How can you speed up your progress in the gym, or just make your workouts feel better? Here are 7 tips to ensure you get the most out of your workouts:
1. GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night, and take steps to ensure your sleep quality is good. Not only can a bad night’s sleep really make you feel sluggish in the gym the next day, but sleep is when your body repairs itself, so without it, you will be looking at very slow progress with your strength, performance, and/or aesthetics. Need some help? Check out this article for some starting tips on how to improve your sleep.
2. NAIL YOUR NUTRITION. Make sure you’re eating enough, first and foremost. Though we all differ slightly, as a rough guide the average adult male should eat around 2500 calories per day, whilst adult women should eat around 2000. Note the word ‘average’ – as an active adult who takes part in regular exercise, you aren’t average! And no matter what you may have heard (*coughMyFitnessPal*), 1200 calories per day is nowhere near sufficient for an adult. In fact, even toddlers should eat more than that. When you eat enough to fuel your active lifestyle, you’ll be rewarded with better health, more energy, and better workouts – and this all adds up to progress.
3. DRINK WATER THROUGHOUT THE DAY. Stay hydrated; your performance will suffer and exercise will feel more difficult if you are dehydrated, especially in the summer. Drink a glass of water first thing in the morning, and keep drinking throughout the day. If you sweat a lot, plain water may not be enough; look into using electrolytes if you think this applies to you.
4. SCHEDULE REST DAYS APPROPRIATELY. Your body repairs and grows through rest, so it’s very difficult to make progress if you are never resting. Take at least one rest day per week. Signs you aren’t getting enough rest include: constant muscle aches/tension; increased appetite; bad mood; fatigue; workouts feeling harder than usual; and getting injured frequently.
5. REDUCE STRESS. Whether it’s an aesthetic, strength, or performance-based goal, stress can be really destructive to our progress! That’s because the stress hormone, cortisol, is catabolic, meaning it breaks things down in the body. To build muscle, we need to be in an anabolic state (the opposite: building things up). In other words, the more chilled out we are, the faster we are likely to progress in the gym! And whilst we can’t always control the external stressors in our lives, there are many things we can control. Click here for some ideas on how to reduce stress in your life.
6. BE PRESENT. We all love a chat during rest periods in the gym, but during your working sets, make sure you are present, and focused. Focus on the muscles you are working, on maintaining excellent technique, and on making every rep look the same. This will help you progress much faster than if you rush through everything and/or are distracted.
7. KEEP MOVEMENT UP BETWEEN SESSIONS. When you look at the bigger picture, your PT/gym session is only one hour of exercise per week. In between, keep your heart healthy with some cardio (eg. a brisk walk, or a group exercise class) and keep your joints happy with some mobility exercises. You are guaranteed to feel and perform better in the gym if you remain active in between.
Those are my 7 tips for you! Start implementing some of these now to get the most out of your training. You don’t have to be perfect (whatever that is) – but every small, positive change helps.
Conni
Conni Arnold Fitness 