Gym fitness tips

Prioritize compound movements, don’t check your phone during breaks between sets, and don’t need to stick to the 30-minute window to replenish protein after practice. All the remaining details are bonus points based on these three points. Even if you cannot do it temporarily, it will not affect 80% of your training effect.

Last week I met a young man who had just applied for a card. As soon as he entered the equipment area, he held a dumbbell bench and practiced biceps curls. He was sweating after 40 minutes of practice. He said that he needed to strengthen his arms first before doing anything else. I went over and asked. He had been practicing for almost two months, and his weight and circumference had not changed at all. He could only do 10 push-ups.

This is actually a common problem among many novices. They always feel that "whatever is weak should be practiced", and they will fight against isolated movements when they come up. Of course, there are also many bodybuilding coaches who will advise novices to start with isolation movements to find a sense of muscle recruitment and avoid injury through compound movements. This idea is completely fine, provided that your goal is to follow the bodybuilding competition route and you are willing to spend the first half of the year to hone the accuracy of basic movements. But for most ordinary enthusiasts who just want to build some muscle, lose some fat, and look better in clothes, starting directly from compound movements such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, pull-ups, and rowing is at least three times more efficient than just practicing isolation. After all, a standard squat can train the muscles of the legs, core, buttocks and even the lower back. How many isolation movements do you have to do to get this training volume? A student I once led who was doing back-end development used to go to the gym for an hour every day to train his arms. There was no change for two months. He changed it to compound movement training three times a week for 40 minutes each time. He gained 3 kilograms of lean body mass in a month, and his waist circumference was reduced by 2 centimeters. Even the low back pain caused by sitting for a long time was relieved a lot.

When it comes to training efficiency, there is another invisible killer that most people are not aware of, which is checking your cell phone between groups.

I have been through this trap myself before. During the deadlift training, I took a break from the set and read a football highlight. By the time I realized what I was doing, ten minutes had passed. The state I had just been in when I was pulling 140 kilograms was completely gone. When I went up the bar for the second time, I couldn’t hold my core in, and it almost reached my waist. If you think about it, the rest between sets only takes 1-3 minutes. The purpose is to allow the muscles to recover slightly but maintain the state of congestion. As a result, as soon as I took out my mobile phone and viewed two short videos and replied to three work messages, the time disappeared in the blink of an eye. The muscles were completely cold, and the training effect of the next set was directly reduced in half. Of course, if you go to the gym just to sweat through exercise and don't have a clear goal of building muscle or losing fat, then it doesn't matter if you check your phone. When you're tired, you can rest as comfortable as you want. But if you only have one hour of training time after get off work, and you want to get results quickly, it’s better to store your phone in the cabinet. If you really need to keep time, wear a sports watch, which can save a lot of useless time.

As for whether to take protein powder immediately after training, it is an old topic that has been controversial for almost ten years.

Old-school fitness circles have always said that there is a "30-minute golden window period after training." After this time, protein supplements will be in vain, which makes many people rush to grab powder buckets after training without even breathing. But now the latest sports nutrition research has overturned this conclusion: as long as your total protein intake for the day is enough (for ordinary muscle-building people, 1.6-2.2g per kilogram of body weight is enough), whether you eat it immediately after training or eat it after eating two or three hours later, the difference in muscle-building effect is negligible. Of course, there are exceptions. If you have to train twice a day, or you are an athlete preparing for a competition, supplementing fast carbohydrates and protein immediately after training can indeed help you recover faster. But for ordinary people who only practice once a day, there is really no need to waste time drinking powder. After practice, they can go have a bowl of beef noodles with an omelette, and the effect will not be much different. I have a friend who used to be very stubborn. No matter how late he practiced, he would drink powder before eating. Last year, he became too lazy to bother with it, so he made sure to eat four eggs, two pounds of milk, and a piece of chicken breast every day. After half a year, his muscle building speed has not slowed down at all, and he has saved a lot of trouble in rushing.

By the way, there are a few small details that I have tripped up on. By the way, don’t imitate those flowery movements that Internet celebrities shoot for videos. Many movements are designed to look good on camera. Ordinary people are particularly prone to injury without a coach to watch them. For example, if you do shoulder presses at the back of the neck, if your shoulder mobility is not enough, it will easily wear out your shoulder peaks if you do it hard. If you really want to practice shoulder presses, just do the ones in front of the neck.

You don’t have to run on the treadmill for half an hour to warm up. What else can you do if you don’t have enough energy to run? The warm-up only takes 5-10 minutes to allow the body to warm up slightly, and then do two sets of activation exercises for the target muscle groups. For example, before doing leg exercises, do two sets of freehand squats and hip flexor stretches. This is enough. Also, don't hold on to the handrails on the treadmill. If you hold on to the treadmill, you will burn at least one-third less calories, and it will also make your back hunched over. If you really can't run anymore, just slow down the speed. It's better than anything else.

In fact, there are not so many mysterious and unique secrets for gym fitness. In many cases, you don’t have to worry about whether to do this movement 12 times or 15 times, or whether to drink whey protein or protein isolate. If you do the core things mentioned above correctly and persist for two months, the effect will be much better than watching dozens of short fitness videos. If you are really not sure whether the movements are correct or not, it is much more cost-effective to spend a few hundred yuan to find a reliable coach to take 3 basic lessons than to go to the hospital after half a year of practicing blindly.