Getting into working out may seem like a daunting task. You might be anxious about going to the gym alone and uncertain about what to do once you’re there. Fortunately, most gyms aren’t intimidating places in my experience. However, I understand that this is still a significant concern for some. Therefore, I’ve compiled some suggestions on how to get started in the gym to alleviate any stress surrounding it.
Hire a Personal Trainer
If you don’t know what exercises you should be performing to reach your fitness goals and are just generally unfamiliar with how to use gym equipment, you might want to consider working with a personal trainer. Personal trainers have the expertise and experience to show you the best workouts for your personal needs, as well as how to perform them properly to optimize development and avoid injury.
Personal trainers can also offer a lot of general guidance in the realm of fitness, as they have a better understanding of the science behind how training, dieting, and other actions actually impact your body. This will help you more easily reach the point at which you feel comfortable developing your own workout routine and modifying it as you progress.
If you decide to work with a personal trainer, though, make sure the workout plan is actually designed around your needs, whether that’s to just achieve general fitness or something more specific. Since you’re paying someone to train you, sometimes at a rather substantial price, you want to ensure that you’re not wasting time performing exercises that don’t align with your goals.
Sign Up for a Group Class
Another way to eliminate the intimidation of going to the gym is to join group classes. There are boot camps and group classes for a huge variety of exercises, and they can be fun ways to get acclimated to the gym. Since you’re with other people, many of whom could also just be getting into fitness, you don’t need to be concerned about being singled out as a beginner.
Having group classes can also serve as external motivation and become a foundation for building consistency. Having scheduled classes every week serves a reason to force yourself to go to the gym when you otherwise might not want to. That being said, some people might be led into thinking that just attending a class once or twice a week is enough to get them in shape. However, making real progress in terms of muscle growth or fat loss requires a lot more effort than that. Unfortunately, you won’t get very far if you attend a spin class for a day, and then live a sedentary lifestyle for the rest of the week. You still have to be willing to exercise on days when you don’t have a class.
As a result, though group classes can be a good introduction to the gym, they’re best used in the long-run as compliments to enhance your individual routine.
Find Inspiration on the Internet
In today’s world, we use the Internet for a lot of things, and we can certainly leverage it for learning new workouts. This is something that I still do whenever I want to find a new exercise to add to my routine. There’s so much online content relating to fitness, no matter how specific or niche of a topic you dive into. You can also find an endless number of workouts for every muscle group, as well as clear demonstrations of how to perform them all.
At the same time, this plethora of content can have its downsides. For instance, having that much information thrown at you all at once can be very overwhelming. If you look up workouts for a particular muscle group, you’ll probably come across hundreds of different exercises. How would you know which exercises to actually try?
Another problem is that as with anything else on the Internet, you can’t necessarily trust everything you see at its face value. Anyone can post on the web, so not everything you read or watch is what it claims to be. To be blunt, some people just want to post different content in order to draw attention to their channel or business and gain popularity. They’ll come up with a new variation of an exercise and call it the next best thing, even though it might not actually be any more effective. Just remember that complex does not always equate to better, and especially for beginners, keeping your workouts simple will make you more likely to stick to them.
Work Out With a Friend
If you have friends who are very into fitness, and are considerably more experienced in the gym than you are, it could be a good idea to reach out to them for advice on how to start working out. This can be helpful because rather than working with a trainer or following a random “professional” on the Internet, you might find that learning from someone you know who’s already been on this journey is less intimidating, as well as more personal and attainable. After all, if your friend can do it, why can’t you?
You also don’t necessarily have to find someone who’s more experienced than you. It can still be very helpful to work out with a friend, even if they’re a beginner as well, which you can learn more about in my post explaining the benefits of a workout partner. In some ways, training with someone who’s at the same level as you may actually be better than with someone who’s much more experienced. With the latter, a potential issue is that you might place too much trust and confidence in your partner, which can come with its own flaws.
For example, if you let your friends become your personal trainers, unless they actually happen to be professional trainers, they may not be able to provide all the expertise you need. They can teach you the exercises they do themselves, but they might not know how to build a tailored workout to cater to your specific circumstances and desires.
Additionally, proper form is honestly something that a lot of people struggle with. If the friends you’re working out with don’t particularly monitor your form, you could be limiting the effectiveness of your workouts or risking a severe injury, both of which can hinder your long-term progress. If you’re picking up a new exercise from a friend, I’d definitely recommend still doing your own research to learn the proper technique.
Just Go!
While all the above options are great resources to utilize, the simplest option is to just go to a gym and try things. It sounds quite simple, yet many people are hesitant to do it. They’re afraid they might embarrass themselves because of their lack of familiarity with the environment.
Having worked out at many gyms in the past, I can confidently say that these fears are unwarranted. Whenever I work out, I always see people who span a wide range of experience levels and are at different stages in their progression. In reality, everyone was new to the gym at some point, so there’s no reason to single out beginners. Most people at the gym are actually very nice people who are more than willing to offer advice and insights to those who are just starting out.
When I first started working out, I simply went to the gym and tried different exercises; I went to different machines, following the instructions attached to each of them, and that’s how I learned many basic movements. I eventually got a feel for which exercises I enjoyed, and from there, I began to develop a more organized routine. As you can see, there was nothing scientific about my approach.
This goes to show you that beginning a workout routine really may not be as complex and overwhelming as you might think. While it certainly helps to do adequate research or have a trainer to ensure you’re doing the right exercises with the right technique, these aren’t requirements that would otherwise bar you from working out. Remember that as a beginner, the most important thing is to simply get comfortable going to the gym and establishing a habit of doing so.
To make this even easier, should you ultimately choose this approach, I’ve also written a beginner’s guide to working out to help navigate you through the early stages of your fitness journey.
