Gym Newbies

So you have signed up for a gym membership for the first time in your life.  You couldn’t wait til January like the rest of the world.  You want significant improvement in your fitness and health. What are the next steps? Here are three tips/recommendations I would advise all who are new to working out to improve on the typical experience of many gym newbies.

Sign up for the complimentary (or discounted) personal training session! When you first sign up for a gym membership, typically, it comes with a complimentary personal training session and sometimes with an initial discounted package that would also include training sessions.  This is something you should take advantage of! Will the personal trainer attempt to get you to sign up for more sessions? Yes.  However, as a new gym goer, it is extremely important to experience a workout with the guidance of a health professional. Why? This complimentary session typically includes a tour, questionnaire to help determine risk, fitness assessment, measurements, weigh-ins, and most importantly, you go through a workout while being guided on how to perform the exercises correctly.  Yes, more than likely, you will be exhausted and yes you will probably forget all the tips on correctly performing the exercises and number of reps and the length of the rests and number of sets and which muscles to work out but…you would have experienced what it is like to have a health professional guide you while also having a better understand of the value of a good workout.

Trick Convince a friend to join a gym with you. Why bring a friend along this journey?  Because the saying “misery loves company” applies here as well. If you’re not going to sign up for a trainer, it is much easier to suffer through the trials of performing exercises backwards, sideways and all types of wrong ways when a friend goes alone for the ride.  What is critical is to bring a friend with similar goals.  Through watching other gym goers, utube videos, and weeks (may months or years) of practice, you will improve in the art of working out.

Set goals and follow through. There is a reason you joined the gym.  Yes, you have met one goal of actually becoming a gym member.  However, once the initial excitement has waned, there needs to be a reason to continue to keep coming back.  So create realistic goals like losing 5lbs in a month or attending three aerobic classes per week or something small like a mile walk on the treadmill five days a week.  What to do after accomplishing those goals?  How about creating and achieving new and more challenging goals.

As a new gym member, it can be intimidating not knowing where to start in journey to a healthier you.  All the information related to health and fitness can be confusing.  However, sticking to a few tips/recommendations such as taking advantage of a complimentary workout session, identifying a workout partner and setting goals will help you off on a good start…until you adopt other tips and recommendations that will work well for you.