Captain Ahab’s BodyBlog

My last couple of blogs have been about the need to workout and why we can’t seem to get it together to do it, so it is only fitting that I put something together on my ideas of how to get started.
Getting started may be the hardest thing of all to do because most people become so fixated on the end result of what their hard work will bring that they kind of lose focus on the basics. We forget that before we learned to run we had to learn to walk, but before that we had to figure out how to crawl and even before that fantastic accomplishment we had to work out how to turn over from our backs onto our stomachs so that this whole process could begin. I feel that putting together the plan is like learning how to turn over and going to get the gym membership is the crawling and being there to workout is the walking stage and after that depending on how hard we work and what we want to achieve comes the running.
The very first thing a person must do is to make the commitment to do it. They need to put all the negative crap that is going around in their heads aside and say, “I am going to do it!” From there everything can start to fall into place. I also believe that telling other people like family and friends is a good thing to do at this time because it is a little harder to not keep going if you have people who know what you are doing, also in a lot of cases its great to have those people as a support system and motivators.
Next set up long and short-term goals. A long-term goal could be to compete in a bodybuilding or fitness competition or in some cases, as one person I know did was to say I am going to lose 500 lbs. Those are definitely long term goals because if you have never worked out before or for a number of years you are not going to pump a little iron and hit the stage at the Olympia in just a few months. Also, in the case where a person is very overweight he or she is not going to lose 500 lbs in just a few months either.
A short-term goal could be to go out and get a pair of new runners or a new pair of gym shorts.
Put together a full body workout plan and do those exercises every other day giving you a complete day of rest in between workouts. If you have never worked out before and the gym is an alien environment for you the best thing you could do would be to hire a personal trainer to walk you through the various machines and weights that are there and to put together a workout plan for you. You don’t have to hire the trainer for long, in fact in the beginning you might hire the person to show you the machines and the weights, put together a workout routine and to show you how to do the exercises using correct form. This may just be for the first week and then you could be on your own for the next month until you are ready to move forward.
Put together an eating plan or nutrition plan if you will. Plan out your 6 meals a day and make sure that you get protein, carbs and some essential fat with each meal. Once again here is where your personal trainer can assist you or the gym may have a nutritionist that it recommends or you can research the Internet with places like Bodybuilding.com housing excellent information on all of your fitness requirements.
When you first start out take baby steps. By this I mean don’t throw yourself into your first few workouts and cause yourself an injury or become so sore that you can not even walk the next day.  Take your time, learn and practice correct form and remember that this is not a sprint it is a marathon and you need to work with that in mind.
You can add to your workouts by mixing in cardio 3 times a week starting at 20 minutes per session. You may need that personal trainer to also show you how the various machines work and one of the things I have my clients do is switch up on the machines. You might do 20 minutes on a treadmill one day, the next it’s the elliptical or the bike or the recumbent bike and sometimes, especially when they start to up their cardio minutes I have them do 10 minutes on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the bike and then another 10 on the elliptical or any variation of the three. This helps break up the monotony of the cardio while still giving them a very good workout.
Some things to be careful of:
No matter what we endeavor to do we always run into hurdles and working out is not without its own particular ones. Feeling overwhelmed the first time in the gym environment and saying “I won’t be able do it.” That is where a personal trainer comes in as that person can walk you through everything the first few times and after a couple of times it all won’t seem so foreign to you.
Giving up or not maintaining motivation. Most people forget that it has taken them years to get out of shape or into the shape they are in today and it is going to take a while to get back into the swing of exercising.
Using the scale to judge your performance. Too many people hold the scale up, as the end all be all to judge their progress in the gym. They get discouraged if the weight doesn’t come off fast enough or in a lot of cases they don’t understand that after a while they are actually putting on muscle along with losing bodyfat and the scale may be staying at the same spot while this is occurring. Everyone should give it at least 60 full days, 90 would be better but I find that after about 30 times of hitting the gym which at every other day will take 60 days of working out it then becomes a habit, yes a very good habit but still a habit and they actually look forward to going.
Cheating. Everyone who is trying to eat clean and using only nutritional foods cheats or falls of the wagon. I don’t mean going out and getting blitzed but rather falling off the clean eating wagon and eating a Crispy Crème donut or more than one or any other not so good food. So OK you blew it today but that doesn’t mean that all of your hard work is gone down the tubes. Think of it as a one-day problem and its over and move on.
Leaving your ego at the door. This applies to men especially because they will see someone lifting 50 lb dumbbells and they will want to try it and if they can’t do it they feel that they aren’t good enough and quit. In the gym you should never compare yourself to anyone else as everyone not only is different but is also at a different stage in his or her fitness.
Give yourself credit. Don’t sell yourself short. Even if you have hired a personal trainer and that person puts you through a lot of hard workouts and you see the changes in the mirror and on the scale, they did not do it, you did. You as an individual lifted the weights, pedaled the bike and passed up sugar loaded goodies so that you could change the way your body looks and now pat yourself on the back. Give yourself the credit. You deserve it and you need to recognize that and it will continue to help motivate you towards more and better changes.
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.