If you’re just getting started with your fitness journey, it can be a little scary and overwhelming the first few times you hit the gym floor or attempt a workout at home.
There is always a reason everyone has when they decide to start on their fitness journey and depending on what it is, it could be their success or undoing. Someone may say, “I’m comfortable with my weight, all I need is a flat tummy”. This particular person is looking at spot reduction and as a result, they end up doing just crunches and sit-ups as their workout routine and over time, they do not see any result and therefore they are demotivated and eventually quit, and sometimes you will hear them say, exercise doesn’t work for me. If this person decided to just work on their general health, fix their eating habits, exercise 3-5days a week, get enough sleep and rest; it’s the right track to them achieving their fitness goals.
So, what are some of the other mistakes you might be unintentionally making as a beginner in fitness?
- Skipping your warm-up
Regardless of whether you’re in a hurry to get your workout done or not; warm-up is important. You might find yourself saying; “My warm-up was walking in here,” and “I don’t have enough time!” Do not skip your warm-up, EVER!
The warm-up helps your joints, tissue, and muscles to be heated up ready for exercise which helps prevent muscle strain, injury, or pain.
- Include a Post-Workout Stretch
Stretching is an important element of your post-workout routine. It helps you recover from your workout, improves your posture and balance, and can even calm and de-stress you.
Stretching is another part of a workout that we tend to brush off or skip, but cementing the habit now – as a beginner – will ensure you always cool down with a post-exercise stretch.
- Have a workout plan laid out
A big rookie mistake, most people make while starting out is not having a solid plan, someone will just walk into a gym and not involve any trainer and jump from one piece of equipment to another randomly or if working out from home you try just random YouTube videos. Chances of you sticking to a consistent routine with this behavior are very minimal. You need a workout plan to know what you’re focusing on for each day and that way you can be able to create a habit out of your plan.
- Setting unrealistic goals.
When setting up your fitness goals, consult a fitness professional to help you with this so that you do not set up unrealistic goals. For any human being, if you do not achieve your set goals, you’re definitely going to be demotivated and, in our case, setting unrealistic goals guarantees demotivation and we do not want that!
- Not tracking anything
Failure to track may cause your progress to deteriorate or go into a plateau but tracking your progress will enable you to know what you need to change about your plan so that you can challenge yourself to keep moving forward.
In conclusion, before starting off, consult with me or a certified professional near you to guide you with your goals and help you plan your workout. Do not go in blindly!