We get it, you want to make some improvements, maybe trim down a little bit, add a bit of muscle and feel better about ourselves.
How to start, what to do, what to change all start creeping in and it can be a little overwhelming.
Let’s see if we can keep it super simple, after all, we need to walk before we run.
First objective is to get moving, preferable working our whole body (if possible):
- Warm up with some cardio – 5-10 minutes, raise our heartrate and be ready to workout.
- Doesn’t need to be at an insane pace
- Try to move the whole body
- Ease yourself into it
- Work each major body part
- Couple of leg exercises, single back and chest, a movement for shoulders and arms with a side order of abs to finish.
- Can be with machines, dumbbells, kettlebells or bodyweight
- Try a few different exercises to see what you like, start lighter and add weight as we progress
- 3 sets of 8-12 reps with 1-2 seconds in each direction for each movement.
- Be sure to stretch
- Stretching limits the muscle and joint strain
- Relaxes tense muscles
- Helps close the workout in a positive way.
- Start with a reasonable amount of sessions
- 2-3 times a week will work, this gives us time to recover and time for our body to adapt.
- On the days in between, we can do some active recovery, such as walking, stretching or another activity.
- Once we have settled in, we can look to enhance our training program – if needed.
Boom, there we go, a simple effective full body workout, without the worry of how many of a certain exercise to do, what the tempo should be or whether it’s a certain type of training day.
Looking forward, having been in the gym for a little bit, maybe our workout needs some tweaking:
Firstly, a training program can help, having a trainer write/update your program can help revitalise it and keep you moving towards your goals.
A quick few tips if that isn’t an option, consider the speed of the movement, does it challenge us?
- When we complete a movement quickly it becomes more ballistic and doesn’t tax the muscle as much.
- Are the reps appropriate for the goal, for example, working on strength, we would look towards small rep ranges 1-5 (in the most part) to increase the overload of the muscles. Looking for more of a build, the mid ranges 8-12 offer a better balance of workload vs speed of movement.
- Recovery – how much recovery are our muscle groups getting, for example, we could do an upper workout on one day, and a lower the next – doing 2 full body workouts in a row may have an effect on performance.
- Are we using different movement types to work our muscles, doing some dumbbell work followed by some cable or machine work will allow us to keep the intensity higher whilst reducing the risk of injury and increasing the targeting of certain muscles.
That’s a very brief overview of adapting a training program, there are many options available, speaking to a trainer will help expand our own workout knowledge and find different methods.
All Spike Fitness memberships come with a Program from a PT and reviews, included as standard.
Can we help you get the most from your membership? – speak to a member of Team SF on info@spikefitness.co.uk or 07597215652