Fitness introductory plan for beginners

The most core plan for beginners to get started with fitness is to give up all the fancy differentiated training, supplement plans, and weight comparisons in the first three months, and focus on the three core aspects of "movement standards, training three times a week, and slight diet adjustments". First, make fitness a daily routine like eating and sleeping, and then talk about advancement.

On the first day when I applied for the card, I clutched the physical test sheet given by the gym and my eyes went dark when I saw the high body fat rate on it. I turned around and followed the online plan to make a five-week exercise schedule. I wished I could develop eight-pack abs/vest line the next day. However, after the first day of training, my legs were so sore that I had to hold on to the railing when walking down the stairs. I asked for leave to lie down at home the next day and didn't step into the gym door again for half a month - this is probably a pitfall that 80% of novices have stepped into. I was like this when I just graduated. On the first day, I followed the big brother in the gym to do leg training. I squatted 8 sets of 60kg. In the end, it hurt for a whole week. I had to slowly rub down even when sitting on the toilet. Most of the enthusiasm I had accumulated was lost.

Speaking of this, someone must ask, should I hire a private tutor? There has never been a unified answer to this question in the industry: those who support hiring believe that novices have no foundation in movement, and it is easy to injure their waists and shoulders by practicing blindly, and it is worth spending money on the correct movement patterns in the early stage; those who oppose think that many gym personal trainers do not even have the four major certifications, their own movements are not standard, and they will only sell classes to urge you to buy personal training packages, but it is easy to be led astray. Judging from my own experience with so many novices, there is definitely a compromise: if you have enough budget, give priority to finding a personal trainer with ACE/NSCA certification and more than 3 years of experience. Buying 10 classes is enough to learn the three major movement patterns. There is no need to buy dozens of packaged classes; If you don’t have enough budget, go to Station B and look for fitness science videos from Uncle Jeff and the State Sports General Administration. Watch the explanations of each movement three times before practicing. When practicing, take pictures of your own movements in the mirror and make comparisons. Even if you only correct one small problem each time, you can get the basic feeling of force after practicing three times.

There is another point that many people struggle with, which is whether to choose differentiation or compounding in training plans? Many Internet celebrity bloggers ask novices to do chest, shoulder, back, leg and arm exercises five days a week from the beginning. To be honest, it is really unnecessary. In the first three months, your nerve recruitment ability was still very poor. You couldn't find any sense of force in isolated movements. Your arms were exerting force for half a day of training. It would be more efficient to practice more compound movements. I used to have a friend who was a programmer. At first, he followed the five-point training method, 5 days a week. After 10 days, he was completely broken. Later, he changed to 40 minutes of training every Tuesday and Thursday after get off work, and 1 hour of training in the morning on weekends. Each time, he practiced two main items plus 10 minutes of core training: for example, squats + dumbbell bench press on Tuesdays, and deadlifts + highs on Thursdays. Pull-downs, and a few more sets of planks and Russian twists on weekends. Choose a weight that is a bit strenuous to do the last two, but the movements will not be deformed at all. Just do 12-15 times in each set. He has adhered to such a simple plan for almost 2 years, and his body fat has dropped from 26 to 18. The fat on his belly has long been gone, and his shoulder lines can be seen even when wearing a T-shirt. Of course, if your coordination is particularly poor and you always stumble when doing compound movements, it’s okay to first practice lateral raises and biceps curls with a 2kg dumbbell to find the feeling of muscle strength. You don’t have to follow the requirements of a certain school. What suits you is the best.

Oh, by the way, don’t wear those airtight tights with a hard and concave shape. It’s you who will be sweating and uncomfortable in the middle of the workout. Just wear a comfortable T-shirt, shorts, and well-fitting sneakers. It’s not too late to buy any waistband, wristbands, or professional fitness equipment for three months. I’ve seen too many people buy a cabinet of fitness clothes, and in the end the card has expired and I haven’t been there a few times.

Don’t just focus on practicing, there are actually more pitfalls in eating and sleeping. Many novices eat boiled chicken breasts and broccoli as soon as they start cooking, counting the calories down to the gram. As a result, after three days of eating, they can't help but rush to make skewers, and instead the cans are broken. There are also two views in the industry on novice diets: one group believes that calorie deficit must be established from the beginning, otherwise the training will be in vain; the other group believes that it is difficult for novices to stick to it, and it will be easy to persuade them to quit if they engage in a strict diet from the beginning. My general advice to novices is to change three small habits first: replace sugary milk tea and cola with sugar-free or mineral water, eat an extra punch of green leafy vegetables with each meal, and eat one more egg or one box of pure milk every day than before. It’s as simple as that. After you can persist in practicing for a month, it is not too late to slowly adjust your diet structure. If you are usually busy at work and don’t have time to make high-protein meals, it’s okay to buy a bucket of whey protein to drink. But don’t believe the lies about supplements that can make you gain 10 pounds of muscle in a month. Supplements are meant to make up for the gaps in your diet. If you can eat enough normally, you don’t need to buy them at all.

There is also recovery. Many novices think that the longer they practice, the better the effect will be. If they feel pain the next day after practicing, it means they have practiced well, but this is not the case. Muscles grow when you are resting. Spending 5 minutes stretching your target muscles after each exercise and getting 7 hours of sleep at night is much more effective than going to the gym for 2 hours a day and staying up until 1 o'clock every day. Muscle soreness after training is normal lactic acid accumulation. It can be relieved by walking more and applying heat. It does not mean that you are disabled by training, so don't panic.

After all, fitness is never about comparing who can practice hard and for a long time, but about who can persist for a long time. Even if you just go to the gym and walk on the elliptical machine for 20 minutes today, it will be better than lying at home and watching fitness videos. Oh, by the way, don’t stare at the scale after your first workout. Any gain of two pounds is due to the muscles filling up with water. It’s normal. Don’t worry about that number.