By Alessandro Salo – Yr 12
If you’re looking for a fast and convenient gym to satisfy your fitness goals, then your best option might be The Scott Archibold Gym. Before you start on your fitness ambitions, It’s important to know a few key guidelines to keep your road to a healthy lifestyle as simple and efficient as possible.
Know what you’re doing
Whether you are trying to lose weight/fat, build muscle mass, or training for a sport, you must have a goal. If you know where you want to go, then you can work specifically towards that and get to it faster. If you don’t have an endpoint, you will won’t feel the satisfaction of progress because you simply have no clue what you’re making progress on, you will eventually spiral out of motivation and quit.
When you enter any gym, you should know what you’re going to do. Enter with a plan. Your plan shouldn’t be too easy but it also shouldn’t be impossible. There are plenty of plans that you can look up online, but with our school’s limited equipment, it might seem difficult to develop a decent routine that efficiently and successfully hits every part of your body.
There are far too many plans to discuss, but a few good starting workout plans for beginners are: Full-Body Workouts, Push-Pull-Legs, and Upper/Lower split. All of these plans, except for the Upper/Lower split, can be easily adjusted to fit your school schedule. I personally recommend doing a Full-Body plan since it allows for the most adjustment, every time you do a workout it ensures that you at least activate all your muscles once for the week. Three times a week for this workout is a good number, but since school is unpredictable, you may need to miss a few workouts here and there (definitely try hitting every workout though so you can build a habit).
Form over Weight
I always see people picking a machine, picking a weight, and then struggling to do the proper exercise with good form. It doesn’t matter what weight you can lift, everyone starts somewhere and there is no point in doing weights you can’t manage. Lifting heavy weights is key to getting stronger and building muscle, but at the same time, you should also be able to control your movement so you can hit just the right muscles. The main reason you want to be able to control your movement is that you need to be able to get the full range of motion. This means that you are using the entire muscle for that exercise and not just a small part of it. If your weights are too heavy and you can’t get the full range of motion, then you won’t benefit from the exercise and you won’t make any progress.
Nutrition
I could say that I have been going to the gym for a full year and 6 months, but that would be a complete lie. In that time, I think I can say that only 6 months of my training got me results. The reason that my first year led to nowhere is that I never paid attention to my diet and what I was eating. This is why I cannot stress how important nutrition is when you use the gym.
Nutrition on its own is far too large of a topic, but the most important thing that you need to know is that you should eat for your desired goal. For example, high protein and calorie intake if you want to build mass. If you are trying to lose weight, then try and cut sugar and saturated fats.
There are so many diets to talk about, but just know that you need to make sure you eat enough food with proper nutrition like protein, carbohydrates, and unsaturated fats.
Finale
Going to the gym is a commitment. You won’t get anywhere without putting in the effort and time. Take these tips into consideration if you want to see progress because everything from your mentality, nutrition, and form will highly affect your results, so make sure you get them right now. Try and incorporate your workouts into your free periods, and do your best to stick to your plan, consistency is key.
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