Making a Start & Restarting

A question often asked by people looking to start or improve their health and fitness is, which type of training should I do? They may then mention how they have been told that such and such a fad is simply amazing and that you don’t need any weights and it’s the be all and end all. Or that Spinning burns 700 calories and hour, if they do those 3 times a week it’s going to be a one-way ticket to a ripped and toned body.

There’s also the other side of the spectrum the side that say strength training i.e., weightlifting is the fountain of youth and that anyone who does cardio is clearly a rookie. Then there’s the sports people who had played sport in their teens e.g., football, soccer, boxing and who swear by their own sports merits without ever having experienced anything else.

Point being there’s a lot out information out there isn’t there. It can all get a bit overwhelming.

The simple answer is that they’re all good, they all have benefits and if you’re starting out quite frankly it doesn’t matter which one you choose so long as you’re doing something and doing it consistently. If you’re just starting don’t get bogged down in the details, find something you like and start slowly.

How I Started

When I started to try and get into shape, I was far too embarrassed to go to a gym. My thinking was that I was so un-fit that I needed to get somewhat fitter so that I could at least not look like a rookie in the gym. In hindsight this is dumb, but I know why I did it. Once again it was my own insecurities holding me back. It also shows my ignorance in not seeking professional advice on the best way to approach my training and my diet.

For some reason I had this huge mental issue with being a new person or having to start something, that’s something I’ve really focused on in my life to try and eradicate, not being afraid to start and not being afraid to fail or look bad. Those were all surprisingly within me and not external and therefore I could control them.

I would wait until late in the evening after work when the streets were quiet, and I’d put on my sweatpants a big hoodie (anything to cover me up) and try and run from streetlamp to streetlamp and then walk between the next set and switch back to running. That was the extent of my physical ability, simple as it may sound this exhausted me. My stats certainly didn’t set any of records on fire but that didn’t matter, what mattered was I was out there running.

The horrible leg pain after each run told me just how far I’d let myself go physically.

After a number of weeks, I began to improve, and I even lost a few pounds. However, as I mentioned in Chapter 4 I lost my motivation and began to stop running consistently. The weather was also no longer sunny, and the evenings were much darker. My diet was also not evolved at all, and I was gorging on bad food.

My list of excuses was growing stronger each day as my mind sough the easy way out once again. As I’ve already outlined in previous posts, I signed up for a 5km race and managed to complete the race. No need to repeat that story here you know my thoughts on this.

Suffice to say that the race was important because I started something and finished it and I had pushed myself hard along the way. I felt like the time was right and I was ready for the gym. I was moving to a new job in the city that had several gyms close by. I made the decision to keep running for now but once I started in the new job, I would join up to one of those gyms and look to progress even further.

I had no idea what I wanted to do in the gym I just knew that running was no longer sustainable and my metrics on the running apps were telling me that I wasn’t improving and if anything, I was getting worse or so it seemed.

I had hit a plateau and I hadn’t really pushed myself since the 5km race and was instead doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Spinning Classes

I checked out the various gym websites and found one that didn’t look very intimidating that was a 15-minute walk from my new job. Furthermore, they published a list of all their facilities, classes and timetables online so I could decide what I wanted to do without even having to speak to anyone. Nice one.

A friend of mine had mentioned a class called spinning, which basically involved getting on a stationary bike for an hour and pedalling like crazy. What appealed to me most was that the class was done in darkness and that you could control the level of difficulty on the bike yourself by spinning a knob on the handlebar.  

With butterflies in my stomach, I left work one day and headed for the gym. I was met by a stunning receptionist who looked like she had been carved from marble who proceeded to give me the gym tour. I exchanged pleasantries and said I really needed to go to the class, but she insisted she’d do the tour and take me to the class afterwards.

I arrived into the class late, the door that the receptionist and I came in through when opened sent waves of blinding light onto the entire class and there I was like a new student arriving in school the receptionist introduced me to the instructor who pointed me to a bike.

Thank god the room was dark because I was crimson red and already sweating bucket loads, but I was now in the class at long last.

Despite the embarrassment I thoroughly enjoyed the class. The instructor who was also on a bike guided us through a serious of climbs, flats and jumps as we raced through the class. I was absolutely shattered afterwards and under my bike there was a puddle of sweat. To me this felt ten times more challenging than running and much more satisfying. Somehow, I had enjoyed the pain. I was also relieved that I’d gone and done it, the whole thing had been hanging over me like a shadow ever since I decided to try it.

I proceeded to tell everyone about how great the class was and how I was really enjoying it all this while only having done a couple of classes.

I was also delighted to see that I could track my spinning class on an app also. It registered based on my weight and the duration of the class that I had burned 743 calories. I was thrilled and once I got home from the gym, I immediately jotted down the times of all the spinning classes during the week.

I concluded that given that I often worked late I would run the risk of missing my spinning class which would leave me in a very grumpy state and feeling guilty. More importantly I’d lose the consistency I knew I needed to maintain for this latest attempt to lose weight to work.

I hadn’t yet grasped the concept of long-term health and fitness. To alleviate this concern, I opted to train in the mornings before work.

Due to my commute this meant a 05:50AM rise to be at the gym for a 07:00AM class and to be in work for 09:00AM. Easy I thought. Like always I elected to start my new plan on a Monday and eagerly awaiting my newly improved training plans day one. Things didn’t go according to plan.

• Day 1 Week 1 – Went to the class.

• Day 2 Week 1 – Slept it out and worked late.

• Day 3 Week 1 – Skipped (will start again next week).

• Day 4 Week 1 – Skipped (will start again next week).

• Day 5 Week 1 – Skipped (will start again next week).

By Tuesday night as I lay in bed not long home from work, I knew I wouldn’t get up the next day. I had mistakenly believed I could suddenly change my lifestyle and hit the ground running. I also lacked the correct motivation; I just wanted to be able to tick the classes off on my fitness tracker rather than do them. Something needed to change.

I was repeating old mistakes and expecting different results once again.  

I decided that I would go and enjoy the classes, focus on the people there and help any newcomers I met. I elected to go one early morning a week and two evenings a week, I would rotate the early morning between either Monday or Wednesday or Friday. This strategy worked much better, and I was able to over the course of about 9 weeks move to spinning exclusively in the mornings. I wanted to go now rather than needed to go.

This strategy worked well, and I was really enjoying spinning, I had made some friends in the class and the instructor, and I were on a first name basis, I even sat at the front of the class on several occasions. Not bad for a highly self-conscious tubby guy. Yep, I was still pretty tubby by my own description, I had gotten fitter, but shape wise I hadn’t really changed, I seemed to be gaining weight too according to the weighing scales and for me this was extremely disheartening, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, I was supposed to look like an international athlete soon.

Something was missing; I hadn’t quite figured out how important having the right nutrition was and wrongly assumed that high calorie burn classes would be enough to compensate for me eating rubbish food all the time. I was unaware that most nights by the time I’d finished my dinner I had consumer more calories than I had burned.   

Where should you start?

At a high level it doesn’t matter where or what you start with, the important thing is to start. You can see from my health and fitness origins that I didn’t exactly set the fitness world a blaze and I slipped, tripped, and stumbled my way for a lot of it. What I started doing differed significantly from what I moved onto, this is evolution and especially as a beginner you can expect a similar experience.   

Starting with classes in a gym is an excellent way to go. You turn-up and basically switch off your mind for the duration of the class and do what your told. This type of training really benefits the beginner as it allows you to leverage a professional’s knowledge without needing to study or complete a course.

Depending on the gym you will be getting quality instruction from a trained professional. This will enable you to meet new people at the gym, learn about a particular type of training e.g., spinning and get you some knowledge on stretching and things like that. These will all stand to you as you continue to grow and develop.

I would highly recommend using the classes as a steppingstone. Try them all, most gyms offer a range of classes included in the price of your membership. As a beginner often enough, you will train much more efficiently and effectively in a 45-minute class than you would if you train on your own.

Don’t have any fear or inhibitions everyone is there to learn, and nobody is looking at you.

Many people are extremely self-conscious and convinced that everyone is looking at them. Remember everyone has their own lives, problems, hopes and ambitions and you can guarantee that most if not all have very little interest in you as a strange.

As I have demonstrated before use this social anxiety to your advantage if you can, you will likely push yourself harder given that other people are around you and the fact that there’s an instructor there pushing you along will help you too. I’ve found many classes have a great atmosphere and the more you enjoy the class and the atmosphere the more inclined you’ll be to go again.

Sticking with the theme of long-term viewpoints you can set aside a couple of weeks or even months to try out the different classes. You’ll be learning new things, getting fitter, making new friends, and enjoying yourself. Chalk it down as a learning curve that will allow you to learn and develop your health and fitness lifestyle.

You see a lot of new people who walk into a gym and immediately just go and do what they know and don’t look to use the facilities available to them. That could be getting on a treadmill, getting on a rowing machine, doing some dumbbell work. New gyms can be intimidating, and nobody likes to be the new person.

This is another benefit of doing a class in the beginning in that there are always new people, and the atmosphere is very much about having fun and learning. If you’re like I was and you’re extremely self-conscious or feel like you’d want to get fitter before trying other classes, firstly I would say I understand and I hope you realise that it’s a bad mind-set to have. Secondly, I would recommend something like spinning as a ‘get your foot in the door’ class that will enable you to build up the confidence to try something else.

A lot of people work of the pretence that more is better, with training this isn’t often true. You should always look to train smarter and not train harder. Don’t berate yourself for not training 5 days a week. Don’t berate yourself for missing a day. It happens, get on with it.

You should always aim to train and maintain your diet consistently, but life isn’t always going to play ball so keep that in mind. If you miss a couple of days over the course of your training plan don’t stress. If it was an ad-hoc one-off thing let it go, if it’s a consistent thing like your 16:00 meeting on a Wednesday frequently runs an hour over time then you need to adjust your plan. It’s common sense when it comes to your training plan that will serve you best in the long run.

I would also advise against starting on a Monday. Simply put it’s something you can keep putting off if you’re forever starting on a Monday. Also, if you were like me, you probably have failed to keep up a lot of training plans that you said you’d start on Monday. Instead pick any day that suits you and start. Don’t make a big deal about it, don’t go bragging about it or broadcasting it to the world on social media. Silently do what you need to do.

Quietly go to the gym, class, do a run etc. and quietly pat yourself on the back. This type of approach will not only enable you to start as you mean to go-on but you’re also removing the egotistical self-serving ‘out for credits’ approach to fitness that so often scuttles a person.

Gym Alternatives

I have spoken a lot about the gym and gym classes because that was my personal experience which I’m using to broaden your knowledge in these chapters. That’s not the only route you have to take. There are countless other options available to you.

For instance, Boxing, MMA and Martial Arts clubs are absolutely brilliant ways of getting fit and learning new skills, they can be a little intimidating at first, but most are geared around new people with no experience and as such there’s usually a structured plan for new people to follow which is a great confidence booster when you start something new.

Walking clubs, running clubs, and cycling clubs again offer excellent forms of fitness and great social experiences. The first time you show up is always a little bit intimidating but if you get that first night over with then after that it only gets easier, and you’ll become a regular.

Always be conscious of the group dynamics at a club, some cultures won’t suit you and some will, try them out, speak to the people and find something that you would feel comfortable going to even on the days you don’t want to train.

Dancing schools and stage schools for the performing arts are another option available to you. The more interested you are in something the easier it is to keep it up and maintain it. At the early stages you want to be consistent in your attendance, remember you’re not tied to anything by going once but you should look to try things and find something you would enjoy doing.

Outside of the gym I tried Kenpo Karate and did it for 8 months, I enjoyed it but ultimately moved onto Muay Thai as it suited me better location wise, and I preferred the no nonsense approach to training and progression not being belt based.

I also did road cycling and adventure racing as I progressed further in spinning.  I had different goals at different stages of my life, sometimes I’d sign up for an adventure race and focus on spinning and running, other times I’d have a Muay Thai fight that I’d need to focus on, other times I would purely focus on strength training.

I was able to shift my focus to different plans and areas because I had experience of each of them and new what I was capable of. Knowledge is power.

Ask for help and take advice from Experts.

Whatever approach you take let me stress that the importance of getting help from the right people is essential to your success. You can read a thousand e-books on how to drive but until you actually get in a car with an instructor, you’re going to be no better than you were before.

Speaking in terms of gyms, they can be very intimidating especially if you don’t know what the various machines are used for. In that sense I would highly recommend that when you join your gym, and you get the personal tour and possible free first consultation you absolutely milk it for all it’s worth.

What I mean by that is you grab the personal trainer and drag them to every single piece of equipment you want to and have them show you exactly how it’s done safely and most effectively. Simply knowing your way around a gym will have an enormous effect on your own self-confidence.

You can also get excellent starter training plans from most Physical Trainers as part of your gym membership, make sure you do this and make sure you ask as many questions as you can. There are no stupid questions, be like a child and question everything until you’re certain.

Learning how to use barbells and the squat racks gives you immediate confidence when you enter a gym as most good gyms should have at least one squat rack.

Many people invest in a personal trainer for several weeks to try and springboard themselves into the good habits and consistency required for a health and fitness lifestyle. In terms of their options on this it’s a very mixed bag. 

Those that had success noted that their trainers had been hands on, passionate and extremely positive about the whole endeavour, whilst those who had bad experiences spoke of uncertain and ambiguous instructors who didn’t have the ability to motivate them.

The best advice I can give here is that from my own experience most personal trainers will give you a free one-on-one consultation. Use this to find out everything you can about the personal trainer. Ask them if they have any previous clients in your gym you can speak to. Personal trainers aren’t cheap, don’t waste your money and assume they’re all as good as each other. As with any profession there will always be those that rise to the top, if you can get the assistance of someone with that type of calibre it will catapult you to health and fitness.

I caution you not to think of a Personal Trainer as a short-term fix, you still need to put in a lot of effort, be consistent and have a long-term viewpoint. If you’ve neglected your body for a long time, it will take time to get it back into shape.

Most of these things I stumbled into, and it should be noted that some things I kept up and other things I dropped based on my long- and short-term plan and my own goals and availability. I was however consistent in remaining active, I never stopped exercising in some shape or form. That was crucial for me and meant I didn’t lose any momentum. For instance, I had run consistently in the past so if I couldn’t make a class or get to the gym at all I’d just go for a run. In my head I was still training and didn’t feel like I was letting myself down.

Consistency trumps motivation.

Remember, chin up, chest out and handle it.

Yours,

Stephen