Those of you who follow the righteous path of the Iron God know all too well the horrific spectacle of walking into the gym after the Christmas and New Year holidays, only to find the sacred temple of the Holy Barbell packed with spastic numbnuts, fat chicks in skin-tight Spandex, and – worst of all – the “New Year’s Resolutioneers”:
And that is before you get to the N00BZ and just plain idiots:
That being said – for those of you who are genuinely interested in getting fit, understand that you ARE going to look a right twat for the first few workouts. This is inevitable. You need to get past the initial soreness and pain of a serious workout, and learn how to embrace discipline, good form, and consistency.
Keep showing up regularly, every week, and you will see results build over time. To hell with the New Year’s Resolutions – they do not amount to a hill of beans. If you truly want to learn how to get fit, start with a real lifting program that focuses on the basics.
Such a programme should incorporate the Big Five lifts – Squat, Bench, Deadlift, Overhead Press, and Barbel Row. You can vary this a bit over time – I do chin-ups on bench days, and I do power cleans along with rows, for instance, and I get my cardio kicks in, quite literally, through smashing my feet and fists into a heavy bag once a week. But, for the first few months, stick to the basics.
Growth and strength will come with time. It always does. Such is the great gift of the Iron God.
It is also important to understand that one’s days of lifting heavy are limited. The older I get, the more I find myself wondering how much longer I can continue doing hard leg days once a week. Every year, it gets harder. Every visit to the gym, I find myself one rep closer to that day when I cannot find the strength or the desire to lift any more.
I believe that day is many years away. Powerlifting, when done correctly and safely, is a form of exercise that calms the mind, strengthens the body, and empowers the soul – and you can keep doing it well into your golden years, if you are careful about it.
The iron does not respect ego lifters. It respects only the righteous strength that comes with good form, humility, practice, and patience.
So, this January, do not waste your time with the noisy masses and the temporary high that comes with signing up for a gym membership. Setup a plan. Get to work. And do not look back.
9 Comments
I had been battling a cold and thus hadn’t been to the gym in two weeks. Whenever I miss significant time, I scale back to warmup weights for a couple sessions then get back to it. I came back to find all of my usual equipment taken and I’ve had to adjust a little. No biggie if I’m lifting light, but you don’t want to get in a full workout and squat heavy last.
Thankfully, I’ve noticed that the January rush usually only lasts 3 weeks, so it should end soon. This is actually a good time to rest and take a break if you need it.
A question, what would the ideal program look like for someone wanting to build up to being able to perform unassisted pushups and chinups. I hate to admit it but I can do neither right now, my ultimate aim is to able to transition to a strictly bodyweight exercise regime (ala Charles Atlas).
pushups can be done from the knees instead of the toes. and i suppose if you’re really bad off, you could just bend at the waist.
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to work into a chinup, i would find a kiddie/women’s bar that you can just barely chin while standing and then do leg assisted as needed. try to finish up the leg assists with one long pull without the legs.
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i will say that the fastest i ever lost weight i would walk a 1/4mi and do chinups, then jog a 1/4mi and chinups, repeat until completing a mile. i stripped off 30lbs in two weeks without even trying. i wasn’t even weighing myself until the end of the 2nd week when my pants were falling off.
Like furor said, push-up pivoting at the knees and not the toes. You can also start with an incline (ex. a chair) so you don’t do full-range right away. You will progress fast.
As for chin-ups, if you have access to a gym they have machines that do assisted pull-ups. Or you could use the lat pull-down machine, and build up until you’re close to your body weight. If you can’t do a gym, get one of those weighted elastic straps and mount it above your head, and pull down on it. You will progress fast.
All workout programmes depend on two things – progressive overload, and consistency. The first simply means you start small and work upwards. The second means you show up every damn day and work out.
The key thing to remember is, the body is a chain of muscles and nerves – so your workouts have to build strength across the whole body. Push-ups and chin-ups are compound exercises that use lots of muscle groups. So, you have to strengthen them together.
For push-ups, start by doing push-ups on your knees – 10 at a time, building up to 10 sets of 10. Then work on doing planks for 30 seconds – 10 sets. Work up to a minute for the planks. This will strengthen your arms, core, and back.
For chin-ups, start by doing a hang to build up your grip strength with your feet on the floor. Once you can do a full minute, move to hanging with your feet off the floor completely, for a full minute. Then start using resistance bands to assist you in doing your chin-ups, of steadily diminishing tension. Eventually, start going to one chin-up (or pull-up, they are the same exercise but with different grips). Then work up to 5. Over time, you should be able to do 10 or more in rapid succession.
In my own case, I went from never being able to do a chin-up as a kid, to banging out 20 – all the way up, all the way down – as a finisher at the gym on bench days. And I’ve been able to do that sort of thing for over 15 years. It’s all just about showing up and doing the work – literally nothing more.
10 sets of 10 planks (30 seconds a pop)?
10 planks, 30 seconds each. Not 10 sets of 10.
…insert home gym aristocrat looking down on commercial gym plebes…
Oh yes. That is my aspiration – to get to the point where I have my own simple home gym, and no longer have to pay for a crowded and stupid commercial one…