Don’t Overthink These Things When You’re Exercising.

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about fitness, which isn’t all that surprising when you consider how different people understand it differently. Some people train for competition while others train to be healthy. Some people love cardio, while others prefer lifting weights all day. This diversity of viewpoints is enough to overwhelm a beginner, so let’s cut through the noise with a list of fitness misconceptions you can safely ignore.

But before we dive in, what matters ? I would boil down the important things to the following:

That’s all you really need to know to get started. What follows is a list of things that (in my opinion) beginners spend way too much time worrying about. That’s not to say that these things do n’t matter at all, but these are the things that you can basically ignore and still be able to get stronger, fitter, faster and healthier.

It hardly matters how many reps you do in an exercise.

Should you do eight to twelve repetitions of each strength exercise? Or five sets of five?

While shorter sets are meant to develop strength and longer sets are meant to increase size , the truth is that strength and size go hand in hand. As you get stronger, your muscles get bigger and vice versa. As a beginner, you really don’t have to worry about whether you’re in the “optimal” rep range for your goals as long as each set feels like hard work. Sets of five reps with heavier weights and sets of 10 with lighter weights will give the same results.

You do not need to immediately change body weight.

People often start exercising at the same time they decide they want to lose fat or build muscle. Some exercise programs come with instructions that tell you to eat a ton of food and “gain weight” while doing them; others suggest that your goal will be to lose weight and create a calorie deficit .

If you want to change your body size, it’s up to you. But you don’t have to tie it to your fitness goals. You can just start exercising now and decide later if you want to be bigger or smaller, or if your size suits you. (Please make sure you are getting enough protein .)

It’s a good idea to take “walk breaks” while running.

One of the first things you need to learn when you start running is how to run slowly enough that you don’t exhaust yourself in the first 30 seconds. You also need to understand that your body needs to build fitness in order to be able to run continuously. You may just not be ready for a continuous half-hour run yet. This is the idea behind walk-run approaches like Couch to 5K .

But one downside of the 5K couch is that many people think of the running parts as “real” running and the walking parts as “breaks” or some kind of failure in the task of running. The thing is, if you get from start to finish in a race (5k or whatever) at a different pace than walking, you’ve run it. What’s more, you still develop cardio training when you walk fast, and it is cardio training that will ultimately allow you to run more and faster.

You Don’t Need “Perfect” Exercise Form

Perfect form is overrated. You need a form that is good enough. If your squats are a complete mess, your knees are touching, your thighs are far from parallel, and it hurts when you do it, then yes, something is wrong. But if you’re squatting with a loaded barbell and feeling good and the weight is moving well, you don’t have to obsessively watch videos of yourself looking for subtle signs of “knee flex” or “butt wink.”

Yes, you may not be perfect yet. Nobody is. But if you train safely and effectively, your form is good enough. You will improve it as you go.

You can’t spend your newbie achievements

When you’re new to exercise, it’s easy to make progress. You will gain more muscle mass and strength in your first year of training than in any subsequent year, which is pretty cool.

This is simply because there are a lot of low hanging fruits that you can pick as a beginner. It’s not because beginner profits are some magic spell with an expiration date. The beginner principle simply says that the weaker you are, the more room for improvement you have.

In short: you cannot “spend” or “lose” your beginner achievements if you take a break during the first year. And you will still have a lot of room for improvement even after you get out of the noob stage.

No equipment is so special

It’s easy to fall into the trap of marketing hype around butt bands, ankle weights, pelotons, aero bikes , or the weird machine that lets you do squats with an assistant.

None of this matters. There are literally hundreds of ways to train your glutes without bands. No piece of equipment is required, not even my favorite barbell. As long as you’re doing some cardio and some strength training , you’ll be fine.

Your split workout doesn’t matter

One way to organize strength training is by body part: for example, chest on Monday, back and biceps on Tuesday. You can do a five-day split, or a two-stroke split, or a top-bottom split, and there are good programs that follow each one.

But the split itself is irrelevant. The split is just an organization. Asking for the best split is like saying, “I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. Is this a good diet?

There is no “best” workout

Whether we’re talking about cardio or strength training, the purpose of a warm-up is to prepare you for the workout ahead . Maybe you have a body part that tends to be tight; some stretches for this area can help you stretch. You may need to practice proper technique on one of your exercises to make sure you get it right; some technical warm-up exercises can help you succeed.

This means that there is no “right” warm-up for everyone. If you don’t know what to do when you go to the gym, sit on a cardio machine or do some bodyweight exercises (lunges, pushups, deadlifts) and then start exercising throughout the day. If your body needs something more specific, it will let you know.

You don’t have to worry about your heart rate (at first)

All gadgets these days can measure your heart rate and tell you if you’re in the right “zone” for the workout you’re about to do . But they all use a formula based on your maximum heart rate and are probably wrong. While there are formulas that can determine your maximum heart rate, everyone is different , and your gadget doesn’t really know your maximum heart rate unless you’ve done max effort (which you, as a beginner, probably never didn’t do it).

Instead, know that most of your cardio should be done in “zone 2,” that is, at an effort level where you’re breathing a little harder than at rest, but you can still easily carry on a conversation and don’t feel short of breath. The other zones are higher, and zones 4 and 5 (on most systems) are the level of effort you can hold for less than a minute. First go through these perceived effort levels and just note what your heart rate is when you’re in them. If a heart rate of 135 feels hot and sweaty but not killer, it’s probably in your zone 2, no matter what your watch says.

You don’t have to worry about the mind-muscle connection

Do you feel how this muscle works? It’s okay if you can’t. Some people have trouble feeling certain muscles work; some of us never pay attention to it at all, and we still get stronger.

It is impossible to perform a pull-up or lat pull without using the lats. It is impossible to do a biceps curl without engaging the biceps. It is impossible to perform a bench press without using the chest and triceps. When you exercise, the muscle works whether you feel it or not.

Your strength will fluctuate from day to day

We are not at our best every day. You know this about everyday life: You don’t expect to be optimally focused at work every single day, or equally patient with your children every second of every hour. So why are we so surprised when we did five pull-ups on Monday and only three today?

The truth is that many factors affect our performance in the gym, not least the fatigue from our previous workouts. It’s not bad; feeling tired is part of the same process that ultimately makes us stronger. We’ve got a guide on when you can expect to hit a PR in the gym , and understand: the answer isn’t “literally every day.”

You don’t need to know what you do on the first day

If you’re new to the gym, you probably assume that everyone there knows what they’re doing and you’ll be left out. But the truth is that many people out there don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not bad; we are all kind of figuring out life as we go along. It might make sense to think of training as “growing up”—something that many of us dread but somehow manage to do anyway.

Don’t worry if you’re the weakest or most out of shape person out there; going to the gym – here’s how to fix it. And if someone tells you that you are doing something wrong, don’t question all of your life decisions up to this point. Just read our guide to dealing with unsolicited gym tips .

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