Embarking on a new fitness journey can seem daunting, and it’s all too common for many to go from being overly enthusiastic one week to not moving at all two days later. This is why the secret of success is really about being consistent rather than pushing as hard as you can right from the beginning. It doesn’t matter if you want to gain muscle, improve endurance, improve overall weight or simply move your body more each day, but rather, it matters the most for you to build a routine that will work for you.
First, it’s helpful to know what your main goal will be in the gym. Are you aiming to get stronger, improve endurance and stamina, improve your weight or is it simply about wanting to move more? Identifying your goal will help you keep your head focused in that direction and will help you create workouts that help achieve your purpose. Without identifying what you are trying to achieve, it’s easy to get caught up in a few different exercises and programs and get stuck in that cycle.
Next, it’s helpful to plan out how and when you will train. Whether that means 20-30 minutes of exercise 3-4 times a week, or whatever you think you can do, is entirely up to you. Just start somewhere. Consistency is far more beneficial than doing a ton once or twice and then going completely sedentary for the next week. Start with small manageable time slots and try not to move around the start times as much as you can. Your body and mind will eventually become adjusted to this routine and you won’t be thinking so much about it as you will be doing.
Furthermore, it’s important to be as well-rounded in your program as possible. You should always have strength training, cardio, mobility work and any of these exercises included in your workouts as each is important and all should be included as part of your exercise program as a whole. The strength training will help you to build strength and muscle and increase your metabolism, the cardio will help you to improve your cardiovascular system and increase endurance and stamina. The mobility work will help to keep you healthy from an overall point of view, prevent injuries and allow for healthy joints.
It’s also helpful to be consistent with recording of your progress. Keep a record of what you did, when you did it, what weights and reps you used and maybe even a personal statement about how each workout went. Seeing how your progress over time is a great motivator, and if things don’t feel like they are going the way you want, then you can easily change things up.
Lastly, be sure that you take breaks as well as listen to your body when you do feel the need. Don’t feel like you have to do a 5-day straight, 7-days straight or 10-days straight of training and exercise. This will only lead to injuries, fatigue and overtraining. Be sure to always take rest days and allow for enough recovery time so that you can grow as a body and continue to progress at a steady rate. Fitness is a long term journey.
At VitalMotion Course we design our programs to help everyone from a total beginner to a more advanced level create a sustainable and beneficial routine that will help to achieve their goals. By creating a routine that allows for realistic expectations, workouts and steady and consistent growth over time you’ll be better able to maintain a sustainable routine that will be beneficial both mentally, socially and physically. It really boils down to the fact that small steps are always better than big sporadic ones.