Workout Advice

If you’re like me, you are an office bound middle management type who remembers that mythical time when you were in the “best shape of your life”.  You’re pushing middle age and now the “shape” you most resemble isn’t so much the “best” as it is the “roundest”.  You’ve tried to do different things in the past to return to your former glory.  You’ve spent money, but not necessarily time, on diet books, gym memberships, and maybe even personal trainers.  In the end though, your job, your family, and your middle management type lifestyle just sort of gets in the way, to the point that you tell yourself, “What the hell do I need to be in shape for anyway?  All I do is push a mouse around a desk all day.”

 

The thing is, if you’re like me, you’re lying to yourself and you know it.  Fair or not, people judge each other on appearances, and you assume that you’re being judged harshly.

 

I have been in and out of gyms for almost twenty years.  I have read or listened to countless books and podcasts about working out, nutrition, health, and fun stuff like that.  At the beginning of the year, I decided to put everything I’ve learned together and see if I can’t return to some measure of my past glory, that being about three years ago when I was training for my ill-fated experiment with the National Guard (that’s another story).  I joined yet another gym and started to monitor my progress.

 

After a little over a month, I’m seeing real results for the first time since 2010.  As a matter of public service, I decided to pass on to you, Dear Reader, what I’ve learned.  Note here, if you are one of those people who is an actual athlete, I’m not talking to you.  I’m talking to Mr. and Mrs. Middle Management here.  If you want something more advanced or technical, go read a blog by someone who knows what they’re talking about.  Besides, this isn’t so much advice on what exercises to do or what food to eat.  It’s more advice about how to approach this new hobby of yours.

 

Before I begin though, I want to explain a couple terms.  A “rep”, short for repetition, is one single execution of an exercise.  A “set” is a number of reps that you do the exercise for before stopping for a break.  To illustrate, on a bench press, you begin with your arms fully extended and holding a barbell above your chest.  When you bring it down, touch your chest, and return your arms to their extended position, that’s one rep.  If you do that ten times and then quit, you’ve done one set of ten reps.

 

Anyway, here we go.  Good luck, and remember, I’m just sharing what I’ve learned myself.  I’m not a professional trainer, so mileage may vary.

 

Find a plan and stick to it

There’s a tendency for new gym members to just wonder in and do whatever looks fun or easy.  It’s great that you’re in the gym in the first place, because that shows initiative, but you really won’t see any progress if you don’t go in with a plan.  If you don’t see progress in the gym, you likely won’t keep giving them money and going, and then you’re just back where you started.

 

That’s why it’s important to have a plan.  It doesn’t matter what plan you choose and I’m not going to speak about specific merits about different workout plans, except to say that you should be in the gym three days a week, lifting weights for about half an hour, and then doing cardio for about half an hour.  Oh yeah, if you can do that cardio one extra time a week, that would be great.

 

Being new, you probably don’t have any idea about how to put a workout plan together.  Don’t run out and buy a new book for this or pay for an expensive trainer!  If you’re reading this, you’re on the internet, so go to YouTube and watch some videos or find some personal trainers’ websites or blogs.  Lots of personal trainers have videos or other forms of free advice up, and lots of those trainers have suggested beginner workout plans.  Pick one and stick to it for at least a month.  Just make sure that your plan includes half an hour of weight lifting and half an hour of cardio.

 

You should know what your goal is for your weight training at the beginning.  If you are looking for muscle stamina and endurance, your lifting will be different than if you are looking for strength, which will be different yet again from body building.  You likely won’t spend much time on YouTube or the internet before running into arguments over what the “best” workout is.  Screw all that noise.  Pick something and do it.

 

I’ve lifted weights for years looking for strength.  Lifts of these kinds were usually heavy weights with five reps in five sets.  Sometimes I’d mix it up and do not-quite-so-heavy weights with eight reps in three sets.  If you spend any time researching this, you’ll recognize this as the “3×8 vs. 5×5” debate.  Lately, because my goals have changed, I’ve decided to ignore all that and do four sets of ten reps (4×10) with low weights.  Whatever you pick, just stay with it.

 

Do your own time

Having found a plan that works for you, and having stuck to it for a week or two, it’s only natural to look around and see what other people in the gym are doing.  Wow, look at how much that guy is benching!  Oooh, look at that clean and jerk!  How cool it would be if you could do that too, huh?  So you start to look at your own plan like it’s so much used toilet paper.

 

Don’t fall into that trap.  The guy on the bench press who impresses you so much might be training for a competitive powerlifting event, something you aren’t likely doing.  The guy on the clean and jerk (not as dirty as it sounds, go look it up) might be getting ready for his senior year of football, which, if you’ve read this far, you definitely aren’t doing.  Those guys are in the gym for their reasons and you are there for yours, and their reasons aren’t the same as yours.

 

That’s what I mean when I say to do your own time.  That was advice I first saw in The Shawshank Redemption and it got driven home during my failed National Guard experiment.  Essentially, I mean that you’re walking your path, which is likely different from everyone else in that gym.  Mind your own business for now.  Later, if you start to feel like you’re getting the hang of this workout stuff, by all means ask for advice, but until then, trust me, Butterball, stay on your path.

 

While on the subject of advice, you’ll occasionally get that Friendly Dude who wants to give you a few tips from his storehouse of knowledge.  If you’re a guy, Friendly Dude will most likely accost you in the locker room.  If you’re a gal, Friendly Dude will approach you right on the floor, likely when you’re in the middle of a workout.  Strangely, Friendly Dude will talk to gals longer than guys.  In either case, smile, nod, and thank him for his advice.  Then just get back to what you’re doing.

 

Once you’ve been to the gym a few times, you’ll start to figure out who knows what they’re doing and who’s just there for Amateur Hour at the Improv.  It’s perfectly acceptable to approach someone and ask for advice, but if you’re offered unsolicited advice in the gym (and most of the rest of the arena of your life, come to think about it), just file the information in your memory banks and move on.

 

Worry about the sets, not the reps

When I changed my workout a few weeks ago, I went from five sets of five reps to four sets of ten reps on the bench press.  I’d been bench pressing 185 pounds for five reps for some of my sets.  However, I knew that I couldn’t do that for the new workout, so I lowered the weight to 135 pounds.  Guess what?  Even though I was working with fifty pounds less weight, I couldn’t do two complete sets.  So, instead of finishing with two sets of fewer reps, I lowered the weight (and felt the ping to my ego while I did so) and finished the twenty more reps I wanted to at the lower weight.

 

Whatever your routine is, finish the sets with all the reps.  Maintain the correct form for each exercise all the way through all the reps.  If your weights are too heavy for you to finish the set, you’ll start to lose form and cheat to finish.  This is when you see things like when guys arch their backs to lift the benchpress they’re straining against or something like that.  Once you start doing that, you aren’t doing the exercise anymore.  You’ve morphed it into something else.  Besides, working out with a poor form is a great way to hurt yourself.  

 

Admittedly, this can be a little hard to judge.  I mean, you are supposed to be pushing yourself, right?  I’m not talking about when that next-to-last rep is forcing you to push hard, I’m talking about when your body contorts to make that rep happen.  If you start to lose form, stop, lower the weight your working with, and get back to it.  Once you finish the set, honestly evaluate yourself and decide on whether to lower the weight further for your next set. 

 

This applies to your cardio as well.  If you decide that you’re going to jog on a treadmill for your cardio, don’t be afraid to back the speed of the treadmill down if you’re uncomfortable.  Again, complete the thirty minutes.  The time is the key, not the speed of the treadmill.  Thirty minutes that push you a little bit are way better than fifteen minutes that push you over the edge.

 

The only caution I’d say here is that you shouldn’t lower the weights or slow yourself down so much that you aren’t challenged.  When I lowered my bench press that time, I didn’t slap five pound weights on the barbell and lift 55 pounds.  I took it down 10 pounds and tried again.  A good way to think about your weight training is that, however many sets and reps you’re doing, the last rep should challenge you.  Cardio is a little bit more subjective to judge, but because I’m running on a treadmill, I like to see how many simulated miles I run in thirty minutes.  If that keeps going up, then I’m happy.

 

If you’re curious, my bench press, which is still at four sets of ten reps, has now reached the point where I’m finishing with 145 pounds.  Trust me, you’ll make gains.

 

Have fun

If you aren’t training for a specific event, then there isn’t any specific exercise in the gym that you have to do.  Yes, you are there to work out and push yourself, but if your chosen workout routine has you doing squats three days a week and you find you hate doing squats, switch it out with something else!  Yes, squats are awesome, full body exercises, but you know what?  They suck!  They are so awesome because they are tough to perform with good form, especially when you start stacking on the weights.  Furthermore, if you have a lower back issue, they can be somewhat painful to perform.

 

You should look forward to coming to the gym, and if your workout plan has you squatting three days a week and you hate them and make your back sore the next morning, you won’t look forward to coming to the gym.  Instead, you’ll dread it, and that will just take away your initiative.  Do that long enough and pretty soon you’ll just go find something else to do with your time.

 

I chose squats for my example because that happened to me.  My workout plan alternates between two different routines, but at the beginning, both started off with squats.  Bench presses, which I like doing, only got hit every other workout, meaning that some weeks, I was only benching once a week.  But those damn squats were always there, staring me right in the face.  After a couple weeks, I simply swapped out the bench press and the squats on my plan.  Suddenly, I was squatting every other time and benching every workout.  That was awesome for me, and even when I changed to my “high rep/low weight” workout, I kept the bench press and squats where they were.

 

This rule especially applies to cardio though.  I jog on a treadmill.  Fine for me, but you might think of that as cruel torture.  Okay then, don’t jog on a treadmill!  Choose something else.  Maybe your gym has a pool and you can swim.  Maybe you can ride a stationary bike.  Maybe you can play racquetball or basketball or something like that.  Or maybe you just walk a quick pace and start to sneak one or two minute jogs in when you are able.  It doesn’t matter what you do for cardio, as long as you like it and it makes your heart beat a little faster.

 

Just don’t get carried away with this rule though.  Yes, have fun, but remember that you’re in the gym to get healthier and fitter.  The only way to do that is to push yourself physically.  You are therefore going to have to learn to live with discomfort and sweat, at least until you hit the shower afterward.  But within that context, enjoy what you’re doing.  Don’t do something just because someone else says it’s good or because your workout plan says it’s time to do it in black and white.  Do something because it’s effective and you, at least, don’t mind doing it, but hopefully think it’s fun. 

 

Recent discussions that I’ve had with hospital executives and experiences with my horrible insurance company (I don’t want to name names, but their initials are MedBen) have driven home my belief that more and more, we need to take responsibility for our own health.  That doesn’t mean that we should all be Spartan warriors, but it does mean that anything we can do to keep our money out of the hands of the corporate health care system is a good thing.  Trust me when I say that hospitals speak well of all-you-can-eat buffets because they cultivate new customers!  Truest me when I say that more and more, insurance companies will try to screw you!  So, let’s stop relying on hospitals and insurance companies and start taking responsibility for our own health.

 

If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, things you’d like to see me comment on, or something you would like to discuss, you can contact me at angryhappytruth@gmail.com.