15 crucial fitness tips for beginners
Starting to exercise is an excellent decision that your body will thank you for in the long run. But in order to achieve your goals, you should first be aware of some basic facts that will have a decisive impact on your progress. To make it as easy as possible for you to get started in the world of iron, we have put together 15 crucial tips that will help you achieve your dream figure.
1 – Find a destination
Before you even start training, you should be aware of what you want to achieve with your commitment. Otherwise, it is quite likely that you will stand on the spot for a long time and make minimal progress. Accordingly, it is necessary to think beforehand whether you primarily want to build muscle or lose fat, because this requires a completely different approach.
2 – Start small
Assuming that your goal is to build muscle and reach the level of strength of an Olympic weightlifter, it doesn’t mean that you can work with heavyweights right from the start. Even the strongest athletes in the world started out small because their bodies also had to get used to the increasing stress. Take an example of this and start slowly, as this is the only way to prevent unnecessary injuries.
3 – Gradually increase
As already described, your organism needs some time to adapt to the structures of the active and passive musculoskeletal system to weight training. Accordingly, increase slowly so that you increase your performance step by step. In return, however, do not forget that your body must be challenged again and again so that such a performance-increasing adaptation reaction can take place at all. If you move too slowly, progress will largely fail to materialize.
4 – Don’t overestimate yourself
Before you increase the training weight, you should make sure that you master it safely at all times. An excellent indicator in this regard is to check whether you can hold the weight used at any point in the movement for a good second. Only if this is the case is it worthwhile to increase the load.
5 – Follow a training program
In particular, if you have never really dealt with the subject of strength training and you tend to feel overwhelmed by the many devices inside a gym, you should orientate yourself towards a fixed training program. Special beginner programs also have the advantage that they are usually tailored by experts specifically to the needs of inexperienced athletes so that you learn step by step everything that is important for your training.
6 – Pay attention to your technique
In the beginning, it is less important which exercises you perform specifically, but rather that you internalize the basic technique of performing the exercises in order to train effectively and safely. Basically, you should always make sure that your back is straight and your core muscles are tensed throughout the entire movement.
7 – Find a training partner
There is nothing more motivating than a training partner because even if you don’t feel like going to the gym, a good training partner knows how to get into sports. In addition, you benefit from the fact that a second person helps you during the exercise and assesses your technique so that you can always train safely and purposefully.
8 – Stretch yourself before training
Just like warming up, light stretching before training is essential for a visit to the gym. This is imperative because your muscles, tendons, and ligaments are more prone to injury when they are cold and inelastic. You shouldn’t overdo it, though, because stretching too long can have a negative impact on performance.
9 – Use free weights too
Of course, your exercise program doesn’t have to be all about exercises performed with free weights, and yet you should definitely take advantage of it. Dumbbell training has the advantage over the use of machines that in addition to the primary target muscles, the secondary auxiliary muscles are also trained, which improves the interaction between the individual muscle groups, which in turn is beneficial for your performance potential.
10 – Exercise your legs
Very important point – Many women do not train their legs because they assume that endurance training is already sufficient for the development of taut thighs and a firm bottom. However, since endurance training alone cannot lead to significant muscle growth, it is imperative that you specifically strengthen your legs with exercises such as squats or the leg press.
11 – Exercise alternately
You shouldn’t forget that you shouldn’t re-train the same muscle group on consecutive days because your muscles need time to regenerate. Allow each muscle group to rest for at least one day before you train them again. For this purpose, it is advisable, for example, to train three times a week according to a whole-body plan or to do a so-called split training.
12 – Make sure you have enough regeneration
As already mentioned, you should allow your body to rest, otherwise, it will not be able to regenerate itself. In addition, despite a sophisticated training plan, many muscles are always strained in some way. As a result, it is not possible to spend every day in the gym without impairing regeneration, which is why you should refine your body a maximum of 5 days a week.
13 – Drink enough fluids
Your muscles are more than 75 percent water. So it is obvious that the hydration has a central role in the performance of your muscles. Scientific studies show that a sweat-induced loss of fluid of only two percent can lead to a drop in performance of up to 20 percent. So remember to drink between 0.7-1 liters of fluid during training to prevent your strength potential from sagging.
14 – Eat healthily
If you really want to achieve your goals, there is no way around a healthy and balanced diet. Regardless of whether you want to build muscle or lose fat, you should make sure to eat protein-rich foods and eliminate sugar and unhealthy fats from your daily diet. Especially as part of a diet, however, you shouldn’t be tempted to reduce your calorie intake too much, because your body needs fuel to be able to perform at all in training.
15 – Don’t be intimidated
Even if you often look at the many muscle mountains in the gym strangely, you should not be intimidated by them, because these also started out small. Concentrate only on yourself and on the goals you want to achieve.