5 Tips To Get the Most Out of Your Fitness Journey
Fitness is not one-size-fits-all. Everyone starts their fitness journey for different reasons and different goals in mind. Sure, they want to get fit/stay fit, but some people prefer to do that by lifting weights, some prefer to prioritize their cardio, and others employ a combined approach, based on what their goals are.
I have tried it all — doing 100% cardio, doing 100% weightlifting, going through 60-day high-intensity full-body programs such as Insanity, and while each type of workout provides its own set of benefits and challenges, there are certain things I started to do that helped me improve my performance over time, whether I was running on the track or doing a barbell squat. Whether you’re a bodybuilder or a cardio master or anything in between, these 5 tips will help you crush your fitness goals for 2021 and beyond.
Get More/Better Sleep
This one is no secret, yet it is something that a lot of people struggle with consistently.
In order for your body to operate at its peak, you need to give it an appropriate amount of rest. For most of us, that is 7–9 hours of uninterrupted snooze time. Whether you’re pushing heavy weights, performing metabolically challenging HIIT workouts, doing consistent steady-state cardio, your muscles and tissues need to recover so that you can go hard the next time you train, and that restoration only happens when you get a good night’s sleep. This is especially important because in order for you to make progress, you need to be pushing hard each time you train, but if your sleep is poor, you won’t have the energy to consistently train harder with each session. Not only that, but your moods and emotions can also be impacted by poor sleep, and since we all live lives outside of the gym, it’s important to keep these mood and brain functions performing at peak capacity by giving them ample rest.
If you’re well on your way to achieving your fitness goals in the gym but don’t give yourself the sleep you deserve, you may be fine initially, but if the cycle continues, you’ll find yourself hitting a wall, and more seriously, you risk a greater chance of injury. Along with crushing your workouts, make sure you take the appropriate steps to getting ample amounts of sleep.
Keep a Written Calendar with Detailed Records
This one doesn’t seem necessary, but you only start to see the value in this once you actually start doing it. Humans are forgetful creatures, and unless you’re hitting the same workouts every day, there is a chance you won’t remember what you did 2–3 days ago. This is especially true for my bodybuilders out there who are looking to progressively overload session after session. Before I started doing this, I used to keep all the weights and repetitions for each exercise in my head, and whenever I would do them, I knew my numbers for that exercise from the previous session and knew that I needed to improve on them somehow, whether I lift that weight with better form or I slightly increase the weight. This is all well and good, until you realize that you don’t have a written record of your workouts for the past 6 months and that while you have made some progress, you haven’t made quite the progress you would have liked.
I get it, the journey to a fit life is long (never-ending in fact) and progress can be slow. However, keeping a log can hold you accountable and push you to improve in ways that your body is forced to adapt. Plus, it’s pretty cool to have visual proof of the progress you’ve been making and all the new things your body is capable of now that you couldn’t do before.
Rest Days
Sleep is something you need to do every single night, but rest days account for (or should account for) 1–3 days of your week. The important of rest cannot be understated — our bodies need to rest in order for us to make any meaningful fitness progress. I’ve tried working out for 8 days in a row, and by personal experience, that 8th workout was me just going through the motions with no real intent.
Rest days need to be earned, and by that I mean that your workouts should be intense enough to the point where your body is actually demanding rest in order to recuperate optimally. If you’re exerting yourself at 50% effort for 4 days of the week, chances are you have plenty left in the tank, and the days you’re resting are days being wasted. On the other side, if you’re exerting at 100% consistently, your body is likely screaming for a break after the 4th or 5th day. If you ignore those physical signals and still continue to push yourself, your body will naturally give out, and you won’t be able to give your 100%.
Rest and recuperation needs to be an integral part of your fitness journey, provided you earn it and you use these days wisely. These days are great to get some stretching done, do some light yoga, go on a leisure-paced walk, anything that doesn’t require you to exert much force but still qualifies as a kind of “active rest”.
Be Realistic
For those that are just getting into the fitness realm, this one is very important. You WILL NOT achieve your dream body in one month; it’s going to take a lot of work and discipline over many months in order to make progress towards the goals you’ve laid out for yourself.
A lot of people (myself included) work 5 days a week, and while I have made the time to go to the gym each weeknight, a lot of you will simply not have the time to dedicate. If this is true for you, be patient as to what you can achieve in a period of time. A training regimen that would help you lose 15 pounds in 3 months may only end up shaving off 10 pounds if you can’t dedicate the time needed to the program. For the people that are venturing into the world of lifting weights, know that everyone’s body is built entirely differently, and that no two people that undergo a similar lifting program will end up looking the same. The focus here should be consistency and a progressive mindset; the idea that your workout has to be better than the previous one in some way, shape, or form.
Lastly, you should know your limitations: if you start working out with a partner and they’re able to do more than you are, trust your abilities and push yourself as best you can WITHOUT risking your health or a possible injury. Whatever your preferred method of exercise, check your ego at the door and make sure you push yourself within reason so that you don’t lose meaningful progress to a completely avoidable injury.
Remind Yourself Why You Want to Do This
This one is the most important of them all, because if you have no motivation, nothing driving you to doing this, then you won’t work out at all. A lot of us set fitness goals improve our health, but if you would classify yourself as “unhealthy” before you started working out, what’s to stop you from getting back to that unhealthy phase, if there’s no internal reason for not doing so?
For example, if you’re going to the gym or going on runs outside to lose weight, why is losing weight important to you? If it’s because you want to look better in your clothes, why do outward appearances matter to you? If this is because you want to improve your self-confidence and self-esteem, you’ve found your motivation.
For me personally, I come from a family that has a plethora of health issues on both sides. Diabetes and heart problems run rampant, and I know that if I don’t take the steps now to build a foundation for my health, that it will be much harder to do so later on in life. I want to live my life free from these problems the best I can, and be able to enjoy time with friends and family without having to worry about things I could have controlled earlier on.
A lot of us start our fitness journeys with some external goal in mind, such as trimming down the waistline, getting that broad-shouldered look, etc., but the ones who sustainably continue on for years have something deeper driving them; you just need to find out what that is.
You just read another post from In Fitness And In Health: a health and fitness community dedicated to sharing knowledge, lessons, and suggestions to living happier, healthier lives.
If you’d like to join our newsletter and receive more stories like this one, tap here.
