Fitness introductory plan for beginners

The most core plan for newbies to get started with fitness is not the five-point training and accurate calculation of macronutrients that are widely circulated on the Internet, but to put "persistence without injury" first. In the first 3 months, you only need to maintain low-intensity full-body training 2-3 times a week for 30-40 minutes each time. First develop exercise habits and then talk about the effects of muscle gain and fat loss. 90% of novices give up halfway because they set the goal too high at the beginning, which destroys the motivation to persist.

To be honest, I have seen too many novices who make mistakes. Last year, I took care of a young girl who worked in Internet operations. She was 165cm and 120 pounds and wanted to lose fat. She first searched for a "rapid fat loss plan for newbies" with 100,000+ likes. It required training 5 days a week, running 5 kilometers every day and then practicing strength for 1 hour. She gritted her teeth and lasted for 8 days. Her period was postponed for half a month. After that, she didn't do any fitness for half a year. Typically, she would set the threshold too high at the beginning and directly persuade herself to quit. Let me tell you an interesting episode. I met a boy before. On the first day he went to the gym, he played with all the equipment and put heavy weights on each one. As a result, his whole body hurt so much that he couldn't get out of bed the next day. He just took two weeks off and couldn't do it at all.

At present, the training options for beginners in the fitness circle are actually divided into two groups, each with its own applicable scenarios, and there is no absolute right or wrong. One group is the fixed equipment group, which is suitable for friends who are willing to go to the gym and have less severe social anxiety. The tracks of the fixed equipment are designed in advance, so it is not easy for force compensation (that is, the parts that should not exert force work for the parts that exert force, such as squatting with waist pulling instead of legs). Every time you Just pick 4-5 movements: seated leg press, lat pull-down, seated chest press, and seated rowing. Do 3 groups of each movement, 12-15 times each, rest for 1 minute between groups, and finally add 10 minutes of elliptical machine or brisk walking. You are done in one training session. The difficulty is low and it is easy to feel a sense of accomplishment. The other school is the bodyweight training school, which is suitable for those who don’t have time to go to the gym, or who don’t want to compete with others for equipment. You can do it at home with just slippers. You don’t have to pack your equipment and rush out. You can just practice squats, kneeling push-ups (if you can’t do standard ones, you can do inclines against the table), planks, and glute bridges. There are also 3 groups in each group, and a 1-minute rest between groups. Several freelance friends around me have used this set to get started, and now they can all do standard pull-ups.

The issue of personal training that everyone is most concerned about is really controversial. Some people say that 90% of personal training is cutting leeks, and some people say that novices will get injured if they don’t hire a personal trainer. My own experience is that if you have enough budget and are willing to spend one or two thousand yuan, give priority to finding someone with a national vocational education, ACE or N Don’t look for an SCA-certified coach who will sell you a 36-session annual pass at the beginning. Just buy 3-5 classes and only learn the force generation mode of core movements, such as how to squat without collapsing and how to use your glutes and legs to do deadlifts. This money is definitely more cost-effective than going to the hospital for an MRI if you are injured. It doesn’t matter if the budget is not enough. There are a lot of serious teaching bloggers on Station B and Douyin, such as Jeff’s beginner’s action series, and the supporting video of the “National Fitness Guide” issued by the State Sports General Administration. Before practicing, do it twice in front of the mirror to find the feeling of strength. Don’t blindly add weight, and there will basically be no problems.

Don’t make it difficult for yourself when it comes to diet right from the start, such as boiling chicken breasts or giving up sugar and oil. Ask yourself how many days can you last? I’ve seen too many people practice for a week, and then just give up because they feel guilty after having a hot pot meal on the weekend. There is no need to count calories when it comes to diet in the novice stage. You only need to change two small habits: one is to replace the full-sugar milk tea and Feizhai Happy Water you usually drink with sugar-free or cold drinks, and the other is not to eat heavy late-night snacks such as barbecue and instant noodles after 9 pm. With these two points, even if you eat home-cooked food normally, you will see dimensional changes in the first month. Of course, if your goal is very clear, that is, you want to quickly gain muscle or lose fat, then you can wait until you develop an exercise habit before calculating macronutrients. There is no need to live like an ascetic from the beginning.

There is another pitfall that I have mentioned eight hundred times, but many novices still jump into it: when you first go to the gym, you compete with the big brother next to you. You have been practicing for three to five years and can squat 100kg. How dare you add weight after just three days of training? Really, it’s better to be light than fake. If you use an empty bar to do standard squats, the effect is 10 times better than if you bend down and carry 20kg. Don’t bend your waist for that useless vanity and lie down for half a month to practice everything in vain. Also, don’t stare at the scale every day. I have a student who has been practicing for a month and hasn’t lost a pound of weight. However, his waist circumference is 3cm smaller, his jeans are one size looser, and his muscle density is much greater than fat. Weight really doesn’t mean anything. It’s better to measure your dimensions once a week, or take a front-to-side comparison photo in the mirror, which is much more reliable than the numbers on the scale.

In fact, fitness is really not that complicated. You don’t have to pursue a perfect plan from the beginning. Even if you do squats and glute bridges for 20 minutes every day after get off work three days a week, for three months, you will feel that you no longer breathe when climbing stairs, your waist no longer hurts when you sit for a long time, and your overall mental state is different. What you're most afraid of is that you search for a bunch of plans, save them in your favorites, and then still lie on the sofa and scroll through your phone the next day, right? Moving is better than anything else.