I’m sure you’ve noticed the surge of ads offering discounts on gym memberships at the beginning of this year. You may have even taken advantage of one.
But on your first day at the gym, have you ever felt…intimidated? I know I have. On my first day at the gym, I walked in feeling like everyone was staring at me. As I did my exercises I often wondered: do I look okay? What if I’m doing this wrong? Will people stare at me and judge me for doing my lunges wrong?
I spoke with Danielle Yang, a registered personal trainer, to demystify the gym experience and hopefully make your next trip to the gym less intimidating.
Do you have any tips for making the gym less intimidating for beginners?
The first time you go to a gym, you could take a tour of the facilities. You could also talk a bit with some of the staff there and see what they recommend.
I also find that it’s really helpful, in the beginning, to be able to joke around with a friend or someone that you know. So, if you have a friend who wants to go with you, you could make going to the gym together a fun activity that you both do.
If you’re quite nervous or don’t really like big crowds, it’ll probably be better to go during off peak hours. The busy times are usually right before work or just after work. So, a quiet time that you could go in could be during the middle of the day or the very early morning.
I would do my research, set goals and see what I can do to work towards those goals. You could maybe book a session with a personal trainer or go to some classes to get some guidance because I think it’s quite important for you to have correct form while you’re doing your exercises and also to make sure that you’re not hurting yourself.
Another thing is don’t be afraid of having a good conversation with a stranger because most people are very friendly. I think the biggest thing is we’re all a bit scared of judgement. You could be thinking that some people are looking at you and thinking “Oh, they don’t know what they’re doing.”. But I’ve found that usually just having small conversations really helps you realize that everyone is focusing on themselves and their own workouts.
Is there anything that people should do before coming to the gym, for example, should they eat a certain amount of time beforehand?
I wouldn’t say there’s something specifically that everyone should do before coming to the gym. It really depends on the person.
A lot of people say you should eat no less than 30 minutes before exercising but it really depends on the person. The above time limit was just because some people might feel sick when they do high intensity exercise on a full stomach due to the time it takes to digest food, and the body’s blood flow prioritization during exercise.
But, listen to your body and do what feels good for you. If you like to have a small snack before exercise, that’s great if you feel like you have more energy! But if you don’t and you feel like you work out better on an empty stomach that’s okay too. I like eating after my exercise.
The only thing that people should be more concerned about is if they have something like a metabolic syndrome, diabetes or something like that. Then you should probably speak to a dietitian.
You should also be concerned if say, you don’t eat and you feel dizzy and a bit low on energy. You should probably eat a snack before exercising then.
However, one thing I would recommend you do is to keep hydrated through out the day.
Why are warmups in a gym routine important?
When you warm up, you’re essentially preparing your body for physical exercise. You don’t want to jump straight into something really heavy like a one rep squat or something like that. This is because your cardiovascular system and your muscles just aren’t ready for that.
What a warm up will do is it’ll help increase your muscle temperature. So, it’ll help your muscles contract more forcefully and relax quickly which can help with your power and efficiency in the gym.
For example, when you warm up by doing a little light cardio, your blood vessels dilate. This helps to improve blood flow to your muscles and increase the amount of oxygen going to your muscles.
Warm ups also help your body recognise the movements you’re doing in your exercises and become more efficient at doing it.
How exactly do you do warmups?
It depends on the type of exercise/workout you’re doing. I would usually recommend different warmups for someone doing endurance training compared to someone doing powerlifting.
But usually, I would recommend a general warm up. So something like a bit of light cardio. You could do 5 minutes of brisk walking or some rowing on the rowing machine. Doing rowing on the rowing machine uses your upper and lower body and it gets your whole body working.
If you’re going to be doing weight training exercises in your main set where you have maybe 5 different lifts like a squat, lat pulldown etc, you would usually do a warm-up set or a lighter set of that exercise before you increase to your working set.
A warm-up set would usually involve having a lighter load. For example, if I’m doing squats as my main set, during my warm-up set, I would just use the bar and do maybe 10 to 20 reps of those. When I go to my main set I would then increase the working weight and then lower the amount of reps I do to whatever I wanted it to be.
Why are cooldowns in a gym routine important and how do you do them?
Cooling down helps to normalise blood pressure and reduce the risk of dizziness or fainting that might happen if you just stopped exercising after doing some really high intensity exercise.
Also, if you maintain a bit of light activity after doing really intense exercise, it can help to clear any metabolic byproducts more efficiently and that can help to reduce any fatigue and soreness afterwards.
So a cooldown could be any activities like walking or some static or dynamic stretches afterwards.
Stretches can also help to reduce any exercise stiffness.
Is there anything important that people should bring to the gym?
A towel is very important, especially if you get quite sweaty. It’s also just polite and bringing it shows that you’re respectful of the place you’re in and you’re not wanting to make stuff dirty.
I would also make sure to bring a water bottle, just to stay hydrated during your workout.
The other thing is, lots of gyms don’t have locks in their lockers, so I would also suggest you bring your own padlock just to keep your stuff safe.
I would also bring comfortable gym clothes and proper footwear, usually comfortable and close toed shoes. I would suggest using any type of shoe that has a flat sole.
In most gyms you can’t train barefoot unless it’s like a specific gym that allows that. So for general population gyms, just keep your shoes on for hygiene.
If you progress into doing a more specific type of exercise, you might want to look into getting sports-specific shoes.
I wouldn’t worry too much if you’re just starting out, you can just wear some closed-toe trainers.
What would be suitable gym etiquette?
I wouldn’t be too loud. I think it’s absolutely fine to chat and laugh with a friend. But essentially, if you’re loud enough to disturb other people, that’s not polite.
I guess, the other thing is just be respectful of other peoples’ spaces. If you’re trying to get around someone I wouldn’t get way too close behind them or squeeze past someone and touch them. I would usually say, “sorry, excuse me, I’m gonna get in the way”.
Another thing is to make sure to re-rack your weights. If you take something, just return it.
Also, don’t hoard weights. I’d normally only use one or two weights at the same time. When I’m done with using those weights, I would then return them. I wouldn’t collect all of the things that I need unless I’m doing a circuit or something like that where I would need to use all of the weights in one go, because someone else might want to use those weights.
Lastly and most importantly, wipe down everything. For example, when you’re doing a bench press, after you’ve finished, wipe down the bench and the bar. They usually have cleaning products all around the gym that you can use.
Going to the gym doesn’t involve following a million rules or being judged by every single movement you do. Ultimately, the ‘rules’ you should remember when going to the gym are to listen to your body and be respectful of the place you’re in.
So the next time you go to the gym, don’t be intimidated. There’s a lot of other people out there who might just be as nervous as you.
So, listen to your body, do what’s best for you and have fun!
