When it comes to setting foot in the gym or commencing any ‘exercise regime’ for that matter, one common predicament that many people find themselves in, is that they do not know where to start or how to go about putting together a decent training programme.  This in turn often leads them to delay in starting or even giving up before ever actually beginning.  It can seem a daunting task at first, and you may be overwhelmed, especially with all the different information you find on the internet and in magazines these days.

But don’t get disheartened, everything starts with that first step in the right direction.

Here are a few tips to help get you started and keep you motivated to not give up!

1. Research and Keep Learning

Always do you own research and be prepared to constantly keep learning.  Although if you are really in doubt about what to do, seek a professionals help, such as a personal trainer.  There are many knowledgeable and experienced personal trainers out there who can really give you that boost and give you a lot of first hand information which you can use.

But make sure to continue to do your own research and find out as much as you can so that you are not totally lost when you set foot in a gym.

With that being said, if affordability is your biggest issue here, then you can always hire a personal trainer for a few initialsessions.  This will help to get you started and headed in the right direction without becoming too expensive.

2. Build it up

When it comes to cardio training, the worst thing you can do is to jump right in and start cycling or jogging (or whatever you enjoy) for two hours a day, every day of the week.

The best approach to cardio is to build it up.  Start small, see what you can handle, and then slowly keep building it up.

For example you can start doing cardio three times a week for 20 minutes at a time.  Each week you can then increase the time slightly, adding say, just ten minutes to one session.  OR increase the intensity of the sessions by aiming to complete the same distance in less time.

With cardio don’t be fooled, there are many ways to ‘change’ it up to keep it intense and to keep progressing without increasing the duration of it.

3. There is no one size fits all

One thing to understand is that there are so many different ways to train and many people have their ‘own training methods.’  (Just a note, in this article I am talking about training programmes and not ways to perform specific exercises, as the ‘form’ of exercises is a whole different topic.)  Thus there is really no one exact and correct way to train.

We are all unique, and react differently to many things, therefore we need to find what works for us.

So another key point to remember is that the body is a highly adaptable machine.  It can adapt to pretty much anything and is always looking for stability in order to maintain its equilibrium.

What this means is, if you want to progress; be it lose fat or gain muscle, if you do one thing over and over for a period of time, even though it may have worked initially, eventually your body will get used to it and will stop progressing.

Thus, in order to continue moving forward, be prepared, and don’t be scared to change things up every so often.  I’m not saying every workout needs to be different.  You need to monitor your progress on a certain training routine and when you start to see that you are not getting stronger or leaner (whatever your goal is) then it could be time for a change.

Even a small change could go a long way.  You body needs different stresses placed upon it in order to stimulate it in a different way and allow it to continuously grow.

4. Start with one body part

With weight training, a good and simple way to start is to train at least one big body part per day.

Big body parts are:

• Back
• Legs: Quadriceps and hamstrings
• Chest

Smaller body parts consist of:

• Shoulders
• Traps
• Biceps
• Triceps
• Forearms
• Calves

You can group one big body part with a smaller body part. Bigger muscles usually require more exercises and sets to target them effectively, and to ensure they are worked from every possible angle.  So it is a good idea to start your workout with the bigger body part and then move on to the smaller body part(s).

So for example, on:

• Day 1 of your training programme you can group together Chest with Triceps.
• On Day 2 place Back with Biceps.
• Day 3 Shoulders and Traps.
• Day 4 Legs.
• Day 5 Rest.

With this routine you can see we hit each muscle group roughly once per week.  This is a good starting point and you can always change the groupings as you require.

Don’t be afraid to try and train each muscle twice a week sometimes, as that can really help some people grow tremendously.

5. There is no perfect programme

There is no perfect way to group your muscles.  This tip kind of ties in and follows on from both tips three and four.  This may go against most common views out there, but I firmly believe there is no ‘right’ way to group your muscles in a training programme.  You can literally try any combination you think and it could work for you.

For example, many people will rather avoid training chest and back on the same day as these are two very big muscles.  They say it could be too much to do and you may not recover enough for your next workout.

As long as you are eating adequately and resting enough, it is very difficult to over train the body.

The conclusion here is that by trying something completely different can be just what you need, to blast through that sticking point.

For example there was an article which gave an unorthodox method being to try training a specific muscle on two consecutive days for a few weeks, in order to stimulate new growth.  This went against everything I thought I knew.  I was very skeptical.  How would my muscle recover?  Surely I would end up breaking it down far too much and result in it getting smaller? What better way to find out, than to try.  I trained my chest for two consecutive days in my workout routine for a few weeks, and sure enough the dramatic change sparked new growth and I saw an immediate difference after a few weeks.

So don’t ever be afraid to try something different, even it goes against the conventional ways.  If anything, it will help you learn what works and what doesn’t.

6. Copying the pros workouts

A huge misconception is the idea of taking someone else’s workout, copying it exercise for exercise and set for set, and then expecting the same results of that person.  This happens A LOT when people see a famous bodybuilder or even a celebrity who has an amazing physique.  The only thing they want to know is what workout he/she does Or what exercises does he/she use?

Then magazines publish these celebrity’s workouts and people think by following their workouts they will attain a body just like their celebrity role model. There are many factors involved in changing and sculpting a body; diet, rest, training, supplements are some of these aspects.

If it really were that easy then most guys would have just followed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s training programme and would have transformed their bodies into his.  Granted we could all use their workouts and make improvements to ourselves, but we need to understand that those improvements could be limited.  Also if we take a guy like Arnold, who was an established and an experienced bodybuilder, he had tailored his workouts to his needs and they can be seen as pretty advanced; some lasting two to three hours long, twice a day!  So if a beginner decides to jump right in and follow his intense routine, they are probably not going to last past an hour.

So yes you can use other people’s routines, but remember it must work for YOU, and thus you may need to change a few things in order for it to suit your needs.

7. Just do it!

At the end of the day doing something, is more often than not, better than doing nothing.  So whatever situation you find yourself in, the best way to begin working out, is to simply….Begin.

You may start off unsure and doubtful but as time goes on you will start to learn what works and what doesn’t.

You will learn how you and your body reacts to certain things and that’s how you will progress forward.  Also remember to rest well and eat enough!

Experience is such a great teacher, and after all, everyone who ever achieved anything was once a beginner.

It all starts with you and that first step.

The post 7 Tips to Developing and Following an Effective Training Programme appeared first on FitNish.com.

When starting out with anything in life, we never truly know exactly what we are doing, but as time goes on we adapt and start to learn and get better and better at it. Practice does make perfect after all. This same thing applies with training.

A lot of young guys join a gym wanting to grow big and muscular but have no clue what exactly to do to achieve this. There is a lot more to it than just getting yourself to the gym each day and doing a few exercises.

Here we highlight a few of the common mistakes new guys and girls seem to make when starting out on their ‘get fit’ journey. This in turn should help you avoid these pit falls and hopefully save you a lot of time and get you on the right track quicker.

Training too often

Many guys starting out are not aware of the fact that your muscles, just like your body and mind, need rest in order to grow and recuperate. You need to train them hard in the gym and then allow them to recover and grow by giving them some time to rest. So be sure to give yourself at least one to two days off from weight training a week.

Mimicking professional bodybuilders training programmes

I have fallen in to this trap many times. You read one of these famous fitness magazines, and find Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (or some other big bodybuilder’s) training routine, and immediately think, if you follow it you will transform your body into his. You need to understand that he has adapted his training programme to suit his needs. For example he knows what he needs to improve on in his body, what his diet is, how much recovery he needs and what his goals are, and thus designs his workout to compliment his specific requirements. Thus most of his requirements will be different to yours, and chances are he will be taking some form of supplementation or anabolic steroids which will help him recover much quicker than you can. Although, there are certain principles which you can take away from his routine and apply to yours. For example you can discover new exercises, see how he groups his body parts, what rep ranges he uses etc.

Having too high expectations

I would say this is the most common oversight. You start training and expect to see dramatic changes within weeks or even days. This is quite a process and it WILL take time. It’s something you just have to come to terms with and accept in order for you to progress and be consistent. Granted most people new to training and working out will see some good changes relatively quickly after beginning, but after some time the changes will start to slow down. It is then when you need to understand you are in it for the long term and you really need to stay motivated and not lose heart, as it is all about being constant and consistent.

Not eating right

This is another major mistake which I’m sure the majority of people starting out make. It is easy to think that in order to gain or lose weight all you have to do is get in the gym and push around some weights. Especially when you see all these huge ripped guys working out in the gym. What you do not see is them going home and eating tons of the right food in order to help them recover. Food is fuel for your body. Just as a car needs the right kind of fuel to run, and to run efficiently, so too does your body. So there is a need to do some research into foods, and the macronutrients of certain foods which will be most beneficial to you; otherwise you can end up wasting a lot of your time training and training seeing small improvements, when all you needed to do was adjust your diet. Have a look through our nutrition section on the website as there are many articles about what are the right foods to eat.

Expecting a certain diet to work for you

This is similar to the second point above. In the same way as people copy professional bodybuilder’s workout routines, people tend to copy their diets as well. We need to understand that every one of us is different in some way. We have different heights, weights, body fat levels etc. So therefore each of us will have different needs when it comes to our own diet. For example a guy who weighs 100kg with a body fat of 12% will most likely require a lot more calories to maintain his weight than say a guy who weighs 70kg with a body fat of 12%. Again there are certain principles which you can take away from their diets, such as what foods to eat, certain meal ideas, discovering new meals, how to group your foods, when to eat certain things etc. I guess you could copy someone’s diet, but you would need to decrease or increase the portion sizes to suit the amount of calories which YOU need. But with everything you need to find what works best for YOU. A lot of people these days can easily lose weight by keeping their diet the same, but just cutting out a few things like sugar, sweets, flour, soft drinks, alcohol etc.

Falling prey to marketing gimmicks and before and after advertising pictures

In today’s world everything is about making money, whether something works or not. It’s a very sad thing. As long as you can convince someone to buy your product you can make money. A lot of companies, even supplement companies, advertise with these before and after pictures of people who have allegedly used their product and transformed their body within a month or within weeks. So when you see that a part of your mind can’t help but think, “dammm if they can do that so quickly so then so can I, and surely it must work.” What you don’t know is that most of those pictures have been taken on the same day, the before AND the after pictures. Once the photo is on their computer they can manipulate it as they please, adding in a six pack here, and a bicep there, and subtracting some cellulite from here and there. The message which we all need to hear so often is that IT DOES TAKE TIME. You have to be patient and stick with it by remaining consistent to ensure changes and even to maintain those changes.

So there you have it, please be sure to do your homework before you decide to do anything, as it can save you heaps and heaps of time.

The post Avoiding Common Beginners Diet and Training Mistakes appeared first on FitNish.com.