After a summer of working, rekindling with hometown friends or perhaps traveling, you may find yourself falling victim to the seemingly universal beginning-of-semester trope — the fitness era. So, you decide to grab the bull by its horns and venture to the ever-daunting AFC.
Predictably, the question of “Well, how do I start?” follows suit. Starting your fitness journey is the hardest part, but don’t worry — everyone feels nervous in the beginning. Fret not, because college is the perfect time to start building your exercise routine. Everyone may have their own strategy, but here are some tips on how to get moving and feel fantastic while doing so.
1. Make a plan that’s realistic and beneficial for you — and continue it
The most important part of starting out is staying consistent. You should choose a scheduled split that aligns with your goals and lifestyle — but regardless of what that looks like, be sure to include rest days. In order to build muscle mass, muscles need time to recover. Your plan should take your school and overall life schedule into account as well. Even if your motivation fluctuates, your discipline will ensure you will make progress towards achieving your goals.
2. Realize that no one is judging you
Enter “gymtimidation” — the fear of being judged at the gym. While this is a phenomenon many aspiring gym rats encounter, more often than not, your fellow gym-goers are too busy focusing on their own journeys to be judging you. Even so, the feeling of gymtimidation is real. To ease into it, you could start by bringing a gym buddy with you, go to the gym during non-peak hours — before 11 a.m. or after 8 p.m. Gymtimidation can go away all on its own once you start consistently going to the gym.
3. Be intentional about your exercises
Randomly selecting a dumbbell and lifting it up in the air is not going to cut it. You need to research the purpose and proper form of each exercise and select which ones will earn a spot in your routine. Then, you need to figure out how many sets and reps are the right fit. In my experience, progressive overload is a strategy worth looking into, where one increases the weight of an exercise over time.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask questions
Once gymtimidation is overcome, it may be worth it to outsource in order to seek out the answers to some of your pressing questions. This strategy has helped me find protein-packed recipes, exercises I have incorporated into my weekly splits and tips on form. While this may be scary, approaching a gymshark and asking them for advice is actually perfectly acceptable. Again, nearly everyone at the gym is there for self-betterment, so there are tons of people in the workout community who will be willing to help you.
5. What you eat matters
No matter how much you work out, it is undeniable that a significant part of your progress occurs in the kitchen. Drinking enough water is crucial as well as eating healthy food, especially protein, which plays a pivotal role in how your muscles grow and recover. Additionally, you should consider incorporating some superfoods into your diet — such as bananas, dark chocolate and eggs — which can naturally enhance your body and your mood.
6. Develop a warm-up and cooldown
Properly warming up before — and cooling down after — your workout is essential. Everyone should incorporate stretching into their daily routine to prevent workout-related injuries. Stretching will help with your range of motion as well as improving posture and balance. Additionally, some cardio can be a good idea to get your blood pumping as either a warmup or cooldown. After my workout, I end with about 45 minutes of light walking, jogging or a session on the elliptical.
7. After awhile, switch things up
Once you have perfected your consistent weekly routine, it’s time to introduce new exercises in order to avoid stagnating. Personally, I keep a pretty standard plan of pullups, preacher curls, lat pulldowns and various cable exercises for my pull days — to work my back and biceps — but have recently started adding some time on the rowing machine. I found that rowing worked parts of my body that I had not been giving enough attention to, as evidenced by the fact that those muscles were very sore after just a few minutes.
8. Be courteous to your fellow gym-goers
As we’ve covered, people will not judge you for being new to the gym. However, you will most certainly be judged for the following sins — failing to clean up your area, taking 30-plus minutes at one station, hogging space for chatting instead of actually working out and, the worst of all, grunting like a comic supervillain. Please do not be the offender of these sins — people are expected to behave themselves at the gym. It is a shared space that many people use. Respect and take care of it.
9. Make it fun
Exercise has genuinely become one of the best parts of my day. I started working out during my first year and have had so much fun on my fitness journey. Even when the rest of the gym session is lackluster, I make it better by shooting some hoops in the AFC side pool, relaxing in the hot tub and doing some mental reflection in the sauna. As an additional reward, I usually make myself a delicious dark chocolate protein shake after a workout and savor every sip. I recommend curating a workout playlist you like and jam out to that while you exercise. Or, watch an episode or two of your favorite show during your treadmill session.
10. Never give up
This might be the most important tip. If you consistently exercise, after a few months, you will likely find that you look forward to working out, but until then, you have to keep pushing yourself to get out of bed and build consistency. Additionally, don’t become discouraged if you feel like you are not seeing as much progress as you did when you first started — exercising is not just about growth, as it is also about maintaining what you built.
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