Workout Tips for Beginners

Tip #1: Think of Your Body as a Single, Whole Unit

Many people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the human body works. 

Last week I saw a few of my friends in the gym.  I asked them what kind of routine they were doing, and they told me they had spent an hour doing nothing but sit-ups and cardio.  “Why?” I asked.  “Because we want to make our tummies smaller,” they replied.

“It doesn’t work that way,” I said.  “If you want to reduce the size of your waists, you need to train your whole body.  For starters, this will burn a lot more calories than sit-ups.  It will also increase your muscle mass, which will increase your overall metabolism.  As your muscle mass goes up and your bodyfat level goes down, your waistline will shrink.”

After hearing my explanation, my friends allowed me to put them through a simple routine of basic lifts (squats, dumbbell bench press, etc).   

Let’s imagine another scenario: what if you asked me how to ad size to your arms?  My answer would be something like this:  "Why not focus on getting a bigger body?"  In would encourage you to work on getting stronger in the basic lifts, which will result in an overall increase in mass.  Trust me—if you gain ten pounds of muscle, you’re going to end up with bigger arms.

Do you see where I’m going with this?  We have to think of our body as a single unit, not as individual parts we want to grow (or shrink).  Whether you want to get smaller and leaner or bigger and more muscular, this truth applies.   If you are going to work out, you need to plan to train your whole body. 

I’m not saying you have to train your whole body every workout (though such routines can be effective).  But you do need a training routine (selection of lifts) that targets all major muscle groups over the course of a week.

If you are a new trainee I'd recommend a good program like Muscle Gaining Secrets to get started.