5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Working Out

Experience takes time.  The beauty of fitness is that there is always something new to learn no matter the amount of experience you have. Those who have years of experience can often look back and wish they could of changed things in their training.

Here are my top five things I wish I knew before I started working out:

1. Tracking my strength progress / Learning Progressive Overload – When I first started, all I did was choose a weight I thought I could do and perform that for whatever amount of reps felt right to me. I didn’t know what training to failure was or rate of exertion was. Main point was I never took note of the weight, reps, or how I felt at the time. Every time I set foot in the gym, I improvised. It is important to track with you do in order to see strength gains and a way to hold yourself accountable. Is it mandatory to build muscle? No. But for experience lifters it would be vital in order to take your body to the next level.
2. Overtraining / Too much volume – One thing I did – and what many of us may of did was overtrain. Being in the gym for hours does not mean you will build more muscle. Also doing anything past 25 working sets per muscle group shows no significant difference in building muscle. Generally we should be aiming for 15-20 working sets a week per muscle group which is enough to see strength/muscle building progression. I, for one, was guilty of being in the gym for 2-3 hours everyday thinking that it would change the way I look.
3.  Train hard / Rest Harder – Training hard is great, but learning to take good rest between training sessions is even better. You do not need to train everyday to build the body or reach the goal you set for yourself. Our bodies grow and recover when we sleep and rest. With me overtraining back then, I was actually regressing rather than progressing. Listen to your body and give it the rest it needs. You won’t regret it.
4. Tracking calories / Protein Intake – Many of us struggle with tracking – including myself at some point. But this will be the determining factor on whether or not you will see progress or not. You can “guestimate”  your calories and eyeball everything but that can only take you so far. At some point, you will need to track calories in order to get to where you want to be. There are many free apps out there to use. This is worth the time and effort. Our body is a temple and we should learn to take care of it.
5. Cheats Meal Are Okay To Have – I used to think I had to eat clean everyday and make sure I’m feeding my body what it needs to grow. Now eating clean is important, but it is okay to have a cheat meal (Not a cheat day!!) once in a while. Even if it is one cheat meal a week, it won’t kill you. As long as you are consistent the other six day of the week with intense training, you won’t see any major setbacks.  I find having a cheat meal once a week or even once a month (depends on the person) is totally fine. Remember, we are looking for consistency, not perfection.