“I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“What are these exercises?”
“Oh! I can’t do that!”
If these are phrases that you have uttered, then you’re reading the right blog post. Most people fail at working out because they don’t know how to get started. They usually have the kind of experience they had when they tried to play sports when they were kids. They try to do something; they find out they can’t do it; they see somebody else do it with ease and conclude that they should avoid ever doing something like that again. The long term consequence is often a lifetime avoidance of exercise.
Maybe you’ve finally worked up enough courage to try to do your exercises all alone because you’re afraid if you someone else sees you, they’ll think you look like an idiot. And the reason you think you look like an idiot is because you know you don’t look the way you’re supposed to look when you do the exercises. And after awhile it seems like you’re not making any progress or you might even be picking up a few injuries.
You need a plan.
Step 1: Learn the right way to do the exercises.
This is frequently the longest and hardest step which is why it is so often avoided. You need to learn one exercise at a time, and you need to keep practicing until you get it right. Start with a length of time that you plan to workout. When you look at your your workout sheet, if you don’t know how to do an exercise, then look it up on the internet (this counts towards the time you budgeted to workout). Feel free to check a few resources of examples of how to do the exercise. If you can’t do it the way the example shows, then look up a simpler modification of the exercise. Try the simpler version(s) until they’re easy for you, then try a harder version until you’ve worked up to the standard version. Take as much time as you need to progress through each step.
Step 2: Start with the foundational exercises.
If you followed step 1 properly, then you probably won’t get through all of the exercises in your workout. If you budgeted 30 minutes for your workout, and it took ten minutes just to figure that you will need preparatory exercises just to do the first exercise on your sheet, then it isn’t feasible to get through a ten exercise workout within the time you budgeted. That’s okay. A properly written workout will always start with the most important foundational exercises first. As you get better at the foundational exercises, you should be able to progress through each exercise quicker. For examples of properly written workouts click the link “Go to Workout Builder” at the top of this blog.
Step 3: Focus on progress.
As long as you keep improving, eventually you’ll be able to finish that workout. Don’t worry about how you compare to other people. Most of athletic potential is defined by whether or not you picked the right mom and dad. Don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t. Even though you’re not a genetic freak, it doesn’t mean you can’t make big changes in your athletic ability and your physical appearance and your health.
Step 4: There’s no step four.
Yeah. That’s it.