with another type of gym you’re usually joining group classes that are structured by the gym.

What I would advice and why:

I will give you the reason(s) why I would and wouldn’t recommend it for each one and you can see what works for you. I am big believer in that everybody is different so everyone has to find out what suits the, works for them and fits their schedule. So some of the reasons why I wouldn’t recommend may not affect you and you should totally scratch that argument. You know your body and lifestyle best, I am only trying to help lay out the possibilities for you.

Get a trainer that will write program for you

The reason why I would recommend getting a trainer from the gym your training at to write you a program is because it’s usually free. Every gym usually has a couple of trainers walking around that will be able to make you a training program that fits your needs. The reason why I would not recommend this is because I know (from experience) that a lot of gyms out there pretend to write out a specific program for you but in reality it’s actually very generic and they have set programs that they hand out to people. Programming workout schedules is a skill and if you happen to have a trainer like that in the gym who is willing to write you one, I would totally jump on that opportunity. If the trainer is good at programming for you there is another benefit to the fact he works at your gym, he knows you and what the equipment possibilities are. This is a big plus (I will get back to why this is in a second.)

Get a personal trainer who can work with you 1 on 1

I am a personal trainer myself and there are a couple of different reasons why I would and wouldn’t recommend hiring one. The first one is very simple, if you can’t motivate yourself to workout when you need to a personal trainer is a good tool to keep yourself accountable to keep showing up and put in the work. The second reason being, you’re technically guaranteed a personalized coaching session every time, where you can ask all the questions you want and someone will always be there to motivate you. What I mean by technically guaranteed is that I understand that not all the personal trainers out there are as skilled in writing personal programming as others are. This brings me to my first counter argument for getting a personal trainer, if you’re not sure you’re getting the right attention, effort and personalized programming it’s not worth the money and you’re better off with someone else or training by yourself. Another reason why I wouldn’t recommend getting a personal trainer in some cases is simply because it might not fit your budget. My 3rd reason for getting a personal trainer is when you want to work on technique or you want to learn a specific skill. Getting better at certain things, learning how to move properly as well as learning a new skill can be difficult and time consuming and it will be a lot easier with someone next to you who coaches you through it all and knows what they’re talking about.

You can find yourself a fitness program online

There’re so many fitness programs out there now a days, great ones, good ones, bad ones, ones that focus on hypertrophy, ones that focus on strength and ones that focus on endurance, you can find them all. It’s absolutely something I would recommend if you know what you need and what you need to look out for. Some of the most important things here are: is the program sticking to the basics? Is this program shaped and focused on what you’re trying to get to? Do you know what you’re looking for? Do you know what to do when you find a program? These are all valid questions when it comes to looking for an online program. The problem with this is that you might not be as confident with actually performing all the exercises in the gym when you do find a program or you may simply not know how to. This is absolutely fine of course and easy to find a solution to, like I said in my last blog it’s the job of any fitness trainer that works at your gym to help you out, so ask them for help. There’re also plenty of more experienced people in the gym that don’t mind showing you a thing or two if you ask them. So as long as you know what kind of program you’re looking for, you know how to perform the movements and you’re not afraid to ask for help you should be good with this option. The only reason why I would not recommend this if the answers to the questions above are a no for you.

Get a friend to workout with you and follow their program

I love training with other people, it’s so much better to go through a training session with someone next to you. You’re going through the same things, you can motivate each other throughout the entire workout and there’s someone there to keep you accountable so you show up every time. There’re different types of training that you can do with a partner and you might feel more confident in the gym which is important. However great training with someone else is, there’re definitely reasons not to or maybe find someone else. Reasons for this could be that they have a completely different goal from your or that they have a different look on how and what they want to do. Another reason could be that they’re taking up to much time doing nothing, just sitting around or they might not add anything to your training overall. You might simply just like to train by yourself and that’s very respectable in my book. I have trained by myself for countless of hours and I think I fared pretty well so far. If you have a friend or know someone that you want to train with and you’re both after the same thing I would definitely let them know and get after it!

You can make up your own program

if you know what you’re doing, if you know how fitness programming works and if you know how to program to get to your goals you might want to go for this option. But I assume you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you felt confident about programming your own workouts. That’s totally fine because I wrote this blog for you and so many others like you out there.

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There’re so many different options now a days when it comes to fitness. Experiment with all of the things if you’re unsure what you like, join a group class if you want to. Make sure you’re having fun with it because that’s what’s going to keep you in the gym for the long run and get you to where you want to go.