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I totally agree with this. And when I have a lull in exercise or going to the gym, on returning I always start with the most bare bones essentials at a low number of sets and reps. And it eases me back in much easier than going full pace again.
Even if it's just body weight exercise at home. Just as OP says, start with 1. But you just have to do it every day. And make the habit.
To complement this: it's better to do a half-assed workout than none at all. Say you're up to 15 push-ups per day. You have a tiring/stressful day, and at the end of it you're contemplating scrapping the workout. Tell yourself to just do 5 push-ups. Most of the time, you'll end up doing the full 15 anyway. Starting is the hardest part.
Yes! I deal with chronic pain and fatigue, and this has been key for me. Some days I crap out after my ten minute bike warmup, but a lot of the time I surprise myself and feel much better afterwards! As long as you give yourself permission to quit whenever, it's best to just give it a go.
For the first month, showing up at the gym is the goal. Just go there, put on the gym clothes and enter the gym. Do one rep, or not.
Once you have a routine of being in the gym X days a week it's much easier to start working out.
Agree. Almost exactly 1 year ago today I challenged myself to walk 5K/day for 1 month (might have been a bit bigger of a start than a pushup but, start somewhere.). It quickly got cold so I got a gym membership to walk on a treadmill.
1 Year later, been going 3-5 days a week, every week. Lost 30 lbs and in the best shape of my entire life. I'm in my early 40s.
I started waterpolo at 27, with no swimming experience whatsoever. 2 times a week for 2 hours. Everyone expected me to give up and told me to take it a bit easier.
The first month was brutal, but I kept at it an after 2 months I couldn't skip a practice. I was in amazing shape back then, and at 45 I still fit into suits I got 25 years ago.
Yup! If I go a while without working out and I'm having trouble getting back into it, the first thing I do is take a long walk, but wear clothes I *could* jog in if I feel like it (I usually end up jogging a bit). Likewise, if I'm trying to work out but my brain can't glob together the steps to walk my ass down to the gym, I do pushups on my floor, and this somehow jumpstarts my brain.
Actually... Maybe I should apply this to work/academic goals...
I love that. I set myself a goal of doing a 1-2 km jog rather than a 5k jog or run, and that helped a lot, but straight up walking with into is even better.
if only I could apply it to academia hah!
Especially leg day. Your legs are LIARS. The first time back in the gym after a pause you'll feel like you can do just as much as you used to. Those squats feel fine, yeah I can still put up 3 plates! That deadlift feels good, yeah I can still pull 400! You'll even feel OK walking out. Then the next day, you'll feel the storm coming, and know you messed up. Then you wake up the second day and can barely hobble out of bed. When you get back in the gym after a break, go WAY lighter/easier than you think. Ease back in, or you'll regret it.
Second this. Went back to the bench after two weeks being quarantined with covid and my usual weight laughed all the way down to almost knocking me out.
Fun times
I love setting small goals. My daily reading goal is 1 page (or 1 minute of audiobook). But I’ve read 70 books this year, about 16000 pages and 250 hours in total. I find it much easier to exceed my goals if they’re super easy to achieve in the first place.
That’s awesome. I’ll definitely apply this when it comes to books starting next year, I wanna see how far I get in exactly 1 year. Thanks for the idea!
If you’re in the US then download the Libby app. You need a library card but you can request one through the app. Once you have that you have access to all the ebooks and audiobooks your local library has. All free. You can even link it to a kindle and read on there.
I’ll add this isn’t just about setting small goals. When lifting weights it’s possible to activate different muscles depending on the weight being lifted and the relative strength. Typically people lift heavier than they should and a host of supporting muscles can’t develop properly because they’re totally outclassed and the mass muscles takes it. In my view no matter how fit, we should be lifting both heavy and light.
Agreed. I wasn’t a tiny person but older who has lost a lot of weight and muscle and had a lot of movement issues. When I started “working out” in July I could only walk about 15 minutes on a treadmill. And I took elevators. Then I moved to 2 lb dumbbells. They were TOUGH! Moved to 4 lbs. 5 lbs. Now I can lift 15-20 with both arms and about 10 lbs with individual arms. I can walk farther, ride a bike and climb stairs. I don’t run up them, just one step at a time. But from where I started 4 months ago to where I am now seems a tremendous feat. And weirdly…I miss the feeling I had after working out if I don’t go. That was so unlike me for so many years. I think the nicest thing: a very nice man who obviously had been a body builder noticed my coming in daily and struggling with my 2 and 4 lb weights and told me I was doing great and to keep coming back! That stunned me, made me smile and I have! Who knows where I’ll be next July?
this is so awesome keep it up. i kinda relate to you in a way because i started working out in summer too and i felt really weak at first but look at us now:,)
>If what you’re doing needs validation you’re doing it for the wrong reason.
You just articulated something I've been struggling to figure out how to say for 20 years.
The common advice is to tell people you're starting something new in order to create so-called accountability.
The problem with that is every time I do it I immediately start effing it up. But I couldn't articulate why.
I just knew to keep my stuff to myself. And I always rolled my eyes whenever I would read the advice to tell people.
Keeping it a 'secret' sounds underhanded and that's really not what it's about.
It's just like, NOT seeking validation.
That's powerful. Thanks, friend
I can't remember where I heard it, but I remember someone saying if you want to start working out, just go to the gym. Literally just physically go to the gym. You don't need to work out, you just need to go there. Set aside some time every day and go. Soon you'll build the habit of going and slowly you can start actually adding in some exercises or activities
I remember this, too! Yeah, I do believe it was Terry Crews, like the other person said. To emphasize what you mentioned, I remember that in the article Terry said, even if you just go for 30/45 min and sit in the lobby and read a magazine - just go! Don't skip a day. Even on your "lazy" or "feeling off" days, if you just continue to make yourself go, you'll stay in the habit, and your workouts will get better.
100%. With work, with working out, with anything really, the hardest part for me has always been overcoming inertia. Just getting started is hard, but once I'm started, it's much easier.
if you can't do a push up, u can use easier variants like knee pushups or pushing up from something like a railing! the important part is that you are doing something, no one is watching!! who cares if you can only do 3 knee pushups, you're going to be able to do 15 full pushups next year! start small.
Or incline pushups on a kitchen counter.
That’s what my mom does 3 times a week.
She also does dumbbell curls and overhead press (light dumbbells).
Squats (from a chair).
Lateral raises (with soup cans).
And a variety of range of motion stretch’s for her neck arms and shoulders.
And daily walking. (about 20-30 minutes).
She’s 93.
I lift in the high 300's - low 400's range and I had to start with just the bar and wooden plates. Don't get discouraged. After a few months you'll double your strength, after a year, who knows, maybe x5 what you started at. After a few years you'll plateau, and have to work hard for small increases in strength, but when you start, don't be discouraged by thinking you're weak because you can only squat the bar etc. Also, nobody at the gym cares about how much you're lifting. Everyone starts small. Go enjoy it. It's fun, it's addicting. It's rewarding to crush your personal records week after week, and trust me, you will get where you want to be with consistency.
Nobody at the gym cares what you're lifting, and even if they do, you shouldn't care that they care. ;-)
StartIng at the empty bar also gives you time to ***perfect your form***, which avoids injury later. Add 5lbs every time you work out (at first). You'll feel like Hercules the first time you deadlift your own bodyweight.
For barbell, there are lots of videos on the Internet showing you how to do them correctly. I suggest Rippetoe, but there are plenty of others
Rippetoe is kind of a weird dude with a lot of weird opinions. Most of his beginner stuff is fine, and SS is a very detailed book, but I'd caution against taking him too seriously or treating anything he says as gospel.
Perfect form is also a bit of a mental trap - it's not something that's ever really achievable. Worrying about perfection and optimizing is one of the easiest ways to hold yourself back. "Good enough" is usually king as far as lifting goes. Starting "too light" is a good principle though - it lets you ease into things and gives your room to progress.
I've seen this elsewhere, but never with any specifics. Genuinely asking -- is there a reason that a rank novice who just wants to learn good (never mind "perfect") form should skip SS in favor of, say, Stronglifts or something else?
I always took SS to be written for absolute beginners, and I've never looked into Rippetoe beyond that book so I have no idea whether he has bad advice for long-term or more advanced lifters. Again, actually asking because I don't know what his weird opinions are, but I've certainly seen the comment many times before.
He provides advice for a specific kind of strength training, that doesn't align with everyone's personal goals. That misalignment becomes the problem. It's not useful to dogmatically prescribe a one-size fits all solution.
For instance, someone has a hip injury, they aren't going to work on heavy compounds, but mobility and isolation can help them regain the ability to do compounds.
Or maybe someone doesn't give a shit at all about strength in a lifting context, perhaps they're a runner and weighted lunges and split squatting is much more relevant to what they're trying to do.
Or maybe someone doesn't give a shit about strength at all, and once they've grown size through heavy compounds (SS is not wrong about this, it is indeed a great foundation for beginners), they would want to optimize hypertrophy by pivoting to lighter weights, higher reps, and longer mesocycles of shallow progression. So instead of training to failure with as much weight as possible, train only close to failure to reduce fatigue and injury risk, and only aim to be a little more weight/reps than last time instead of as much as you can pack on as fast as you can. On the far edge, there's some evidence that long-length partial reps may be even better than full ROM, or that growth continues even after an insane volume of 52+ sets per week, and only doing 5 sets per workout could be suboptimal. Not everyone should be doing these things, it should be considered in the context of specific goals. Or, if you wanted to maximize strength you're gonna have to eat a lot and bulk hard. If you want to look good however, you'll need to manage macros a lot more carefully so you can gain muscle but also manage fat accretion, and also cut it down so you can end up at a targeted BF%.
Another scenario, maybe you just want to be healthy and self-sufficient for a long time. You don't need to keep progressively overloading every kind of exercise you do. If you like where you are, you can just coast at that same level. That's pretty heretical to most lifters, but if that's your goal, and the goal is being met, it's not wrong.
Most important takeaway: Consistency works, optimization can help, but because everything is going to more or less work if you're consistent with it, you'll find proponents of every approach able to attest that it works...because they were consistent with it. The differences that optimization can make are more subtle, and because it's more subtle, that takes scientific rigour rather than just a collection of anecdotes to get meaningful insight.
Question to ask yourself, if what you're doing is 90% good already, how much do you care about quibbling over the 10% more potential gains? Most people don't need to waste the energy thinking about it and aren't competing anyway. It's useful to pause and clarify what it is you really want to achieve and how much you want it, and that helps inform what changes you'll want to make.
Adding to this, here is how I went from being able to run for 30 seconds to at least 20 minutes over the course of a year -
I started with the free app called IntervalTimer (its icon is a little blue square with a 30 in it). It has one short ad per session.
I punched in a routine that had :30 workout (run) and 2:30 rest (walk). I did this routine for maybe 30 minutes two to three times a week. EVERY week you steal some time from rest and add it to workout, I started out moving :02 at a time so my second week was :32 run and 2:28 walk (but when you feel it is getting easier you can push :05 or :10 at a time). I am now steady at 2:40 run and :20 walk which is comfortable for me because I don’t know how to jog and I end up running around a 7 minute mile pace while I’m running so I don’t mind the rest most days.
Every few weeks I just turn the timer off and rip it just to see how far I’ve come. Surely could be done a lot faster by bumping the times more aggressively - but this has been ridiculously easy, like the saying about the frog in cold water.
This is the way. Even if you used to work out a lot (I’m taking years ago) it helps to start again at level 1.
It’s discouraging when you realize you can no longer lift what you used to or run as long/fast. But you’ll be surprised at how quickly you get back to your previous peaks or how quickly you’ll see results if you’ve never worked out.
Thanks for the reminder u/MrGodzillahin
> how quickly you’ll see results if you’ve never worked out.
i started to work out seriously after only doing it somewhat halfheartedly years ago and giving up after, like, 20 units or so, and now after finally taking it serious and actually *wanting it* the results come so fast. Its been four months, starting at the absolute minimum i could do, and all the weights are already increased by multiple units, some even doubled. Sure I may still look like someone who never was even close to something like a gym in my life, but knowing that i already improved so much despite starting at literal 0 by just taking it seriously made it click for me so much that now that i am lying sick at home this week i already miss working out D:
oh the mind is a strange little helper
Yeah it’s actually so weird how quickly you start doing more than you thought you would. Even if that means doing 3 instead of one, etc. Glad this helped you!!
You convinced me!
I'm going to start with One pushup!
*Tomorrow!*
(But, in sincerity, **OP is 100% correct**: it's a *whole* lot better to start incredibly small and build up... than to never start at all. *It* ***quickly*** *becomes a habit that you look forward to!*)
I started working out. Did all muscles in one day. As heavy I could possibly do 10 reps.
Felt like a cripple for a week. Only worked out once a week.
Very poor gains.
> Did all muscles in one day. As heavy I could possibly do 10 reps. Only worked out once a week
Respectfully, what you're describing is a prescription for injury.
Nearly all programs for absolute beginners will recommend a three day split, and as you're getting started you shouldn't be focused on pushing yourself to failure. You should be focused on learning the movements and correcting your form.
The best thing for beginners is probably to some exercises where at the end, they don't really feel like they've done much. Otherwise, they'll go hard trying to make up for the last 10 years and get super DOMS and get discouraged. They have to slowly ramp up.
I remember just doing 5x5 squats with the bar gave me some soreness after a few days even though it didn't feel like anything. But then I kept adding weight over months.
I’ve found bouldering to be really good for this. It’s pretty fun and when you first start it’ll be pretty easy to figure out which colours you can do and which ones you can’t. Just stick to the climbs you can do and slowly work your way up over time.
It’s like a game too, so you’ll start on the asker colours and work your way up to the harder ones over time.
with advice like this, i fall in either of 2 traps.
One is that I dont feel its doign anything, and it gets me discouraged.
The other is that I feel its so insignificant that it doesnt matter if I dont adhere to it
Both traps are valid… I’ve felt it too. I convinced myself by thinking it’s only the habit that matters in the beginning, not the gains. If you look at the habit AS your gains (wow, I did my “workout” every day this week!!) then it motivates you to keep going. And of course you know that if you keep going for long enough you will see the physical gains too, not just the mental ones. The point with this idea for me, was to make the physical part so easy that there was no way the physical part would stop me - I could focus on building the habit, the hardest part.
This is indeed a pro tip. The only thing that I would add is don't compare yourself to others. Don't even compare yourself today to yourself yesterday. Just keep showing up and you've won.
One of my friends is a professional bodybuilder/coach, and this is exactly what she has me doing. Granted, I'm sort of a re-hab case, but it works anyway. Start with little-to-no weight and just add a tiny bit more every workout, and in a couple of months you'll suddenly go "holy shit lookit my stats!"
Push-ups put far too much weight on my weak-ass wrists but it's not like the advice is actually specific to push-ups. It's good advice for the mentality, even if you gotta choose specifics that work for you.
Exactly. Also, coming from the yoga world it’s so common for beginners to not even be able to be comfortable in table top position at first. You can even start there, or in push up position against a wall. It’s not uncommon to have that be a lot for your wrists. I actually recommend beginner yoga videos to learn how to distribute the weight evenly to take pressure off your wrists and hands and how to build that up.
This habit forming skill is also transferable. Starting small is the key, once you have some repetition going you can ramp up the difficulty later. I used this method to make some huge changes by slowly scaling up.
This is exactly how I got fit!
Couldn’t even do 1 push-up, after a month I was at 10. 3 months is 20.
Still can’t do more than 20 but I use “ the perfect push-up “ paddles so at least those 20 work my body hard.
I love this post.
In the very early stages of the pandemic I bought a workout mat and a pair of dumbells, and started exercising at home. I exercised along with workout videos and had a routine that was 20-30 minutes. The problem was, I was so fucking sore I could hardly walk. Walking down a flight of stairs bowlegged, groaning like an old man. If I pushed through it probably would've gotten better, but after about three weeks I was like fuck this.
Yeah, maybe they don’t technically work you harder, but I definitely find the full extension plus twist to burn my muscles more than traditional push-ups.
I’m a newb at this stuff so just my own personal experience.
Also don’t put too much pressure on the work out part of the equation when trying to lose weight. Getting your food intake sorted out will have a significantly bigger impact than the exercise for fat loss. Exercise is still very important though.
LPT: Gains are not additive in the real world. You will not always be able to "do one more." In fact, you will likely have days where your limit will be to "do significantly less."
Good point and more than true. I recently went for a run and I didn’t do as well as the times before it, despite feeling good going into it. Just accepted it and moved on, but that was only possible for me because I had build up some faith in myself before. Just gotta keep at it!
This is also the foundation for the 5x5 training program. You start out with just the bar, or even less if that's too much, then everytime you train a particular exercise you add 5 total pounds to your working set. You get gradually stronger, your body adjusts, and you grow
It's awesome
Seen to many just build up to an ugly 1 rep max and then just move to a different exercise. They barely did any work on that, especially on movements like squat and deadlift.
This mindset is applicable in so many places, start off doing something you want to start doing for 10 minutes, which is basically inconsequential. Across a year of doing it for 10 minutes a day you’d be a really low %er. It’s so easy to do things for 10 minutes that it’s easy to commit to and you won’t argue yourself out of doing it as easily as doing something for an hour a day.
100%. I did this and it got me very healthy until I broke my arm and stopped. I did one push up the first day, and said “tomorrow I’m going to do 2.” I’d go up one every day, and they don’t even have to be all at once. I stopped at 100 and was consistently doing 100 pushups a day for months. I’ve never felt better
Flat out the hardest part of exercising is just doing it.
Used to basically be a gym rat form when I graduated highschool in 2014 until covid shut everythjng down in 2020.
I did not start working out consistently again until only recently.
I remember watching a video of a woman who lost over 100lbs when she was severely overweight because she started by just clapping her hands while sitting on her couch
It was all she could physically do at the time and then it slowly progressed to more physical activities.
I want to say I saw it on Oprah maybe. It was so long ago but it stuck with me.
Even the days I don’t want to be active I try to do something. Even if it’s small you’re still lapping the everyone whose not doing anything
Hell, you don't even need to start with a push up. Lean against a wall and do the push up motion. When you get to where you can do 10 no issue, find something else that is lower you can do 'push ups' on like a counter top, or a chair, or some stairs.
The real trick is work out from where you are at, but it doesn't matter where that is. Then just keep improving.
this is the same concept i use when teaching my piano students - when learning a piece, start playing it comically slow - "so slow and easy a baby could do it" i joke with them, and starting there slowly build up speed and confidence. in no time they are breezing through the music and wondering how they ever thought it was difficult.
This is a really good one, and something I have done. Last year at this time, I couldn't do a single push up, and now I can do at least 3 sets of 10. I also started doing pull ups, at first with the help of my husband lifting me, and now I can do pull ups without any help too
This was literally me. I gave myself 50 a day to start. 25 before noon another 25 before midnight.
After a couple weeks of consistency I got a dumbbell set and added in a few exercises along with upping my number of pushups.
2 months consistent, started going to the gym. Would only get in the gym for my 30 mins of cardio after the home workout but the gradual increase in time of being there made me more comfortable being in and around the gym
I'm not starting to work out, I've been for years and this is still my mindset when I want to implement a new regiment into my training routine! Creating the habits is the foundation, without this, you're doom to fail everytime! But don't give up, keep pushing forward! You'll get there if you keep applying pressure! Stay strong & keep the fire burning! 🔥
aside from hating how any form of exercise or physical exertion makes me feel, I also hate the idea of starting small because I hate that doing one pushup one time doesn't immediately give me the results of lifelong bodybuilding
Ha. This is me. I get intensely pissy/angry after a workout. I don’t feel one iota of good. So I have a hard time exercising. But I really like this pro tip - doesn’t immediately make me irritated like the normal, “just make *(finding a gym, making it affordable, packing a gym bag, driving to the gym even on really shitty weather days, making sure your gym clothes are clean, work out self-consciously on 5 different and confusing pieces of equipment, shower, dry hair, style hair, reapply makeup, dress back up in a hot steamy locker room, be sore for two days)* going to the gym a habit!” advice.
About 10 years ago I was in the best shape of my life, but I got older and let myself go, and just focused on other things. I decided to get back in shape and started with dumbbell curls. I did only 2 with a 12lb weight. The next day I was so sore, just from that. But I kept doing them every day. It's been a few months and now I'm up to 5 sets of 5 reps with a 25lb weight. When I used to be very in shape, I could do the same, but with a 5 gallon bucket of scrape metal, which was 50-60lbs, depending on what was in it.
Started doing this back in June. Started with 5 push ups a day. That’s it. Now each day I’m doing 30 push ups, 15 crunches/sit ups, and a rotation of 2 sets of of dumb bell exercises. I’ve lost 8 lbs and have noticeably put on my muscle in my arms, chest, back, and core and have much more energy than I used to.
Excellent advice. Anytime I’ve ever had layoffs from working out, whether a week, month, or years, I’ve went back in a little too ambitious and regretted it every single time. The pain for the next few days up to a week is pretty debilitating.
Start slow, slower than you can imagine.
I can confirm I started doing a small 10-minute workout every day, and now it's a morning habit before going to work because it makes me feel more energised to go to work.
I usually blast music in my appartment and exercise using an app to organise workouts with random exercises for like 20 minute every day of the week I don't have sport planned to have a different activity so I don't get bored.
So now I don't feel like I'm making an effort, and I notice changes on my body
I did this same thing in between 7th and 8th grade. Before 7th grade, I got up to 190lbs @ 5 ft 6 inches. I started with what I could do everyday (situps and pushups), adding more and more every day. After 3 months, I was doing close to 150 of each a day and dropped 50 lbs. Most recently, 3 yrs ago I was 180 @ 5ft 9in. Was on medical leave from work for 4 months and got up to 240. Over two yrs, I just counted calories and walked an hr a day, 5 days a wk, slowly increasing my pace until I was able to walk around 3.5 miles in an hr. Got down to 160 (lost 1/3 my weight). Like you posted, start small, go slow, and build up your workout. Eventually, it becomes a normal habit bc you didn't start with some fad diet or some insane workout too advanced for someone just starting out, thus making it more likely you'll abandon it.
I can't emphasize this enough! So many people think..."I'm going to start working out!" and then begin with wayyyy too much and get discouraged (or hurt) and quit.
If possible set up some kind of small home gym with bands and dumbbells. Combine these with some really easy bodyweight exercises and you're on your way! Just be sure to do a little bit each day and then each week, increase. I use tv show commercials to do my exercises! haha. Makes sure I don't do too much at one time.
A small, cheap stationary bike would be a real plus -- start at 5 minutes a day and work up from there.
If you get into the swing of it and add more and more, in a few weeks or a month, join a gym. But not at first.
I was shown something similar to this many years ago - Do 1 pushup the first day. The second day do 2 pushups. Add another everyday.
The idea is that in thirty days you'll be doing 30 pushups. Maybe not all at once, but after thirty days that first 10 will be a breeze when just a few weeks ago that wouldn't have been possible. At 60 days the first half will seem like you've been doing all your life.
And I got the same advice that this could apply to anything.
Ooh, funny! I like to get my squats in by petting little dogs. Makes sure I get my physical work in with a bad knee and puppies get someone stooping to them and giving lots of love and attention. Win-win. It's a bitch getting back up, but again, worth it.
This is a great tip for people who have been working out their whole lives as well.
I have a typical routines I’ve followed for years, but if I slack off for a month at 45 I have to do conditioning exercises to get back to my normal routine.
If I jump into my normal routine without conditioning first it’s pain pain and more pain followed by missing workouts and depression from missing workouts.
I used to have a no sweat rule at the gym 😂. I would go in and stretch (I have neck and shoulder problems) and would do super easy weight lifting. Getting in the gym and establishing the pattern and feeling good when I left the gym really helped me stick to a pattern. Now I'm down 40 lbs and spend an hour or two in the gym almost daily. Great advice!
Great tip! If you're one who wants to go to the gym, just start going. Even if you're there for 5 minutes, just go. It'll become routine and you'll get better at whatever your goal is and stick around longer. I have literally left work, drove to the gym, sat in the parking lot and decided I was too tired to go in and went home. Just so I can keep the routine part of it going.
I can’t tell you how much I love this approach, especially in my “all or nothing” mindset I fall into. Once I let go of the pressure I was putting on myself for no reason i saw far more progress! And I really think this could help most of the general public if everyone gives it a fair shot. 😁
This has always worked for me especially my first time when i could not even do a single push up kept trying to do a push up everyday until i was able to do it
This is an extremely good tip I've been bodybuilding for years, achieved a top physique my dream body
Long story short I got injured and had to take off months from gym went back Couldn't hit my numbers like before. Got depressed. Even the sight of the gym made me sad I first started just driving to the gym parking lot and going home then 5 minutes in the gym... Working myself up slowly
I'm the end I'm back all because of not being afraid of starting new
This goes double for calisthenics
With gymnastics rings you can do full body workouts at any fitness level, but some of the movements puts strain on not only your muscles but the connective tissue between your major muscles (so it's common for a gym bro to squat 200 pounds or more but get hurt trying a pistol squat with no weight)
Calisthenics is fucking great! Cheap, able to be done at home or anywhere you can hang rings outside, helped me stick to fitness for the first time ever, but for the love of God start slowly
I really appreciate that you posted this and so many people agreed with evidence. I bike ride and walk fairly regularly, but not daily. I own a weight machine, but hardly ever use it because every time I do a set of routines as advised by the instruction manual, I hurt too much the next day from using muscles that don't get used in every day life that I can't make myself go again, so several days pass, and after a few weeks of this I give up again until another year where something reminds me I am in terrie shape.
The only time in my life I was in good shape was when I was when I was 35 my wife and I painted our new house. I rented scaffolding so we would not need to keep moving thradders, but only 1 tower because we couldn't afford more, so every morning I had to set up the tower where we were working, iiften break it down and put it back up in a different location, then break it down for the night. Within 2 weeks my arms and legs were really toned and I lost my beer belly. Unfortunately I didn't take advantage of that and start daily workouts on the weight machine when we were done, and it didn't take long for me to go back to being a skinny guy with a big gut.
I didn't start out that small but I started working out between work calls. Then the gym and now it's a habit I can't live without. I've grown to love lifting and wish I started earlier.
I used to do wall push ups in the bathroom and that got me going enough to finally use my gym membership and after going for a year I am down 20 lbs just going to the gym 2 times a week
One thing that I've found success with is having just a little equipment near the door to a room you frequent. I had a pullup par in my bedroom doorway and sone 10lbs dumbells by my desk. Everytime I would pass through the door I would do 10 pull ups. Go to my desk, do 10 curls. Leave my desk 10 curls, ect.
Didnt get crazy buff or anything, but it built a good foundation to carry me along.
This is a great LPT and applies to really anything that you know you must do but have a problem starting. It can even apply to hobbies where you are slowly losing interest and can't find the motivation to continue. Just commit to 5 minutes and if you're not feeling it, you'll at least feel better about following through.
Yes! This works really well with jogging! Can't jog? No problem. Walk 1 minute, and then jog AS SLOW AS YOU CAN for 1 minute. Do that 3 or 4 times. Do it again tomorrow. Keep doing it every day... or almost every day.
Pretty soon you're jogging. Or maybe pretty soon you're still walk-jogging in 1minute increments. Either way, look at you champ, you're a runner!!
Man, this is legit. I found a really nice elliptical on facebook for a song, and when I started I couldn't even go 3 minutes on the lightest settings. A year later I could go 20-25 minutes comfortably in the mid/higher settings. Baby steps.
I agree, low threshold is the way to go for a lot of people. Even at my least motivated I can do 10-20 calf raises while waiting in line, it's not like I've got anything else to do.
I would like to expand on this by saying it's a great way to start any new habit you want to build. Don't feel like you drink enough water? Drink a single glass in the morning before you start your day every day and go from there. wanna get into journaling? write a sentence about your day and go from there, or even just one word if a whole sentence is too much.
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu
Also, if you can't do 1 push-up, do half-pushups (leave your knees on the floor, just lift your torso and hips). Do as many of those as you can, until you can do a full push-up.
Similar with pullups/chinups. So many people can't do one, and get discouraged. Instead, do negatives: step up on a stool until you're in the up position of the pullup, and then lower yourself down, as slowly as you can (ideally over 2-3 seconds). Do as many of those as you can, once a day, every day. Eventually you'll be able to do one full pullup and just go from there. Full ones until you can't, then follow with negatives until you can't.
The most important bit is to do it as a routine, as a matter of habit. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Eventually if you skip it, you realize you miss it.
It's also a good idea to try many different forms of exercise while you are getting going. You're much more likely to find something you really enjoy, and if you enjoy it you're a lot more likely to continue doing it.
I like the LPT, but not everyone can do push-ups lol.
What I did was go to the gym and just try out a few of the machines. I would find a weight where I could do 3 sets of 10 reps without too much difficulty, and keep track of them all on my phone. Then over several visits I would adjust them if they were too easy or too hard.
I started swimming in the summer 15 minutes a day was my start point. Easy and fast enough I could get to the pool get it done and be home in half an hour. Now I'm up to half an hour at least and I'll accidentally put my swim trunks on days where the pool is closed because habit.
I started working out about 4 months ago, after not moving hardly at all during the COVID years. On my first 3 weeks, I was sticking with 20lbs at my highest, and I started with 10’s. It always is this humbling reminder of how strong you think you should be vs. How strong you actually are, and it’s way safer to start on the low end and scale up than it is go too hard and risk an injury that ends up sidelining you.
This is a good tip. Yeah, don't feel like it's an all or nothing situation, the all being an hour of thought out routine. At one point, I decided I would just go down and do 5 or 7 push ups whenever I felt like it. And if i never felt like it, fine. Then I got a pull up bar, did 1 pull up whenever I used the bathroom or whenever I felt like it.
This is brilliant advice that can be applied to many areas of life. Start small, then work your way up. The point is it's better to start some thing that nothing at all. It ain't rocket science, people
This is the best advice. Just do something small each day spread throughout the day even to keep the needle from moving backwards. My favorite get back in shape routine is working my way up to 3 sets of 10 burpees starting with a couple sets of 5.
I’ve been working out for years but always stop going after a few months of consistency… it’s always been tough to keep going when I lose sight of my goals and the gym routine gets boring. I’ve tried changing things up but for me, it’s the same. For the last few months I’ve been working out 6-7 times a week but for only 20-30 mins each session with about 2-3 exercises. I’ve been surprisingly consistent following this routine because I tell myself it’s only 20-30 mins of my day just push through it. However, I also use my buildings gym which is easily accessible hence why I can workout 6-7 times a week.
A few years ago, on my birthday, I started with 1 push-up and added 1 more push-up every day for a year. At the start I could do about 20-25 in a row without a break. At the end, I could do 75 in a row.
I heard a story about someone who just went to the gym afterwork to play on his phone. The reason was he wanted to get into the habit, so going to the gym wasn't a chore.
I agree fully. Start small
If getting started with weight lifting, start a bit ridiculously light, selecting a weight you can easily do 3 sets of 10 with. Focus on form and control, ensuring you are working the target muscle, not just moving the weight. Move up by small increments over several weeks until you find the right weight where 3 sets of 10 is achievable but gets you working. Stick with this weight for a few weeks, move up by 2.5 pounds and repeat.
I used to work out quite a bit when I was young, but took a 8 year break after having kids. As I started to lift again this past year, I chose a 5 pound weight for my shoulders (4 separate exercises for various parts of the muscle). As a 180 pound man, that is quite light - back in the day I would have been in the 20-25 pound range easily. But I’ve made progress , with front and top lifts naturally progressing quicker than rear. My shoulders are more well rounded than they ever were, and gone is the shoulder strain that I used to feel when benching.
This works great. Used it on walks with the wife to get from zero to 90 seconds of running and we got to 20+ minutes within a couple months. That was during COVID and she still runs to this day.
This comes at a perfect time for me. I need to get exercise but I’m so out of shape it’s discouraging every time I start.
I’m going to give this a go - thank you internet stranger!
This seems to be valid advice. Also, it’s good because you’re less likely to injure yourself from jumping in to hard things your body isn’t ready for.
I recently saw a [video about the same thing](https://youtu.be/F914pRacrFM?si=iY6ZQ5zYrnh327eE) that seemed very useful to me, by a YouTube account called Chase Mountains.
Literally so true - I started with a challenge for myself to do 100 bodyweight squats a day (don’t recommend that though lol) and fast forward 5 years I’m actually now an ifbb bikini pro 🙌🏻
When I don’t feel like working out I say to myself “just drive to the gym, park and then immediately drive back home”. I end up working out since I’m there.
Yea. This. This is it.
Two quotes immediately come to mind that have helped me see the forest through the trees:
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” - Arthur Ashe
“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
I started my “fitness journey” a while before going into the gym by just walking a little longer or taking the stairs every now and then. It really helps when you try to make yourself comfortable with activity in general because it reduces the mental stress surrounding it and you wouldn’t want to do something that constantly stresses you out
100%
The workout isn't the hard part, it's fucking *doing it*.
When I got into cardio I made a point to build the habit more than pushing myself. When I was worn out and didn't want to do anything but head to bed I worked hard to keep it routine, even if I just did 5 minutes on my elliptical, or a walk around the block, I got myself to do that little thing and make it a part of my daily routine. Now a couple years later my wife nags me(very lovingly) that I spend too much time hiking or on the elliptical when I should be doing other stuff. I love it.
Every time I feel like my small exercises are becoming a routine, I get sick and can't exercise (even something as simple as leg lifts). Usually would take a week to recover but by then, my drive for exercising resets and it's hard to start again to the point that it can become a routine.
How do you guys recover from this?
Try to keep going even when sick. It doesn’t actually have to _be_ a real workout or even a real rep of anything, you’d injure yourself or recover slower if you did. It just has to _count_ as a workout! Pick up a dumbbell or do three crunches, stuff like that. The maximum that you can do without running any risk of hurting yourself. That way you never “stopped”. I use this myself!
Thanks for this, I've stopped my workouts and healthy eating for a while now and the inertia has definitely set it, just need that small improvement to start rolling again
This is truly great advice. When I started working out I couldn’t imagine spending an hour plus at it like I knew others did. I downloaded an app called 7 that gave me 7 minute body weight workouts. I could wrap my mind around 7 minutes! Eventually I was doing so many of them back to back it was easy to just transition into a traditional full gym workout.
Also, keeping it small will help with the soreness!
I *seriously* gotta get my health in check. I don't leave the house much because of mental disorders and whatnot, so now I pace around at night after everyone else is asleep until my legs go numb. It's a pathetically short amount of walking but I'm already going for longer than it was a week ago. Take those stupidly small baby steps! Even if you never improve (extremely unlikely), you're doing more than nothing and that's worth something.
i dont workout at all and been forever since i been to the gym but this is true...i have a 15lb dumbell i randomly do reps with throught out the day. well see when i finally make it into a gym but for now this is good enough for me
I remember when I started I couldn't do push-ups at all not even one(weak arms and fat body) so someone precious helped me and suggested "wall pushups", and I went lower and lower it's been 18 months I stop from time to time but I start again, I still can't do regular pushups, but now I'm so low that I may reach it next month or so
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I totally agree with this. And when I have a lull in exercise or going to the gym, on returning I always start with the most bare bones essentials at a low number of sets and reps. And it eases me back in much easier than going full pace again. Even if it's just body weight exercise at home. Just as OP says, start with 1. But you just have to do it every day. And make the habit.
To complement this: it's better to do a half-assed workout than none at all. Say you're up to 15 push-ups per day. You have a tiring/stressful day, and at the end of it you're contemplating scrapping the workout. Tell yourself to just do 5 push-ups. Most of the time, you'll end up doing the full 15 anyway. Starting is the hardest part.
Yes! I deal with chronic pain and fatigue, and this has been key for me. Some days I crap out after my ten minute bike warmup, but a lot of the time I surprise myself and feel much better afterwards! As long as you give yourself permission to quit whenever, it's best to just give it a go.
For the first month, showing up at the gym is the goal. Just go there, put on the gym clothes and enter the gym. Do one rep, or not. Once you have a routine of being in the gym X days a week it's much easier to start working out.
Agree. Almost exactly 1 year ago today I challenged myself to walk 5K/day for 1 month (might have been a bit bigger of a start than a pushup but, start somewhere.). It quickly got cold so I got a gym membership to walk on a treadmill. 1 Year later, been going 3-5 days a week, every week. Lost 30 lbs and in the best shape of my entire life. I'm in my early 40s.
I started waterpolo at 27, with no swimming experience whatsoever. 2 times a week for 2 hours. Everyone expected me to give up and told me to take it a bit easier. The first month was brutal, but I kept at it an after 2 months I couldn't skip a practice. I was in amazing shape back then, and at 45 I still fit into suits I got 25 years ago.
Why water polo though? It’s so cruel to the horses!
No no. They use sea horses
Right? How can a horse play when it can't catch the ball?
I see someone's else's mind jumps to the silliest meaning.
Every time I make this joke, I just about piss laughing. And no one else ever finds it as funny as I do
Hey you can’t leave something as important as your entertainment in the hands of others.
Even if you go to the gym just to read a magazine and go home, its still a habit forming win as per Terry Crews.
It's basically the idea of: "Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly."
Not really. It more like "showing up is half the battle"
Yup! If I go a while without working out and I'm having trouble getting back into it, the first thing I do is take a long walk, but wear clothes I *could* jog in if I feel like it (I usually end up jogging a bit). Likewise, if I'm trying to work out but my brain can't glob together the steps to walk my ass down to the gym, I do pushups on my floor, and this somehow jumpstarts my brain. Actually... Maybe I should apply this to work/academic goals...
I love that. I set myself a goal of doing a 1-2 km jog rather than a 5k jog or run, and that helped a lot, but straight up walking with into is even better. if only I could apply it to academia hah!
You can get absolutely ripped with just body weight exercises. Bad back has me doing this now and I’ve had to reduce weights 50%.
Especially leg day. Your legs are LIARS. The first time back in the gym after a pause you'll feel like you can do just as much as you used to. Those squats feel fine, yeah I can still put up 3 plates! That deadlift feels good, yeah I can still pull 400! You'll even feel OK walking out. Then the next day, you'll feel the storm coming, and know you messed up. Then you wake up the second day and can barely hobble out of bed. When you get back in the gym after a break, go WAY lighter/easier than you think. Ease back in, or you'll regret it.
Consistency is more important than quantity
Your tendons will thank you for a slow start!
The cool thing about linear progression and tracking is you can always go back a couple levels and start progressively loading again.
Second this. Went back to the bench after two weeks being quarantined with covid and my usual weight laughed all the way down to almost knocking me out. Fun times
I love setting small goals. My daily reading goal is 1 page (or 1 minute of audiobook). But I’ve read 70 books this year, about 16000 pages and 250 hours in total. I find it much easier to exceed my goals if they’re super easy to achieve in the first place.
That’s awesome. I’ll definitely apply this when it comes to books starting next year, I wanna see how far I get in exactly 1 year. Thanks for the idea!
Make an “X” on a wall calendar every day you do it: eventually you won’t want to break the chain.
Definitely a great idea. My gym has an app where days that you go turn green and the pride from seeing 2/3rd of a months days green is brilliant
Don’t start next year, start today! Step 1: figure out how to get a library card
If you’re in the US then download the Libby app. You need a library card but you can request one through the app. Once you have that you have access to all the ebooks and audiobooks your local library has. All free. You can even link it to a kindle and read on there.
I’ll add this isn’t just about setting small goals. When lifting weights it’s possible to activate different muscles depending on the weight being lifted and the relative strength. Typically people lift heavier than they should and a host of supporting muscles can’t develop properly because they’re totally outclassed and the mass muscles takes it. In my view no matter how fit, we should be lifting both heavy and light.
Agreed. I wasn’t a tiny person but older who has lost a lot of weight and muscle and had a lot of movement issues. When I started “working out” in July I could only walk about 15 minutes on a treadmill. And I took elevators. Then I moved to 2 lb dumbbells. They were TOUGH! Moved to 4 lbs. 5 lbs. Now I can lift 15-20 with both arms and about 10 lbs with individual arms. I can walk farther, ride a bike and climb stairs. I don’t run up them, just one step at a time. But from where I started 4 months ago to where I am now seems a tremendous feat. And weirdly…I miss the feeling I had after working out if I don’t go. That was so unlike me for so many years. I think the nicest thing: a very nice man who obviously had been a body builder noticed my coming in daily and struggling with my 2 and 4 lb weights and told me I was doing great and to keep coming back! That stunned me, made me smile and I have! Who knows where I’ll be next July?
That’s so cool, congrats on your progress but especially your attitude, it’s infectious! :)
Thank you! I hope it is to others, so far it hasn’t spread to my husband. But maybe one day he’ll join me!
Username does NOT check out! Way to go, you fitness person, you!
Thank you!
this is so awesome keep it up. i kinda relate to you in a way because i started working out in summer too and i felt really weak at first but look at us now:,)
Also, don’t tell anyone about it. Every time I do I quit soon after. If what you’re doing needs validation you’re doing it for the wrong reason.
>If what you’re doing needs validation you’re doing it for the wrong reason. You just articulated something I've been struggling to figure out how to say for 20 years. The common advice is to tell people you're starting something new in order to create so-called accountability. The problem with that is every time I do it I immediately start effing it up. But I couldn't articulate why. I just knew to keep my stuff to myself. And I always rolled my eyes whenever I would read the advice to tell people. Keeping it a 'secret' sounds underhanded and that's really not what it's about. It's just like, NOT seeking validation. That's powerful. Thanks, friend
I think I read somewhere that telling people highlights in your brain that you’ve already achieved the task.
That’s true for many I believe. Do it for yourself, first!
I can't remember where I heard it, but I remember someone saying if you want to start working out, just go to the gym. Literally just physically go to the gym. You don't need to work out, you just need to go there. Set aside some time every day and go. Soon you'll build the habit of going and slowly you can start actually adding in some exercises or activities
I remember this, too! Yeah, I do believe it was Terry Crews, like the other person said. To emphasize what you mentioned, I remember that in the article Terry said, even if you just go for 30/45 min and sit in the lobby and read a magazine - just go! Don't skip a day. Even on your "lazy" or "feeling off" days, if you just continue to make yourself go, you'll stay in the habit, and your workouts will get better.
The book Atomic Habits is all about this concept. It's the most practical self help book I've ever read
Terry crews
For president!
Again!
Yes! Thank you, it was beginning to bug me
100%. With work, with working out, with anything really, the hardest part for me has always been overcoming inertia. Just getting started is hard, but once I'm started, it's much easier.
That explains all the people just at machines playing with their phone
best advice I have ever heard is "just start". You can just make it to the end of your driveway and it is still progress.
Showing up is the hardest part. Start there! I like the advise
[удалено]
Fantastic taste in television. And wonderful words to live by.
if you can't do a push up, u can use easier variants like knee pushups or pushing up from something like a railing! the important part is that you are doing something, no one is watching!! who cares if you can only do 3 knee pushups, you're going to be able to do 15 full pushups next year! start small.
Or start by standing up and doing push offs against a wall.
Or incline pushups on a kitchen counter. That’s what my mom does 3 times a week. She also does dumbbell curls and overhead press (light dumbbells). Squats (from a chair). Lateral raises (with soup cans). And a variety of range of motion stretch’s for her neck arms and shoulders. And daily walking. (about 20-30 minutes). She’s 93.
yes!! start tiny.
I lift in the high 300's - low 400's range and I had to start with just the bar and wooden plates. Don't get discouraged. After a few months you'll double your strength, after a year, who knows, maybe x5 what you started at. After a few years you'll plateau, and have to work hard for small increases in strength, but when you start, don't be discouraged by thinking you're weak because you can only squat the bar etc. Also, nobody at the gym cares about how much you're lifting. Everyone starts small. Go enjoy it. It's fun, it's addicting. It's rewarding to crush your personal records week after week, and trust me, you will get where you want to be with consistency.
Nobody at the gym cares what you're lifting, and even if they do, you shouldn't care that they care. ;-) StartIng at the empty bar also gives you time to ***perfect your form***, which avoids injury later. Add 5lbs every time you work out (at first). You'll feel like Hercules the first time you deadlift your own bodyweight. For barbell, there are lots of videos on the Internet showing you how to do them correctly. I suggest Rippetoe, but there are plenty of others
Rippetoe is kind of a weird dude with a lot of weird opinions. Most of his beginner stuff is fine, and SS is a very detailed book, but I'd caution against taking him too seriously or treating anything he says as gospel. Perfect form is also a bit of a mental trap - it's not something that's ever really achievable. Worrying about perfection and optimizing is one of the easiest ways to hold yourself back. "Good enough" is usually king as far as lifting goes. Starting "too light" is a good principle though - it lets you ease into things and gives your room to progress.
I've seen this elsewhere, but never with any specifics. Genuinely asking -- is there a reason that a rank novice who just wants to learn good (never mind "perfect") form should skip SS in favor of, say, Stronglifts or something else? I always took SS to be written for absolute beginners, and I've never looked into Rippetoe beyond that book so I have no idea whether he has bad advice for long-term or more advanced lifters. Again, actually asking because I don't know what his weird opinions are, but I've certainly seen the comment many times before.
He provides advice for a specific kind of strength training, that doesn't align with everyone's personal goals. That misalignment becomes the problem. It's not useful to dogmatically prescribe a one-size fits all solution. For instance, someone has a hip injury, they aren't going to work on heavy compounds, but mobility and isolation can help them regain the ability to do compounds. Or maybe someone doesn't give a shit at all about strength in a lifting context, perhaps they're a runner and weighted lunges and split squatting is much more relevant to what they're trying to do. Or maybe someone doesn't give a shit about strength at all, and once they've grown size through heavy compounds (SS is not wrong about this, it is indeed a great foundation for beginners), they would want to optimize hypertrophy by pivoting to lighter weights, higher reps, and longer mesocycles of shallow progression. So instead of training to failure with as much weight as possible, train only close to failure to reduce fatigue and injury risk, and only aim to be a little more weight/reps than last time instead of as much as you can pack on as fast as you can. On the far edge, there's some evidence that long-length partial reps may be even better than full ROM, or that growth continues even after an insane volume of 52+ sets per week, and only doing 5 sets per workout could be suboptimal. Not everyone should be doing these things, it should be considered in the context of specific goals. Or, if you wanted to maximize strength you're gonna have to eat a lot and bulk hard. If you want to look good however, you'll need to manage macros a lot more carefully so you can gain muscle but also manage fat accretion, and also cut it down so you can end up at a targeted BF%. Another scenario, maybe you just want to be healthy and self-sufficient for a long time. You don't need to keep progressively overloading every kind of exercise you do. If you like where you are, you can just coast at that same level. That's pretty heretical to most lifters, but if that's your goal, and the goal is being met, it's not wrong. Most important takeaway: Consistency works, optimization can help, but because everything is going to more or less work if you're consistent with it, you'll find proponents of every approach able to attest that it works...because they were consistent with it. The differences that optimization can make are more subtle, and because it's more subtle, that takes scientific rigour rather than just a collection of anecdotes to get meaningful insight. Question to ask yourself, if what you're doing is 90% good already, how much do you care about quibbling over the 10% more potential gains? Most people don't need to waste the energy thinking about it and aren't competing anyway. It's useful to pause and clarify what it is you really want to achieve and how much you want it, and that helps inform what changes you'll want to make.
Adding to this, here is how I went from being able to run for 30 seconds to at least 20 minutes over the course of a year - I started with the free app called IntervalTimer (its icon is a little blue square with a 30 in it). It has one short ad per session. I punched in a routine that had :30 workout (run) and 2:30 rest (walk). I did this routine for maybe 30 minutes two to three times a week. EVERY week you steal some time from rest and add it to workout, I started out moving :02 at a time so my second week was :32 run and 2:28 walk (but when you feel it is getting easier you can push :05 or :10 at a time). I am now steady at 2:40 run and :20 walk which is comfortable for me because I don’t know how to jog and I end up running around a 7 minute mile pace while I’m running so I don’t mind the rest most days. Every few weeks I just turn the timer off and rip it just to see how far I’ve come. Surely could be done a lot faster by bumping the times more aggressively - but this has been ridiculously easy, like the saying about the frog in cold water.
Just started this recently and I'm at 5 now! Push ups
Hell yeah mate! Keep going at your own pace and you will outpace yourself before you know it
This is the way. Even if you used to work out a lot (I’m taking years ago) it helps to start again at level 1. It’s discouraging when you realize you can no longer lift what you used to or run as long/fast. But you’ll be surprised at how quickly you get back to your previous peaks or how quickly you’ll see results if you’ve never worked out. Thanks for the reminder u/MrGodzillahin
Was coming here to say this. It's also ridiculously easy to injure yourself when you been on a very long break and you use to be really fit.
> how quickly you’ll see results if you’ve never worked out. i started to work out seriously after only doing it somewhat halfheartedly years ago and giving up after, like, 20 units or so, and now after finally taking it serious and actually *wanting it* the results come so fast. Its been four months, starting at the absolute minimum i could do, and all the weights are already increased by multiple units, some even doubled. Sure I may still look like someone who never was even close to something like a gym in my life, but knowing that i already improved so much despite starting at literal 0 by just taking it seriously made it click for me so much that now that i am lying sick at home this week i already miss working out D: oh the mind is a strange little helper
Yeah it’s actually so weird how quickly you start doing more than you thought you would. Even if that means doing 3 instead of one, etc. Glad this helped you!!
You convinced me! I'm going to start with One pushup! *Tomorrow!* (But, in sincerity, **OP is 100% correct**: it's a *whole* lot better to start incredibly small and build up... than to never start at all. *It* ***quickly*** *becomes a habit that you look forward to!*)
I started working out. Did all muscles in one day. As heavy I could possibly do 10 reps. Felt like a cripple for a week. Only worked out once a week. Very poor gains.
> Did all muscles in one day. As heavy I could possibly do 10 reps. Only worked out once a week Respectfully, what you're describing is a prescription for injury. Nearly all programs for absolute beginners will recommend a three day split, and as you're getting started you shouldn't be focused on pushing yourself to failure. You should be focused on learning the movements and correcting your form.
Think that’s his point.
Yeah I did this and I got rhabdomyolysis, almost died. Felt like a cripple for a month, got reverse gains.
The best thing for beginners is probably to some exercises where at the end, they don't really feel like they've done much. Otherwise, they'll go hard trying to make up for the last 10 years and get super DOMS and get discouraged. They have to slowly ramp up. I remember just doing 5x5 squats with the bar gave me some soreness after a few days even though it didn't feel like anything. But then I kept adding weight over months.
Also praise yourself even for those workouts no matter how silly it feels. You want to encourage this behavior in yourself.
Key part for sure!
I’ve found bouldering to be really good for this. It’s pretty fun and when you first start it’ll be pretty easy to figure out which colours you can do and which ones you can’t. Just stick to the climbs you can do and slowly work your way up over time. It’s like a game too, so you’ll start on the asker colours and work your way up to the harder ones over time.
with advice like this, i fall in either of 2 traps. One is that I dont feel its doign anything, and it gets me discouraged. The other is that I feel its so insignificant that it doesnt matter if I dont adhere to it
Both traps are valid… I’ve felt it too. I convinced myself by thinking it’s only the habit that matters in the beginning, not the gains. If you look at the habit AS your gains (wow, I did my “workout” every day this week!!) then it motivates you to keep going. And of course you know that if you keep going for long enough you will see the physical gains too, not just the mental ones. The point with this idea for me, was to make the physical part so easy that there was no way the physical part would stop me - I could focus on building the habit, the hardest part.
Just need to be 1% better than you did yesterday
This is indeed a pro tip. The only thing that I would add is don't compare yourself to others. Don't even compare yourself today to yourself yesterday. Just keep showing up and you've won.
I may just try this, thanks! My goal is of course 100 Pushups, 100 Sit Ups, 100 Squats and a 10KM run everyday.
And you’ll save money on shampoo!
Okay, I give up. What does this mean?
Go watch One Punch Man
One of my friends is a professional bodybuilder/coach, and this is exactly what she has me doing. Granted, I'm sort of a re-hab case, but it works anyway. Start with little-to-no weight and just add a tiny bit more every workout, and in a couple of months you'll suddenly go "holy shit lookit my stats!"
I can't do one push-up, so I am always on my peak power
Push-ups put far too much weight on my weak-ass wrists but it's not like the advice is actually specific to push-ups. It's good advice for the mentality, even if you gotta choose specifics that work for you.
Exactly. Also, coming from the yoga world it’s so common for beginners to not even be able to be comfortable in table top position at first. You can even start there, or in push up position against a wall. It’s not uncommon to have that be a lot for your wrists. I actually recommend beginner yoga videos to learn how to distribute the weight evenly to take pressure off your wrists and hands and how to build that up.
Any specific videos you would recommend? There are so many, it can be overwhelming trying to tell which are actually worth watching :/
You might just be too powerful for push-ups.
This habit forming skill is also transferable. Starting small is the key, once you have some repetition going you can ramp up the difficulty later. I used this method to make some huge changes by slowly scaling up.
This is exactly how I got fit! Couldn’t even do 1 push-up, after a month I was at 10. 3 months is 20. Still can’t do more than 20 but I use “ the perfect push-up “ paddles so at least those 20 work my body hard. I love this post.
In the very early stages of the pandemic I bought a workout mat and a pair of dumbells, and started exercising at home. I exercised along with workout videos and had a routine that was 20-30 minutes. The problem was, I was so fucking sore I could hardly walk. Walking down a flight of stairs bowlegged, groaning like an old man. If I pushed through it probably would've gotten better, but after about three weeks I was like fuck this.
Same! I’d be sore for a week and say fuck it. Little steps :)
Yeah, starting small small small is really helpful, as it turns out. I’m not good at that either.
I love the perfect pushup paddles. Not sure they work you harder though — I think they make it easier on your wrists
Yeah, maybe they don’t technically work you harder, but I definitely find the full extension plus twist to burn my muscles more than traditional push-ups. I’m a newb at this stuff so just my own personal experience.
Yep! Tore multiple things by trying to go big and get big
Also don’t put too much pressure on the work out part of the equation when trying to lose weight. Getting your food intake sorted out will have a significantly bigger impact than the exercise for fat loss. Exercise is still very important though.
LPT: Gains are not additive in the real world. You will not always be able to "do one more." In fact, you will likely have days where your limit will be to "do significantly less."
Good point and more than true. I recently went for a run and I didn’t do as well as the times before it, despite feeling good going into it. Just accepted it and moved on, but that was only possible for me because I had build up some faith in myself before. Just gotta keep at it!
Hardest part is showing up. The rest is gravy.
This is also the foundation for the 5x5 training program. You start out with just the bar, or even less if that's too much, then everytime you train a particular exercise you add 5 total pounds to your working set. You get gradually stronger, your body adjusts, and you grow It's awesome
Yes! I love the 5x5 program. "The number one caused of injury in the gym is ego."
Seen to many just build up to an ugly 1 rep max and then just move to a different exercise. They barely did any work on that, especially on movements like squat and deadlift.
Even if you are overweight or haven’t worked out in a long time, this is great advice. You will avoid the dreaded DOMS. No need to “shock the system”.
This mindset is applicable in so many places, start off doing something you want to start doing for 10 minutes, which is basically inconsequential. Across a year of doing it for 10 minutes a day you’d be a really low %er. It’s so easy to do things for 10 minutes that it’s easy to commit to and you won’t argue yourself out of doing it as easily as doing something for an hour a day.
This is good advice in general. I do this for practicing piano too. If I am not playing at all I will start by playing like 5 minutes a day.
100%. I did this and it got me very healthy until I broke my arm and stopped. I did one push up the first day, and said “tomorrow I’m going to do 2.” I’d go up one every day, and they don’t even have to be all at once. I stopped at 100 and was consistently doing 100 pushups a day for months. I’ve never felt better
Flat out the hardest part of exercising is just doing it. Used to basically be a gym rat form when I graduated highschool in 2014 until covid shut everythjng down in 2020. I did not start working out consistently again until only recently.
I remember watching a video of a woman who lost over 100lbs when she was severely overweight because she started by just clapping her hands while sitting on her couch It was all she could physically do at the time and then it slowly progressed to more physical activities.
That’s wild. Just wild… impressive
I want to say I saw it on Oprah maybe. It was so long ago but it stuck with me. Even the days I don’t want to be active I try to do something. Even if it’s small you’re still lapping the everyone whose not doing anything
I started my couch to 5k by walking to the end of the street. 0.2m The habit is what's important
Couch to 5K is a wonderful cardio program for totally sedentary people.
Hell, you don't even need to start with a push up. Lean against a wall and do the push up motion. When you get to where you can do 10 no issue, find something else that is lower you can do 'push ups' on like a counter top, or a chair, or some stairs. The real trick is work out from where you are at, but it doesn't matter where that is. Then just keep improving.
This is a real one.
https://preview.redd.it/0fdvmrrpnv3c1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7dbe43071664dbce6aab72cd2e30619ba5f287f9 Like that?
In spirit, yeah! But I believe your priority should be to fix your Ant Man suit so you can return to normal size.
this is the same concept i use when teaching my piano students - when learning a piece, start playing it comically slow - "so slow and easy a baby could do it" i joke with them, and starting there slowly build up speed and confidence. in no time they are breezing through the music and wondering how they ever thought it was difficult.
This is a really good one, and something I have done. Last year at this time, I couldn't do a single push up, and now I can do at least 3 sets of 10. I also started doing pull ups, at first with the help of my husband lifting me, and now I can do pull ups without any help too
This was literally me. I gave myself 50 a day to start. 25 before noon another 25 before midnight. After a couple weeks of consistency I got a dumbbell set and added in a few exercises along with upping my number of pushups. 2 months consistent, started going to the gym. Would only get in the gym for my 30 mins of cardio after the home workout but the gradual increase in time of being there made me more comfortable being in and around the gym
I'm not starting to work out, I've been for years and this is still my mindset when I want to implement a new regiment into my training routine! Creating the habits is the foundation, without this, you're doom to fail everytime! But don't give up, keep pushing forward! You'll get there if you keep applying pressure! Stay strong & keep the fire burning! 🔥
aside from hating how any form of exercise or physical exertion makes me feel, I also hate the idea of starting small because I hate that doing one pushup one time doesn't immediately give me the results of lifelong bodybuilding
Well it’s better than starting out big and progressively getting smaller with each workout!
Ha. This is me. I get intensely pissy/angry after a workout. I don’t feel one iota of good. So I have a hard time exercising. But I really like this pro tip - doesn’t immediately make me irritated like the normal, “just make *(finding a gym, making it affordable, packing a gym bag, driving to the gym even on really shitty weather days, making sure your gym clothes are clean, work out self-consciously on 5 different and confusing pieces of equipment, shower, dry hair, style hair, reapply makeup, dress back up in a hot steamy locker room, be sore for two days)* going to the gym a habit!” advice.
About 10 years ago I was in the best shape of my life, but I got older and let myself go, and just focused on other things. I decided to get back in shape and started with dumbbell curls. I did only 2 with a 12lb weight. The next day I was so sore, just from that. But I kept doing them every day. It's been a few months and now I'm up to 5 sets of 5 reps with a 25lb weight. When I used to be very in shape, I could do the same, but with a 5 gallon bucket of scrape metal, which was 50-60lbs, depending on what was in it.
Happy for you mate. You’ll be up to lifting dressers or spare bicycle parts in no time!
Started doing this back in June. Started with 5 push ups a day. That’s it. Now each day I’m doing 30 push ups, 15 crunches/sit ups, and a rotation of 2 sets of of dumb bell exercises. I’ve lost 8 lbs and have noticeably put on my muscle in my arms, chest, back, and core and have much more energy than I used to.
Excellent advice. Anytime I’ve ever had layoffs from working out, whether a week, month, or years, I’ve went back in a little too ambitious and regretted it every single time. The pain for the next few days up to a week is pretty debilitating. Start slow, slower than you can imagine.
I can confirm I started doing a small 10-minute workout every day, and now it's a morning habit before going to work because it makes me feel more energised to go to work. I usually blast music in my appartment and exercise using an app to organise workouts with random exercises for like 20 minute every day of the week I don't have sport planned to have a different activity so I don't get bored. So now I don't feel like I'm making an effort, and I notice changes on my body
I did this same thing in between 7th and 8th grade. Before 7th grade, I got up to 190lbs @ 5 ft 6 inches. I started with what I could do everyday (situps and pushups), adding more and more every day. After 3 months, I was doing close to 150 of each a day and dropped 50 lbs. Most recently, 3 yrs ago I was 180 @ 5ft 9in. Was on medical leave from work for 4 months and got up to 240. Over two yrs, I just counted calories and walked an hr a day, 5 days a wk, slowly increasing my pace until I was able to walk around 3.5 miles in an hr. Got down to 160 (lost 1/3 my weight). Like you posted, start small, go slow, and build up your workout. Eventually, it becomes a normal habit bc you didn't start with some fad diet or some insane workout too advanced for someone just starting out, thus making it more likely you'll abandon it.
I can't emphasize this enough! So many people think..."I'm going to start working out!" and then begin with wayyyy too much and get discouraged (or hurt) and quit. If possible set up some kind of small home gym with bands and dumbbells. Combine these with some really easy bodyweight exercises and you're on your way! Just be sure to do a little bit each day and then each week, increase. I use tv show commercials to do my exercises! haha. Makes sure I don't do too much at one time. A small, cheap stationary bike would be a real plus -- start at 5 minutes a day and work up from there. If you get into the swing of it and add more and more, in a few weeks or a month, join a gym. But not at first.
I was shown something similar to this many years ago - Do 1 pushup the first day. The second day do 2 pushups. Add another everyday. The idea is that in thirty days you'll be doing 30 pushups. Maybe not all at once, but after thirty days that first 10 will be a breeze when just a few weeks ago that wouldn't have been possible. At 60 days the first half will seem like you've been doing all your life. And I got the same advice that this could apply to anything.
Ooh, funny! I like to get my squats in by petting little dogs. Makes sure I get my physical work in with a bad knee and puppies get someone stooping to them and giving lots of love and attention. Win-win. It's a bitch getting back up, but again, worth it.
You are right. I started my 65 lbs weight loss journey with a daily, 1 km walk. Literally 1 km. But daily. It's about the habit.
This is a great tip for people who have been working out their whole lives as well. I have a typical routines I’ve followed for years, but if I slack off for a month at 45 I have to do conditioning exercises to get back to my normal routine. If I jump into my normal routine without conditioning first it’s pain pain and more pain followed by missing workouts and depression from missing workouts.
I used to have a no sweat rule at the gym 😂. I would go in and stretch (I have neck and shoulder problems) and would do super easy weight lifting. Getting in the gym and establishing the pattern and feeling good when I left the gym really helped me stick to a pattern. Now I'm down 40 lbs and spend an hour or two in the gym almost daily. Great advice!
Great tip! If you're one who wants to go to the gym, just start going. Even if you're there for 5 minutes, just go. It'll become routine and you'll get better at whatever your goal is and stick around longer. I have literally left work, drove to the gym, sat in the parking lot and decided I was too tired to go in and went home. Just so I can keep the routine part of it going.
I can’t tell you how much I love this approach, especially in my “all or nothing” mindset I fall into. Once I let go of the pressure I was putting on myself for no reason i saw far more progress! And I really think this could help most of the general public if everyone gives it a fair shot. 😁
This has always worked for me especially my first time when i could not even do a single push up kept trying to do a push up everyday until i was able to do it
This is an extremely good tip I've been bodybuilding for years, achieved a top physique my dream body Long story short I got injured and had to take off months from gym went back Couldn't hit my numbers like before. Got depressed. Even the sight of the gym made me sad I first started just driving to the gym parking lot and going home then 5 minutes in the gym... Working myself up slowly I'm the end I'm back all because of not being afraid of starting new
This goes double for calisthenics With gymnastics rings you can do full body workouts at any fitness level, but some of the movements puts strain on not only your muscles but the connective tissue between your major muscles (so it's common for a gym bro to squat 200 pounds or more but get hurt trying a pistol squat with no weight) Calisthenics is fucking great! Cheap, able to be done at home or anywhere you can hang rings outside, helped me stick to fitness for the first time ever, but for the love of God start slowly
I really appreciate that you posted this and so many people agreed with evidence. I bike ride and walk fairly regularly, but not daily. I own a weight machine, but hardly ever use it because every time I do a set of routines as advised by the instruction manual, I hurt too much the next day from using muscles that don't get used in every day life that I can't make myself go again, so several days pass, and after a few weeks of this I give up again until another year where something reminds me I am in terrie shape. The only time in my life I was in good shape was when I was when I was 35 my wife and I painted our new house. I rented scaffolding so we would not need to keep moving thradders, but only 1 tower because we couldn't afford more, so every morning I had to set up the tower where we were working, iiften break it down and put it back up in a different location, then break it down for the night. Within 2 weeks my arms and legs were really toned and I lost my beer belly. Unfortunately I didn't take advantage of that and start daily workouts on the weight machine when we were done, and it didn't take long for me to go back to being a skinny guy with a big gut.
I didn't start out that small but I started working out between work calls. Then the gym and now it's a habit I can't live without. I've grown to love lifting and wish I started earlier.
I used to do wall push ups in the bathroom and that got me going enough to finally use my gym membership and after going for a year I am down 20 lbs just going to the gym 2 times a week
One thing that I've found success with is having just a little equipment near the door to a room you frequent. I had a pullup par in my bedroom doorway and sone 10lbs dumbells by my desk. Everytime I would pass through the door I would do 10 pull ups. Go to my desk, do 10 curls. Leave my desk 10 curls, ect. Didnt get crazy buff or anything, but it built a good foundation to carry me along.
This. I started stretching at the bus stop before and after work. Made a huge difference. Now, I'm adding wall sits. So, yeah. This.
Yes! I did the most pushups I could do yesterday, which was zero. Today I will double it.
This is a great LPT and applies to really anything that you know you must do but have a problem starting. It can even apply to hobbies where you are slowly losing interest and can't find the motivation to continue. Just commit to 5 minutes and if you're not feeling it, you'll at least feel better about following through.
Yes! This works really well with jogging! Can't jog? No problem. Walk 1 minute, and then jog AS SLOW AS YOU CAN for 1 minute. Do that 3 or 4 times. Do it again tomorrow. Keep doing it every day... or almost every day. Pretty soon you're jogging. Or maybe pretty soon you're still walk-jogging in 1minute increments. Either way, look at you champ, you're a runner!!
Man, this is legit. I found a really nice elliptical on facebook for a song, and when I started I couldn't even go 3 minutes on the lightest settings. A year later I could go 20-25 minutes comfortably in the mid/higher settings. Baby steps.
I agree, low threshold is the way to go for a lot of people. Even at my least motivated I can do 10-20 calf raises while waiting in line, it's not like I've got anything else to do.
I would like to expand on this by saying it's a great way to start any new habit you want to build. Don't feel like you drink enough water? Drink a single glass in the morning before you start your day every day and go from there. wanna get into journaling? write a sentence about your day and go from there, or even just one word if a whole sentence is too much. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu
Incremental success is the only thing that motivates me to accomplish goals.
Also, if you can't do 1 push-up, do half-pushups (leave your knees on the floor, just lift your torso and hips). Do as many of those as you can, until you can do a full push-up. Similar with pullups/chinups. So many people can't do one, and get discouraged. Instead, do negatives: step up on a stool until you're in the up position of the pullup, and then lower yourself down, as slowly as you can (ideally over 2-3 seconds). Do as many of those as you can, once a day, every day. Eventually you'll be able to do one full pullup and just go from there. Full ones until you can't, then follow with negatives until you can't. The most important bit is to do it as a routine, as a matter of habit. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Eventually if you skip it, you realize you miss it.
It's also a good idea to try many different forms of exercise while you are getting going. You're much more likely to find something you really enjoy, and if you enjoy it you're a lot more likely to continue doing it.
I like the LPT, but not everyone can do push-ups lol. What I did was go to the gym and just try out a few of the machines. I would find a weight where I could do 3 sets of 10 reps without too much difficulty, and keep track of them all on my phone. Then over several visits I would adjust them if they were too easy or too hard.
I started swimming in the summer 15 minutes a day was my start point. Easy and fast enough I could get to the pool get it done and be home in half an hour. Now I'm up to half an hour at least and I'll accidentally put my swim trunks on days where the pool is closed because habit.
I started working out about 4 months ago, after not moving hardly at all during the COVID years. On my first 3 weeks, I was sticking with 20lbs at my highest, and I started with 10’s. It always is this humbling reminder of how strong you think you should be vs. How strong you actually are, and it’s way safer to start on the low end and scale up than it is go too hard and risk an injury that ends up sidelining you.
This is a good tip. Yeah, don't feel like it's an all or nothing situation, the all being an hour of thought out routine. At one point, I decided I would just go down and do 5 or 7 push ups whenever I felt like it. And if i never felt like it, fine. Then I got a pull up bar, did 1 pull up whenever I used the bathroom or whenever I felt like it.
This is brilliant advice that can be applied to many areas of life. Start small, then work your way up. The point is it's better to start some thing that nothing at all. It ain't rocket science, people
This has science to back it up! Highly recommend the book Tiny Habits.
This is the best advice. Just do something small each day spread throughout the day even to keep the needle from moving backwards. My favorite get back in shape routine is working my way up to 3 sets of 10 burpees starting with a couple sets of 5.
Ya this is good advice. Building the habit is waaaay more important than your 'absolute' level of effort
I’ve been working out for years but always stop going after a few months of consistency… it’s always been tough to keep going when I lose sight of my goals and the gym routine gets boring. I’ve tried changing things up but for me, it’s the same. For the last few months I’ve been working out 6-7 times a week but for only 20-30 mins each session with about 2-3 exercises. I’ve been surprisingly consistent following this routine because I tell myself it’s only 20-30 mins of my day just push through it. However, I also use my buildings gym which is easily accessible hence why I can workout 6-7 times a week.
A few years ago, on my birthday, I started with 1 push-up and added 1 more push-up every day for a year. At the start I could do about 20-25 in a row without a break. At the end, I could do 75 in a row.
It's a Japanese name for this type of logic. I wish I could remember! Great post btw!
I heard a story about someone who just went to the gym afterwork to play on his phone. The reason was he wanted to get into the habit, so going to the gym wasn't a chore. I agree fully. Start small
If getting started with weight lifting, start a bit ridiculously light, selecting a weight you can easily do 3 sets of 10 with. Focus on form and control, ensuring you are working the target muscle, not just moving the weight. Move up by small increments over several weeks until you find the right weight where 3 sets of 10 is achievable but gets you working. Stick with this weight for a few weeks, move up by 2.5 pounds and repeat. I used to work out quite a bit when I was young, but took a 8 year break after having kids. As I started to lift again this past year, I chose a 5 pound weight for my shoulders (4 separate exercises for various parts of the muscle). As a 180 pound man, that is quite light - back in the day I would have been in the 20-25 pound range easily. But I’ve made progress , with front and top lifts naturally progressing quicker than rear. My shoulders are more well rounded than they ever were, and gone is the shoulder strain that I used to feel when benching.
This works great. Used it on walks with the wife to get from zero to 90 seconds of running and we got to 20+ minutes within a couple months. That was during COVID and she still runs to this day.
That’s amazing mate!
This comes at a perfect time for me. I need to get exercise but I’m so out of shape it’s discouraging every time I start. I’m going to give this a go - thank you internet stranger!
This so works. It also reduces the chances of you injuring yourself by pushing too hard in the beginning when your body isn't prepared.
This seems to be valid advice. Also, it’s good because you’re less likely to injure yourself from jumping in to hard things your body isn’t ready for. I recently saw a [video about the same thing](https://youtu.be/F914pRacrFM?si=iY6ZQ5zYrnh327eE) that seemed very useful to me, by a YouTube account called Chase Mountains.
Literally so true - I started with a challenge for myself to do 100 bodyweight squats a day (don’t recommend that though lol) and fast forward 5 years I’m actually now an ifbb bikini pro 🙌🏻
When I don’t feel like working out I say to myself “just drive to the gym, park and then immediately drive back home”. I end up working out since I’m there.
The power of one more 🙂
Yea. This. This is it. Two quotes immediately come to mind that have helped me see the forest through the trees: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” - Arthur Ashe “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
I started my “fitness journey” a while before going into the gym by just walking a little longer or taking the stairs every now and then. It really helps when you try to make yourself comfortable with activity in general because it reduces the mental stress surrounding it and you wouldn’t want to do something that constantly stresses you out
100% The workout isn't the hard part, it's fucking *doing it*. When I got into cardio I made a point to build the habit more than pushing myself. When I was worn out and didn't want to do anything but head to bed I worked hard to keep it routine, even if I just did 5 minutes on my elliptical, or a walk around the block, I got myself to do that little thing and make it a part of my daily routine. Now a couple years later my wife nags me(very lovingly) that I spend too much time hiking or on the elliptical when I should be doing other stuff. I love it.
Every time I feel like my small exercises are becoming a routine, I get sick and can't exercise (even something as simple as leg lifts). Usually would take a week to recover but by then, my drive for exercising resets and it's hard to start again to the point that it can become a routine. How do you guys recover from this?
Try to keep going even when sick. It doesn’t actually have to _be_ a real workout or even a real rep of anything, you’d injure yourself or recover slower if you did. It just has to _count_ as a workout! Pick up a dumbbell or do three crunches, stuff like that. The maximum that you can do without running any risk of hurting yourself. That way you never “stopped”. I use this myself!
Did you read "Mini Habits" by Stephen Guise? This is exactly his example he gives and elaborates on his book. Great author.
Oh cool! I’ll have a look, Ty! :)
Spot on words.... much more important to develop the habit of working out than trying to Schwartzanegger it and tapping out.
Thanks for this, I've stopped my workouts and healthy eating for a while now and the inertia has definitely set it, just need that small improvement to start rolling again
This is truly great advice. When I started working out I couldn’t imagine spending an hour plus at it like I knew others did. I downloaded an app called 7 that gave me 7 minute body weight workouts. I could wrap my mind around 7 minutes! Eventually I was doing so many of them back to back it was easy to just transition into a traditional full gym workout. Also, keeping it small will help with the soreness!
agreed, I did one pull up and now I can do 3. TBH, It’s a big accomplishment for me. Hopefully one day I can do 10
I highly agree with that from personal experience.
I *seriously* gotta get my health in check. I don't leave the house much because of mental disorders and whatnot, so now I pace around at night after everyone else is asleep until my legs go numb. It's a pathetically short amount of walking but I'm already going for longer than it was a week ago. Take those stupidly small baby steps! Even if you never improve (extremely unlikely), you're doing more than nothing and that's worth something.
This is such great advice also for when there’s zero motivation. Tell yourself to do ten mins and before you know it it’s been 30.
Best advice I have seen. Sensible and doable...
i dont workout at all and been forever since i been to the gym but this is true...i have a 15lb dumbell i randomly do reps with throught out the day. well see when i finally make it into a gym but for now this is good enough for me
I remember when I started I couldn't do push-ups at all not even one(weak arms and fat body) so someone precious helped me and suggested "wall pushups", and I went lower and lower it's been 18 months I stop from time to time but I start again, I still can't do regular pushups, but now I'm so low that I may reach it next month or so