Joined a Gym in January? Here’s What You Need to Know
WASHINGTON — When the holiday season ends and January begins, many people seek to move off of the couch and into the gym. Joining a gym is an excellent step towards improving your physical health. If you’re new to fitness and just joined or want to join, there’s no shame in admitting that you’re unsure what to do when you get there.
Take the guesswork out of it and hop into our guide for newbies in the gym. We’ll explain what to do, how to set a goal, pick a program, strength versus cardio workouts and give you actionable tips to maximize your new membership.
What Do You Do At the Gym?
You walk into your new gym. People breathe heavily, sweat, drop weights, use machines, throw balls around and work with trainers. What are they all doing — and what should you do? Here’s what you need to know.
Although everyone is doing their own thing, you’ll all be doing three general activities when you get to the gym.
- Warm Up: Before any type of workout, performing a dynamic warmup helps prepare your muscles, joints, and brain for exercise. Some light cardio, mobility work, and dynamic (moving) stretches make a great warm-up.
- Work Out: Your workout will be resistance training or cardio. You may also be taking a group class.
- Cool Down: Afterwards, do some static (still) stretches to cool down your muscles and relax.
Great, but how do you know what to plug into the “workout” section? Let’s continue.
Set a Fitness Goal
Why did you join the gym? You likely had some intention, resolution, or goal in mind. Getting specific about your fitness goal will help you determine what you should do to achieve it.
Below are some common fitness goals:
- Improve General Health and Fitness.
- Increase Strength.
- Build Muscle.
- Lose Body Fat.
- Increase Endurance and Stamina.
- Increase Flexibility and Mobility.
- Prepare For a Sport or Event.
- Recover from an Injury.
Get a Fitness Program
Any time you walk into a gym and exercise you do a workout, which is always beneficial to your health.
You may benefit from a fitness program if you have a specific goal. A program contains several workouts that you do for several weeks or months. It should have progressive overload, which means you challenge yourself a bit more over time. This may mean lifting heavier weights, completing more reps or sets, or working out longer.
There are many online resources to find a program suited to your goal. A personal trainer can create a training program suited to your needs.
Choose Frequency
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that adults get 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio exercise per week and two or more days of resistance training that works all major muscle groups. These guidelines improve your heart health and prevent cardiovascular diseases. It’s a great place to start.
Getting specific about your goal will help determine if you need more than that.
Resistance Training
Resistance training is any exercise where you engage your muscle groups to push (or pull) against an external resistance that you repeat periodically. Over time, it builds muscle, strength and endurance. It can help reduce pain, improve posture and make daily life activities easier.
Bodyweight
You can use your body weight as resistance. Squats, hinges, lunges, step-ups, planks, push-ups, pull-ups, rows, and many core exercises are all examples of bodyweight resistance exercises.
Free Weights
To keep progressing, you can add free weights to your exercises to increase the resistance. Free weights can be dumbbells, kettlebells or barbells.
Machines
Most gyms have resistance training machines grouped by body part or muscle group. Common lower body machines include the leg press and leg extension. Upper body machines include the lat pulldown, weighted row, chest press and more. You may also see a pull-up machine that you can use if you cannot do a pull-up on your own.
Cardio Workouts
Cardio, or aerobic exercise, is a physical activity that raises your heart rate and breathing. Cardio helps strengthen your heart and protect your health.
Steady-State Cardio
In steady-state cardio, you maintain a moderate heart rate for 30 to 60 minutes. It should be challenging but easy enough to maintain your effort the whole time. You can do steady-state cardio at the gym on a treadmill, elliptical, stair climber, bike or rowing machine.
High-Intensity Interval Training
High-intensity interval training consists of short bursts of maximum effort at a high heart rate followed by short rest periods. You’ll typically do it for 15 to 20 minutes.
At the gym, you can do HIIT on a treadmill or bike by alternating sprinting or cycling quickly with shorter recovery periods. You can also do this on other cardio machines or with bodyweight exercises.
Get Some Guidance
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry. Getting personalized advice or coaching can help beginners feel safe and confident when starting their fitness journey.
Personal Trainer
A certified personal trainer can assess your fitness level, discuss your goals and design a plan to help you reach them. Trainers may give you a plan to do on your own or offer sessions where they guide you through your workouts. They’ll teach you proper form and offer corrections.
Group Classes
Many gyms offer group fitness classes. They may include resistance training, cardio, and other workouts like yoga, pilates or boxing. It can be fun and motivating to work out with other people. You’ll also be learning from a certified instructor.
A Newbie No More
Congratulations on taking a valuable step towards improving your health and fitness. Joining a gym can be intimidating, but now you know what to do, or what you’d like to learn more about. If you didn’t join a gym but still want to start exercising, you can apply all this to working out at home. Have fun!
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