Training Guide for beginners
Training Guide for beginners
Estimated reading time: 10-15 minutes
Intro
Training is the main factor that causes progression in your fitness journey, and your gains to show. Changing your nutrition can help massively, but you’re not going to be optimised unless you are training. Let’s just say that changing your nutrition will not make you stronger on it’s own and once you loose excess fat, you want a nice, sturdy frame to show off (whether you’re a man or a woman).
In this article, we will go through: “Why training is important” (even if you don’t care about appearance), “What training does to your mind” and “The best ways to get started”.
Why is training important? 💭
Many people don’t do any form of training in today’s society and live long lives, so why is it important? The answer has everything to do with the quality of life that you want. Training, weather it be weight-lifting or running, is what your body is made for. From an evolutionary standpoint, we are built for almost constant physical activity; and much like a car that is left undriven for too long, not being active can cause you to cease up or stop you from functioning to the best of your ability. In short, training will make you feel way better in your day to day life, especially if you’re the type of person who experiences lower back or neck pain. These are often signs of lacking muscular strength.
So, you may be asking: “Okay, so what training do I need to do? ” There are many answers, but we think that as a general rule of thumb, weight training (or bodyweight if you’re a true beginner) is a great way to get your body working, without causing too much wear and tear over the long run. For example, running a lot can be good for cardiovascular health, but it is no secret that it can be very harsh on your joints. Not to mention the fact that in general, most people are in serious need of more muscular strength before they worry about fully focusing on their cardio. In particular, most people cannot perform the main bodyweight exercises that they should be able to perform: push-ups, pull-ups, squats and plank. If you are unable to perform these exercises, proper weight training is highly likely to improve: your overall daily function, posture and key things like balance, far more than simply going for a run. Not to mention that you will probably start to look healthier, which never hurts.
In short, training is important because you’re going to increase your longevity in life by: increasing bone density, increasing muscle density, increasing how efficiently your body uses oxygen (lowering your resting heart rate and reducing wear), along with the many benefits it also has on your mind. Also, it is good to have something to struggle against to make you into a stronger person. The stronger you are, mentally and physically, the more problems that you can handle and there is then less in the world that can overwhelm you.
What does training do to the mind? 
Resistance training has many effects on your muscles. One of which is the way that they communicate with the brain. Yes, that’s right, the communication between the brain and the muscles is two-sided. Your muscles talk to the brain via chemicals called ‘Myokines’. Resistance training has been proven to send chemicals to the Brain that have anti depressant effects far greater than any prescribed medication. (1) This means that training can change the chemistry of your brain in the same way as if you were actually prescribed anti depressant medication. Training has also been proven to reduce the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s, essentially by increasing oxygen flow to the brain and allowing for greater neurogenesis among many other things.
So, by now you should know that the body and the mind are integrally connected. This link should not be underestimated.
A lot of people want to train to improve their self confidence. As mentioned above, training will help your posture. Most people are unaware of this, but the body and the mind are connected in fascinating ways. For example, the way you stand can have an effect on your state of mind. Evolutionarily, rounded shoulders are associated with bracing for danger and somewhat protecting the vulnerable parts of our body (shoulders round in to protect the chest and come up to cover the neck). Your brain takes note of this, and will release hormones that tell you, you’re in a vulnerable position. Have you ever wondered why confident people stand with their chest out and their shoulders back? It is because on either a conscious or subconscious level, they do not feel threatened by the world and are able to leave their vulnerable parts unprotected. Being confident can cause good posture, this effect also works in reverse. So amazingly, just correcting your posture, if you have bad posture, can make you feel more confident (not to mention save you from major back and neck pain).
How to get started 🚀
Now that you know just some of the benefits, here is the best way to get started.
First of all, resistance training is the best way to go about starting, even if you are only using your bodyweight to provide the resistance to begin with. With this in mind, training from home can be a good place to start for the first few months if you are hesitant of joining a gym. We recommend resistance training as the best way to get started, because it will help you to gain lean mass (muscle). Gaining lean mass helps to burn more calories throughout the day, and most beginners do not have enough of it. We recommend some cardio to start with, but not too much, as it sometimes has the effect of making you more hungry than you would otherwise be. However, if you really want to focus on cardio for the fitness element, you can do a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workout. But be warned, they are not easy. However, they can be very fulfilling once completed.
We are also going for the healthiest approach here, not just focusing on looks. This means that your workouts should be measured by how you are feeling within yourself both immediately afterwards, you should feel tired but not in pain, and how you feel for the rest of the day. One good metric to use is asking the question: “Are tasks that used to be hard becoming easier?”
Finally, ask yourself why you feel the need to get started training; if that is only for looks, then you will be leaving most of your potential on the table. A better outlook is to focus on performance and the process of actually going to the gym when you are supposed to as your goal, and take the improved looks as a welcome by-product. This will make it much more enjoyable to train and means that you are more likely to stick to it long term, as your measurement of success is doing a task that fulfils you rather than obsessing over what is in the mirror.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are many good reasons to begin with training, and the goal is to never stop (by all means though, breaks of a week or two when needed are encouraged). Training will improve your mental and physical capabilities, which should be your main reason to begin. Don’t underestimate the seriousness of this.
The mistake is thinking that a sedentary lifestyle is the baseline and that training will make you superhuman. In fact, throughout history people have been physically active in a big way, meaning that if you’re untrained you’ll first be reaching for the historical baseline of human capability, then you can choose weather you want to become more than that. Succinctly, a sedentary lifestyle will actually increase your mortality the longer it is allowed to continue.