How to get started on a fitness program?
Written By: admin on July 6, 2009
One Comment
I am a 69 year ancient man, about 30 lbs overweight and just not fit! I recently joined a state of the art health club. I’m looking for thoughts on how to start and how to keep motivated. The staff is excellent, but they just go through their standard tour and then turn you loose. Anyone out there in my quandary that has had success?
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Tags: art health club, old man, predicament, state of the art
Ooh, where should I start?!!
I’m nearly 62 and have been going to the gym regularly for nearly 2 years now. I see and traim with other 60-70 year olds daily.
I can really tell you a lot because I’ve learned a lot. First of all, since the trainers are rarely even close to 60 they aren’t very much help for us. You mostly have to try and see what works for you.
You are faced with not just building muscle but also with strengthening your joints, where you can, and attachments, tendons, ligaments, etc. And that takes time, but the excellent news is that they do get stronger. Today, for instance I can do four sets of 8 pullups, couldn’t do three pu’s six months ago.
The most vital thing: KEEP INTERESTED!
Forget "goals", most of us can’t see beyond Tuesday: Instead, learn how to delight in doing each excersize.
For me that ment training arms and shoulders because that’s what kept my interest. Screw the cardio crap: Stairclimbers, treadmills, aerobics classes, they just weren’t the priority for me. I do some of that now but only after having worked up to it. And its more like fun now than the boredom it used to be.
I started out doing full body workouts but that left me feeling nausious and would keep me out for a week. Then I started breaking my workouts down into bodyparts, and that gets me in five times a week, for over a year now.
I started on arms, then added shoulders. Months later, over time, I worked in torso, abs and back, and chest, and back, then started on the three legs areas, as I got stronger, always working around the arthritic areas of my joints and tendonitis.
Basically, there are two kinds of pain: Pain you work around, and pain that you work through. You have to be smart enough to know which is which. Joint pain is terrible, so be careful with your joints. But usually you can find ways to work the muscle by angling the joint a small differently. You have to learn what works for you.
I suggest that maybe you start something similiar, do your shoulders, abs and hammies, biceps, chest and quads, triceps and back, forearms and calves and abs on different days.
Don’t try to do everything in the beginning and realize that your joints will get stronger over time so that in a year you’ll be able to do exercises that you can’t do today.
I do a light weight, high reps set first, these get the synovial fluids, lymph, and blood going in my joints and make the next heavier, lower rep, sets really simpler than the first. So I might start tri pulldowns with 16 moderate weight reps then increase the weight and do 12, then increase for 8…etc. Its that first high rep set that sets the stage for my later, heavier, muscle building sets. You be surprized how heavey you can go when you’ve prepped your joints by the warm up set. I then try to do four or even more sets per exercise, usually upping the weight each set.
Cable machines are simpler on joints than either bars or dumbbells so work as much with cables as possible. Usually you can go heavier with them since you don’t have to get them into the exercise position.
For instance, I do not bench (even though I like bench pressing) because there are other, less destructive, ways of building tris, shoulders, and chest. We’re not 20 anymore so we can’t do a lot of the things we once did.
Define your own routine and stay with it, your own routines will likely be better than what some 30- or 40-something trainer suggests. But most vital, do the things that maintain your interest!
I’ld like to give you my full weeks regime but it would take quite a bit. Go in Day 1 and just work your biceps for a hour, trying different exercises, then on Day 2 just do our tris. Or something like that, pick your favorite part. And question questions and talk to other people.
Just keep at it and remember to do what keeps you interested. My blood pressure is way down and my weight is a small down, and I have the frame of a much younger man today, much younger than I was just two years ago. It’s never too late.