Gym fitness is available to everyone

As long as you don’t have a doctor’s order explicitly prohibiting exercise, everyone can really exercise in the gym. There is no invisible threshold for “you are not qualified to join if you don’t have the foundation” or “you can’t practice if your body shape is not up to standard”.

Last week I met a young man on crutches at the gym. His left leg had been recovering for half a year after a car accident. The doctor specifically asked him to train his upper limbs and core strength to avoid muscle atrophy. He stayed for forty minutes every time he came, doing four sets each of seated shoulder presses and high pull-downs in the fixed equipment area, and then used a yoga mat to do a few sets of abdominal breathing. After practicing for two months, he could walk slowly without crutches last time. The muscle lines on his arms were more obvious than many young people who come to paddle every day.

Many people are afraid to step into the gym. To put it bluntly, they are intimidated by the "everyday fitness bloggers" filled with filters on the Internet: it seems that when entering the gym, you have to wear a full set of professional fitness clothes, you can bench press 100kg as soon as you get up, and you have to take eight pictures and post them on WeChat after the workout to make sure your time is not in vain. It's really not true. When I first started practicing, I was 178 and only 110 pounds. I was as thin as a bamboo pole. When I pushed the empty bar, I was shaking so hard that I almost fell over. The big brother who was practicing deadlift next to me saw that I was shaking so much that he took the initiative to help me hold the lower bar and said, "It's okay. I can't even lift the empty bar at the beginning. Take your time." Don't think everyone is looking at you. People who have been in the gym for a long time have their eyes fixed on their own weight and rest between sets, and they have no time to laugh at novices.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that you can just practice blindly. There are always different opinions in the circle about whether newbies will be easily injured. Conservative coaches will advise novices to find someone to guide them for the first time to avoid hurting their joints if they do the wrong moves. ； Fans of the self-taught school will say that as long as you don't try too hard to push heavy weights and follow reliable introductory videos, you won't have any problems after practicing for half a year or a year. Both of these statements are correct. The key depends on your own needs: if you have old injuries such as lumbar protrusion or knee wear, or if your goal is to bench press 100kg within six months, then finding a reliable personal trainer will indeed save you a lot of detours. ； If you just want to move around to reduce belly fat and improve shoulder and neck pain caused by sitting for a long time, you can explore slowly by yourself. Start with fixed equipment, increase the weight from light to upward, find the right feeling of strength, and then advance. The probability of injury is much lower than if you usually wear high heels and sprain your feet or miss the steps when going downstairs.

Some people also say that "gyms are the domain of young people. If you are older, you will just mess around." I told Aunt Zhang at the gym last time and she was the first to disagree. Aunt Zhang is 62 years old. She was a teacher before retiring. Her knees have been hurting for almost ten years and she has difficulty going downstairs. She fell down while playing Tai Chi in the park before and was even more afraid to move. Later, her daughter took her to apply for a card. Now she comes to practice for 20 minutes every afternoon, doing two sets of seated leg presses and two sets of seated rowing. The rest of the time she spends the rest of the time chatting with some old sisters in the rest area. Most of the fluid in her knees during last year's physical examination has disappeared, and now she can climb the third floor without gasping. How professional would you say she practices? It’s hard to talk about it. I can’t even remember the specific rest time between sets, but it works.

There is no unified standard for fitness. Just like some people like hot pot and others like salad, there is no need for everyone to follow the requirements of bodybuilding competitions. If you want to build muscle, you can gradually build up capacity through differentiated training. If you want to increase strength, do the three major events. If you want to lose weight, add aerobic and light weight strength cycles. Even if you want to find an air-conditioned place to walk in the summer, setting the treadmill to speed 3 and walking on an incline for half an hour is better than sweating outside in the sun. I have also seen programmers practice shoulder external rotation and high pull-downs for 15 minutes every day after get off work, just to improve their rounded shoulders and hunchback. They neither gain muscle nor lose weight. After practicing for three months, they have basically never had any back pain. This is enough.

Don’t think of the gym as an “exclusive space for self-disciplined masters”. To put it bluntly, it is a sports venue that you can use for money. It is essentially the same as the basketball court downstairs in the community or the fitness paths in the park. You spend money and you are the consumer. You can practice however you want. You don't have to compete with others for weight, you don't have to force yourself to practice until you can't walk, and you don't have to wait for an hour before you dare to walk. Even if you are in a bad mood today, just go in and ride the elliptical machine for five minutes and then leave, that is still better than lying at home all day.