You will admit that the idea to go to the gym, fitness club or “pumping gym” entered our heads at least once during our lives. Many of us even attended these places. You can often hear conversations like: ″I used to go in for sports too″ and so on. In addition that person doesn’t have an athletic appearance, except to say that he looks wretched. So, you realize that it’s necessary to change your life radically including your appearance. But what should you prepare for? This article is just about it. You have not begun to train yet, but you need to understand what you will be faced with. You have a number of problems on the solution of which the success of the whole undertaking will depend, namely:
– new lifestyle formation;
– choosing the gym;
– choosing the coach;
– selecting sportswear and accessories;
– forming the diet.
All the problems are equally important, bear equal responsibility for the result, and I would not neglect any of them.
New lifestyle formation
I was not mistaken highlighting the word ″new″. In our specific case it’s really true. In fact, you will have to give up old habits, refuse from certain foods, perhaps, break off the old acquaintances because something unique, new, sometimes difficult and at first incomprehensible will come to replace all the aforesaid. To replace old lifestyle muscle pain will appear, which will always accompany you, and you will miss it during the breaks between trainings. Undoubtedly, you will meet new people who share your life position in sports, have the same habits as you have such as: eating properly and on time, deny oneself in alcohol, tobacco. Also be sure that the number of your old friends will be reducing because of the same reason. Many of them will simply stop understanding you: why spend time on oneself in the gym if there are many other life pleasures around.
Similar changes happen with all the people who have decided to change their lifestyle, go in for sports. It’s an axiom, and you will get used to it in due course. Gradually the gym will change you: you will start to spend more time in the kitchen making dinner and snacks for you; you will have containers for the food, which you will take with you to work or classes. You will start to read and study the information, related to body building, fitness, and healthy way of life. You will learn to filter it in due course. Spending in the gym at least 4 hours a week, you will organize your work calendar so that the training and schedule of meals intake will organically blend with your timetable.
For sure, you will have to change your wardrobe: someone for a few sizes larger, someone a few sizes smaller. Believe me, that it’s very difficult to realize that these clothes don’t fit you in size any more. You will begin to see yourself in the mirror in a new way, and the most important thing is that you will begin to feel in a new way. You will change the style, color, and may be the style of your clothes: you will appear in a new image for others and for yourself. That’s why you have to prepare yourself for this internally.
It’s very important to realize that instead of the usual Friday and not only Friday parties you will hurry to the gym, to workout, to your coach and new friends. Each time you will more often think about what is more necessary for you – a meeting with old friends or sport trainings, as deciding right priorities once, you will have to follow them all your life. ″Why all?″, – you’ll ask. Because you can’t deceive the body. Training it to certain loads and teaching it to respond these loads, you will always have to keep yourself in tone otherwise you will very quickly lose what you pumped up with difficulties and during a long time.
New lifestyle formation is the most important point in a number of problems which a newcomer is usually faced with. First of all it concerns the motivation, inner psychological consent of a person to give up the old and familiar in favor of new and unknown.
Choosing the gym
How to choose a gym for yourself? This is another problem, which you will have to solve. Many things depend on the gym, including the desire to go and train there several times a week. There are several criteria, which will help you to make a choice.
The distance from home or place of work. If the way to the gym takes more than 30 minutes, it’s better to refuse from such a gym. Why? Just count: an hour on the way, 30 minutes to have a shower and changing clothes, at least an hour for training. In all: two and a half hours three times a week for a beginner. This is the minimum you will have to place in your new schedule. Now imagine that the gym is farther and the way to it takes more time. The chances that you will stay long in this regime are minimal, because you are going to train not a month or two but for years. That’s why the gym should be as close to your home or your work (depending on your business) as possible.
Cleanliness. It’s important for emotional state and health. Don’t be lazy and enter the showers and bathroom to see their condition before making a decision to attend that gym. Make sure that the wardrobe for outerwear works properly and people use another pair of footwear, otherwise, in the season of slush outside you will be faced with mud and puddles on the floor of the gym. If there is dust on training equipment and window sills, it’s a real reason not to attend this gym.
Functional filling of the gym. There should be an area with cardio workout equipment even if it’s not fenced, work area with free weights (dumbbell row and barbells), some benches for bench press workout with varying angels, exercise machines with scales rack, parallel bars, gymnastic balls, weights for feet. Of course, for many gyms it’s difficult to have a special area for cardio exercise machines as well as large dumbbell row, but the training equipment must be undamaged and the shells must be on their places. If you see a pile of scattered iron, I would not advise to attend such a gym. It’s difficult to avoid injuries there.
The number of exercising people in the gym. Of course, it’s better to go to the gym in rush hour to understand the maximum number of people training in the gym simultaneously. You can as well talk about it to the receptionist. He will prompt you what time the gym is more or less free. It’s important. You will understand it waiting in a long exercise machines-queue or bench-queue for bench press.
Availability of qualified coaches. At first it’s very important to get just a qualified coach, who will tell you about basic principles of workout, diet principles, will help you to make the program and ration, in the end he will simply ensure your safety during workout. Sport does not forgive mistakes. It’s better to avoid than correct them. So, the good coach will become your good friend and instructor even if only for the first time, before understanding the workout process. Without fail the coach must have education or experience in performing in profile sport. It would be good if he had knowledge in wholesome nutrition program, and most importantly: he must be responsible. Very often beginners give up training just because the coach stops giving them attention which he gave at the beginning of their acquaintance in the gym. Many coaches ″gather″ apprentices and then begin to miss trainings, go on vacation for a long time, get sick and so on. All these facts greatly affect the motivation of athlete-beginners. It gradually strives for zero and it ends with a refusal to go to the gym.
Choosing a coach
This is not a simple task because the coach is not only the person who teaches you to work out on exercise machines or work with free weights, he is not only healthy food specialist, he is also your elder friend and assistant. A good coach is a person to whom you can call and ask for advice not only in the field of sport but also in personal terms. He must be a sympathetic psychologist and a professional. Why is this so important? Imagine: you come to the gym to workout. You are a unique person with your physical and moral qualities and you need an individual approach. Good coach understands that all people are different and there mustn’t be pipeline approach here. It is necessary a meticulously polished program. What is the gist? First of all it’s necessary to find out the business of the apprentice, his inner abilities, understand his motivation. Behind all this there is a whole range of problems, and solving them gradually the coach creates and optimizes a program of physical development of the beginner. It’s difficult, but having many years of experience coach-professional, has a sufficient number of techniques to understand and feel all the necessary things his apprentice needs.
I repeat that the real coach is a friend. It’s possible and necessary to share your emotional experiences with him, and they will appear as you rise. Motivation system lies on the plane of your relationships with the coach: there are too many complaints that the coach ″rides″ up to sweat; there is no return from trainings; the beginners become tired of the trainings so much that overtraining effect appears. The professional coach knows when it’s necessary to encourage and in what cases it’s necessary to ″put pressure″ on the apprentice. He worries about your result; he is ready to be beside you in a difficult moment. These are the characteristics of a ″professional coach″.
Selecting sportswear and accessories
Sportswear must be qualitative and comfortable for workout. Today’s market offers a wide range of t-shirts, singlet, sports pants, leggings, and so on: from branded and expensive to cheap and questionable quality. What to choose? Make a start from your budget but don’t economize on quality. It’s desirable to be free, ″breathing″ clothing, with minimum quantity of synthetic. It must be easily washable in the machine as you should wash it at least three times a week. Pay much attention to choosing footwear. Sneakers must be made of natural materials, with ventilation. They mustn’t ″press″ while the ankle joint should preferably be fixed.
A very important thing for an athlete is a sports bag. Of course it should be big to hold your sports uniform, containers with food, a shaker with sports food and different kinds of pill boxes, bars and other useful things. You cannot manage without such necessary accessories as shakers for mixing protein and gainer, water bottles, carpal bandages (in some cases), gloves to prevent appearance of calluses on the palms, weightlifting belt. There is no need to buy all these things at once. Deepening into the training process, you will understand yourself what you need first and from what you can refuse. There are athletes who don’t exercise in gloves because they say that training in gloves reduces their sensitivity to ″iron″. There are also athletes who are against using weightlifting belts, but this is a topic for another article about benefits and harm of such accessories.
Forming the diet
No matter what tasks you set for yourself, be ready to get acquainted with such concepts as energy value of the product, its composition: the quality of protein, fat and carbohydrates in it. It’s educational and interesting: you will gradually begin to look at food as a necessary fuel for your body. Sweet soda drinks, farinaceous, sweet, smoked and fat food will stay in the past. Hot drinks will mostly be excluded.
You will acquaint with sports supplements, learn about their benefits. You will begin to listen from your old friends about the harm that those supplements ostensibly do to your organism.
Very likely, that new household appliances will appear in your kitchen. I mean electric grille, blender, and double boiler. You will begin to cook for yourself. What is more, you will cook separately from your family because the food they eat will not fit you for the reasons which are clear only to you.
All this will greatly change you and the attitude to you because you will begin to differ from others. Coming in a restaurant or in a café, you will start to study the menu very meticulously and ask the waiter questions which will seem incomprehensible and unnecessary for your friend. You will refuse from fast food, pizza takeaway and other ″joys″ in life, but a completely different feeling will come instead of it, which will not bear any comparison with anything: it’s a feeling of pride for the achieved result.
It’s possible that you will come to the fact that despite the increasing number of meals per day, you will lose weight because you will learn about the completely new resources of your organism. A world filled with information from social networking sites, professional and amateur sites, very often conflicting and competing with each other, will open in front of you. Without doubt, the role of the coach in this stream of information is invaluable. In the future you will learn to filter the necessary things. But first his help will be necessary.
Conclusion
So, you have made a decision to go to the gym. Now you know what to expect at the initial stage, what kind of issues you will have to solve: by yourself or with assistance. Gradually the circle of these problems will expand. It’s a normal process. The deeper you go into these problems, the more questions you will have. I wish you patience and good luck in your athletic undertakings.