Welcome back to Sticking with Fitness, the article series designed to help you realize your fitness ambitions.

You’ve got your SMART and stretch goals. You’ve got your program. Now, you need somewhere to put them into practice.

Fortunately for you, there are plenty of gyms and fitness centers out there, ready to take your money in exchange for letting you train.

Unfortunately for you, though, not all gyms are created equal. And, choosing the right gym for your needs is crucial to staying the course and achieving your fitness goals.

But how do you know what the right space for you is?

As I see it, there are four main things to consider when it comes to finding a gym. Weigh these up, and you’ll find the right space to put your program into practice.

Facilities

When you’re looking for a place to put your fitness regime into practice, facilities are a huge consideration.

The reasons why should be pretty self-evident.

If you don’t have the equipment that you need to perform the exercises in your program, then you can’t train. An all-in one health-spa/fitness club, for example, might be short on squat racks and free weights, which isn’t ideal if you’re doing a program like Starting Strength. On the flip side, a dedicated strength and conditioning gym isn’t the place to train if you’re an aspiring marathon runner. 

You should never sign up blindly to a gym. Check their website – any serious fitness center should be able to provide a comprehensive list of its equipment. If they don’t, then give them a call. Or, even better yet, go and inspect the facilities in person. See what equipment they have and make sure that it suits your needs.

It’s not just what equipment they have that matters, though. It’s whether or not it works. Pay attention to what sort of condition the equipment is in. If you see a load of broken bars and out-of-order machines strewn about the place, that typically isn’t a good sign. You don’t want to find your program thwarted down the line because the stations you need are always in a state of disrepair.

Convenience

Facilities are important when it comes to finding the right gym. But, there will always be a trade-off with convenience.

Let me give you an example. When I started weightlifting, I initially went to a dedicated strength and conditioning gym. For what I was doing, it was the perfect venue: great facilities and lots of people who understood the culture and etiquette around weightlifting (more on that in a sec).

Unfortunately, the downside to this gym was that it was a long way from my house. Buses were infrequent, and my journey there took almost an hour. On top of that, it only opened at specific times during the morning and the evening, giving me a limited window to train in. I loved the venue, but getting to it was a nightmare, and the travel time really affected my motivation.

Eventually, I ended up moving to a more general commercial gym. It didn’t have the amazing facilities of the strength and conditioning gym, though it still had what I needed to do my program. And, it was a fifteen-minute walk from my house, which majorly cut down on my travel time, as well as being open 24-hours-a-day.

When it comes to sticking to your training, a convenient facility that’s “good enough” will always be better than an amazing gym that’s a nightmare to get to. Travel time is a major de-motivator, so make things as easy as possible in that regard. 

Cost

You might find the best equipped, most conveniently located gym in the world. But, if it’s costing you an arm and a leg to go there every month, that’s going to be a major de-motivator.

When factoring in the cost of a gym, there’s one simple question you’ve got to ask yourself:

“What do I actually need?”

There are plenty of fitness centers out there offering you a “bells-and-whistles” gym experience with personal trainers, state of the art machines and luxurious changing facilities. If you’ve got the cash to burn, and want those extras, that’s all well and good.

But none of those are essential to your training. Depending on the program that you’re following, you probably just need the basics. And, there are numerous cheap and cheerful gyms and fitness centers out there that offer those facilities for a fractional price compared to their luxury counterparts.

Getting fit doesn’t have to break the bank. Pick a gym with a membership that’s well within your budget and you won’t be calling it quits due to financial strain.

Culture

Your gym is conveniently located, affordable, and equipped with everything you need. But what are the people like?

This is a question that doesn’t get asked that often. But the truth is, the culture of a gym makes a huge difference to the training environment.

When you’re looking around a prospective fitness center, ask yourself a few questions:

• Do patrons behave respectfully to each other?
• Do users take appropriate care with the equipment?
• How well maintained are the shower and locker facilities?
• Does the gym try to push a personal trainer onto you?

These are details that matter when it comes to your long-term motivation at the gym.

Just to clarify, I’m not expecting you to find some instant sense of unbreakable camaraderie with the people that you’re training alongside. But, you need to be able to work within the culture that your prospective gym fosters. If there’s anything that sticks out like a sore thumb on your initial viewing, then consider carefully whether it’s the right place for you. 

You’re fired up, ready to go, and have somewhere to train. But, how do you keep that level of enthusiasm when you’re deep into deadlifts, squats and lunges? Fear not! In the next edition of this series, Maintain Your Motivation, we’ll be talking about how to keep up your drive and make the gym a habit.

Welcome back to Sticking with Fitness, the article series designed to help you realize your fitness ambitions.

Assuming you’ve read last week’s edition, you’re armed with your SMART and stretch goals and suitably motivated.

But, how do you turn that motivation into something more tangible?

That’s where finding a program comes in.

Finding the right program is crucial to realizing your goals. With so many programs out there, though, it’s sometimes hard to know where to start.

Fear not! Today, we’re running through three of the most widely practiced beginners’ fitness regimes. We’ll be talking about their advantages and disadvantages so that you can find the best one fort achieving your goals. 

Starting Strength

First released as a book by strength guru Mark Rippetoe, Starting Strength is a staple of beginner’s strength training.

If weightlifting or powerlifting is of interest to you, then this program is a great place to start.

Starting Strength is a very simple program. There are two different workouts done three times a week, that look something like this:

Advantages

One of the most obvious advantages to Starting Strength is its simplicity. You only need to learn five lifts, the progression is straightforward, and three sessions a week is a manageable time commitment.

In Starting Strength, you start light, adding 5kg to the bar per session. Working this way, you won’t be exhausted after your first session, and you’ll see results quickly; both of which are major motivators.

Also, it’s a fairly balanced program in terms of major weightlifting movements. Squats, hinges and pushes and pulls are all accounted for.

Disadvantages

Because of the powerlifting slant, Starting Strength puts a lot of emphasis on lower body. If you’re looking to really build your chest, arms and back, then it has its limits.

It also introduces squats and deadlifts fairly quickly. These lifts, requiring good mobility and balance to achieve, can be difficult for newcomers. And, upping the weight before mastering these movements can limit progress.

Still, there are workarounds. Increasing the weight by 2.5kg, rather than 5kg a session, for example (which is what I did when using Starting Strength) gives you a bit of breathing room for mastering the lifts.

Ice Cream Fitness

Jason Blaha’s Ice Cream Fitness (ICF) 5X5 program feels, in many respects, like a response to Starting Strength. Where Rippetoe’s powerlifting program put an emphasis on the lower body, Ice Cream Fitness is designed to increase muscle gains in the upper body.

Like with Starting Strength, there are two workouts, three times a week.

Advantages

If Starting Strength was too light on upper body for you, then Ice Cream Fitness is very much the antidote. You won’t be short on chest, back and arm gains with this one. All the major movement categories are included, along with the focus on major compound lifts and linear progression. But, you also get plenty of supplementary exercises for your upper body.

Disadvantages

Ice Cream Fitness isn’t exactly a simple program, especially when compared to the straightforward Starting Strength.

Your workouts are going to take a lot longer. It’s 5×5, not 3×5 for a start. You’ve also got more exercises per session and a lot of new lifts to learn.

The complexity of the program and the time commitment required can put off some absolute beginners. And, if you’re serious about this one, recovery time is key. You’ll be eating and sleeping a lot to make it work.

 You’ve also got the same squats and deadlifts issue from Starting Strength, though, as with that program, increasing your weights by 2.5kg, rather than 5kg is an effective workaround until you’re confident with the lifts.

Nerd Fitness Bodyweight Circuit

Nerd Fitness has exploded in popularity in recent years. The website, which aims to “help nerds, misfits, and mutants lose weight, get strong and get healthy permanently” has attracted a huge following amongst many who wouldn’t normally consider a fitness regime.

Unlike the other regimes on this list, the Nerdfitness Beginner Bodyweight Circuit is designed to be performed outside of the gym. In fact, the only thing you’ll need is a kettle bell, though even this can be substituted for a gallon milk jug. The circuit looks something like this:

Advantages

The very obvious advantage to this one is its accessibility.

It’s short and incredibly simple; you can complete it in under 20 minutes. It doesn’t require any specialist equipment, you can do it pretty much anywhere and it costs you absolutely nothing to do.

As a result, it’s incredibly easy to stick to the Nerd Fitness Beginner Bodyweight Circuit, and it can be a hugely motivating place to start your exercise journey.

Disadvantages

Unfortunately, the simplicity that makes the Nerd Fitness Beginner Bodyweight Circuit so accessible is also its biggest downfall. On this program, you’re going to plateau very quickly. You can add more circuits, sure, but you’ll quickly stop seeing the benefits.

It’s perhaps unfair to be too hard on Nerd Fitness for this, though. The whole point of this program is that it’s an introduction to personal fitness, and a means of making fitness a habit. On those terms, it’s a success. 

You have your goals. You have your program. Now you need somewhere to train! In next week’s edition, we’ll take you through the process of finding the best gym to put your program into practice, and the pros and cons you’ll need to weigh up.

You’ve made a new year’s resolution to start a fitness regime. Congratulations! That’s an amazing first step.

Unfortunately, I’ve got some bad news for you.

You’re probably not going to keep this up.

“Well that’s negative! What kind of a ‘new year, new you’ article is this,” I hear you ask?

Sorry friend, but it’s the truth.

Statistically, 90% of people quit the gym within three months of joining. Those numbers don’t lie, and if I was a betting man, I’m afraid to say I’d be betting against you.

But why is that? Why don’t the many people keep up a fitness regime? And what is the 10% that stays the course doing differently?

That’s what I’m going to try and answer over this series. In these eight editions, I’ll be offering up a comprehensive guide, not just for starting, but also for sticking to a fitness regime in 2019. We’ll talk about the things that you need to get right, as well as the common pitfalls that you need to avoid in order to go the distance.

In today’s edition, we’re getting to grips with what I call the big question:

What Do You Want?

As far as I’m concerned, this question is big hurdle number one. Because, while “what do you want?” seems like a fairly straightforward thing to ask, answering it honestly requires a degree of soul searching that not everybody is comfortable with.

On the Importance of Goals

I’ve met plenty of people who start their fitness regime with – on the surface at least – a pretty laissez-faire attitude to the whole thing. Chances are, you’ve probably heard any one of the following from a prospective gym goer at one time or another:

“Oh, y’know, there’s nothing wrong with staying fit.”

“I figured I could maybe lose a couple of pounds.”

“I just wanted to feel, sort of, healthier, I guess.”

The instant you hear somebody giving you one of those lines, you know they’re in the 90% category straight away.

Why? Because they don’t have any concrete goals. Or, if they do, they’re not confident enough in those goals to articulate them.

As Zig Ziglar once put it, “if you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” And, by not setting yourself clear goals, you’re not really aiming at anything.

The result is that your fitness regime ends up not being a regime at all. Instead, it’s a series of loosely connected, ever changing exercises that may, or may not take you towards your goal. It’s unfocused, intangible, and ultimately unsustainable.

It’s very hard to keep yourself motivated without a goal in mind. A lack of motivation leads to procrastination, and procrastination eventually results in quitting. You get down on exercise for a while, before ultimately repeating the process the same time next year.

So how do you go about setting goals that you’ll actually see to completion? You start by thinking big.

Find Your Stretch Goal

Remember that soul-searching thing I talked about earlier? This is where that comes in. Now’s the time where you need to ask yourself what you really want.

Does it sound ridiculous? Does the very idea of trying to achieve it intimidate you beyond belief? It doesn’t matter. Say it out loud right now, and then write it down. Committing it to paper is a useful mental tool – it makes it seem more concrete somehow.

If you’re struggling to think big, then here are some utterly ridiculous sounding stretch goals to get your imagination going:

“I want to run the TCS New York City Marathon in under three hours”

“I want to stop looking like Peter Griffin and start looking like Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson.”

“I want to be stronger than Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Batman combined.”

What you’ve got now is an aim. More than that, actually, you’ve got a dream. And a dream is much more inspiring than an, “I just wanted to feel, sort of, healthier, I guess.”

So how do you go about turning that dream into a reality?

Turn stretch into SMART

Stretch goals have their limits. They are incredibly motivating, but they’re also kind of nebulous. You can dream about being stronger than Batman all day. But how do you actually go about doing it?

This is where setting SMART goals comes in. As LifeHack notes, SMART goals are those that are Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and completed within a specified Timeline:

• Specific – target a specific area for improvement.
• Measurable – quantify, or at least suggest, an indicator of progress.
• Assignable – specify who will do it.
• Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved given available resources.
• Timeline – specify when the result can be achieved.

Let’s say our stretch goal was to “stop looking like Peter Griffin and start looking like Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson.” There are many steps we need to take in order to make that goal attainable. So we need to work out what the first step is.

“Lose weight” is the obvious answer, but losing weight is a pretty vague idea (see the above, “I figured I could maybe lose a couple of pounds.”).

Your first SMART goal, then, might be to go to the gym three times a week and lose 6lbs/3kg in a month. You’ve targeted a specific area for improvement (weight loss), a measurable indicator of progress (going to the gym three times a week), you’ve assigned the goal (to yourself, obviously), stated a realistic aim, rather than a vague target (losing 6lbs/3kg), and you’ve given yourself a reasonable timeframe in which to do it (one month).

Armed with your SMART goal, you’ve got the best chance of achieving your goal. But, one big question remains. Once you get to the gym, what exactly should you be doing there to reach it?

Fear not! That’s where next week’s edition comes in. in “Get With the Program,” we’ll be running through the most popular beginner’s fitness programs out there, what they offer, and which one is right for achieving your SMART and stretch goals.

Having clear goals is vital to making a success out of your fitness regime.