Hi guys! For the past… ever, I’ve been putting my health and fitness aside. I tried a few times to get into the habit of exercising to no avail. I’m not overweight or anything but neither am I strong or flexible as I want to be. Mainly because I don’t want to have health troubles later in life. HOWEVER, to get started I needed to google of course and… best 10 xyz, do this, don’t do this, you breathe wrong, you stand wrong, you do everything wrong, this is the only solution. All of these can be found about anything related to fitness. How does one get started with all this nonsense, misinformation and clickable? What’s even real anymore? Thank you in advance :)
I do something I enjoy 4 days a week, Brazilian Jiujitsu. I augment it with something I don’t - strength training once a week for half an hour. One warm up set of 12 reps and one working set of 5-8 reps to complete failure. I use machines to avoid injury from failure. 5 exercises- leg press, chest press, row, lat pulldown and overhead press. It’s a pretty intense workout. My goal is to keep the muscle I have and prevent injury in jiujitsu. I feel like I get like 40% of the weight training benefit for like 20% of the work that I’ve put in before with barbell training (strong lifts, 5/3/1, madcow, etc).
I used to be a gym rat and have won a few bench press contests in my day. The trick is to make it an enjoyable routine. You don’t have to kill yourself, but you do need to push yourself a bit. Do a few body parts a day and maybe two exercises per part. I did chest and shoulders one day, back and triceps the next, then legs and biceps. Lift slow and use weights you can control. No jerking or bouncing. If you hate doing something, don’t do it. Find something else that works.
The first question you should ask yourself is what you want to achieve, beyond just saying “to be fit”, and be honest with yourself. Do you want to be stronger, bigger, more flexible, better endurance, etc…?
If your main goal is to just stay overall fit and flexible as you age, yoga is a great inexpensive option that you can do at home without fear of other people judging you (if you got social anxiety). Get a yoga mat and try out a yoga session, you might get pleasantly surprised. Down Dog is a great app that generates sessions for you based on your time, experience level, etc…
By the sound of it though, you are currently looking at training in a gym doing weightlifting, since you’re mentioning stance and bracing. In that case the best advice would be to stay the hell away from fitness influencers while you’re getting accustomed to the gym.
The industry is rife with grifters that are making a living criticising all sort of things and telling you to DO THIS THING IF YOU FEEL THIS TOTALLY NORMAL THING DURING YOUR SET (looking at you Squat University) because they know many people who go to the gym are insecure since it’s a completely new environment and prefer to be told what to do.
Simple fact is that there is no one size fits all. People are built different which means your friend with a short torso and and long legs will need a different stance than your friend a long torso and short legs, etc… Unless you got a competent PT to help you, you’ll need to find out yourself what works for you.
Find a beginner program that fits your goals and schedule and stick to it, and don’t worry too much about doing the movement perfect. It’s takes time for your nervous system to get used to a new movement. Don’t expect your deadlifts and squats to move perfectly, it takes time and repetition. Experiment with stance width, grip width, etc… to find out what works best for your body.
And remember that your body is more resilient than you might believe. Don’t worry too much about your aches and pain, being sore is normal and not harmful, often your brain will play tricks with you and makes it worse the more you worry. Barbel medicine (which is run by actual medical doctors) is a good source if you got fitness influencer induced exercise anxiety.
Good luck on your journey and remember, the most difficult mile is the one from your house to the gym :)
Edit: some links to help with the technique/bracing confusion you got.
A level headed video talking about lifting technique.
How to brace, explained by the current world’s strongest man (bad/clickbaity title unfortunately)
Number 1 rule is consistency. Whatever workout routine and schedule you adopt, you must stick with it. No don’t skip it because you were tired. No don’t skip because you were hung-over, no dont’ skip because it’s a nice day, or a rainy day. Do it consistently, and commit for months.
I saw a funny meme of someone in a train taking a picture of 3 old bald guy with a white beard and a fat belly that looks the same. I was thinking that if i grow old and dont take care of my body i will look like them. And i dont want that. So im doing sports now. I just wrote “workout no equipment” on youtube and did that for the last 40 days for now. It works. I was not fat but slightly chubby. Im still thick but i see my muscle well now. I just have to fix my food habit now
