It’s the time of year when loads of people start setting fitness goals. By this time next year, you hope to be in better shape than you are now, but you are a gym beginner and don’t really know where to start.
Maybe this means you’ve lost weight, or it could mean you’re more toned and physically fit. Regardless of your individual goals, there’s always a danger of falling into a trap that lots of people fall into when they’re gym beginners.
What tends to happen is you join a gym and start exercising regularly. Everything seems fantastic, but you end up with a setback. You injure yourself in the gym, forcing you to go and get urgent care to treat it. During your treatment, it’s remarked that you should take a few weeks off. You ignore the advice, keen to keep up with your progress and return after a couple of days. In turn, you aggravate the injury and end up frustrated as you can’t work out. Your motivation dwindles, and by the time you’re fit again, you can’t be bothered to go to the gym anymore.
This happens all the time to loads of beginners in the world of fitness. So, here are three simple steps to avoid injuries as a gym beginner:
Get a Gym Beginner Introduction
When joining your gym, always opt-in for the introduction. This is a chance for the gym assistants or a personal trainer to show you around the environment, explaining what everything is and showing you how everything works. It’s an opportunity to try every piece of equipment in the gym, so you know how to use it properly. This helps you avoid getting injured because you’re using the machines incorrectly and end up damaging yourself.
Learn Proper Form
Depending on your gym beginner induction, you might be taught how to use proper form on a few common exercises. Effectively, ‘form’ refers to how you perform an exercise. There’s proper form – the right way to do something – and bad form – the wrong way to do something. Lots of gym beginners will have bad form because they don’t know what they’re doing. Bad form leads to injuries, so ensure you learn how to do all the different exercises correctly. If you don’t get shown this in your induction, there are countless videos you can find to teach you. Or, book a taster session with a personal trainer and they’ll show you the ropes.
Don’t Push Yourself Too Hard
Pushing yourself is a good way to progress and force your body to make changes. You should try as hard as you can in the gym, but don’t go too far. Don’t force yourself to lift a weight that’s far too difficult for you to lift as you will get injured. Don’t turn the treadmill up too high as you will probably hurt yourself. Test your body, for sure, but don’t go overboard when you are a gym beginner.
If you can make it through the first month or so without any setbacks, there’s a massive chance you’ll stick to your gym routine. This will help you achieve your fitness goals and look back on the year with great pride.
