How to start working out?

[Matej]

Hello everyone,

Several months ago I decided to go vegetarian because of health benefits. Several months before that I started with meditation for the same reason. Take good care of the mind and body altogether. Now the next reasonable step would be some excersise. I'm kind of skinny but with a belly, which might be because of gluten, as I found. When I tried something we did at school, you lie down with knees bent and pull your chest to the knees. Then more sideways, left shoulder to right knee and vice versa. I believe it works and it hurts. Sure that is part of the deal but my belly hurt for days and I felt weak and exhausted in the area so I couldn't carry on the other day.

The main question is, how to start with excersising?

[Boss]

I started with just walking 30 mins a day then after my body felt like it can handle it I started running. 

[Arman]

In my experience, taking on exercise as regular habits or practice has been a lot more successful when it's been something I genuinely enjoy doing. Walking is a good idea. You can also start out your mornings by putting on some music and alternating between doing jumping jacks, running on the spot and intervals of a few pushups, if you can do them. You don't have to push yourself hard, but if you turn it into a daily habit it will go a long way and eventually you'll be inspired to take on more exercise practices. 

[Matej]

So  building the habit is important part. Doing small steps but doing them every day. The body will get used to it and allow more complex tasks. At the beginning it never felt good. But I've heard people saying it feels amazing. 30 minutes sound good, it won't eat too big chunk of my day.

Thanks for answers

[Boza Maps]

Hi, when I started I was such a physical wreck I couldn't make one push-up. It sounds daft but I have a very sturdy steel and oak coffee table and I made the commitment to making a push-up from the coffe-table every time I got up to leave the room. (A push-up from the table, well easier than floor). 

When I could make five at a time, felt ripped! The results from small amounts, regular and without the feeling of doing a chore were key for me.

Also,you tube have some great ways of creating a gym in your house, apartment using only what you have there already. Check out how inmates get ripped/fit just using what's in their cell space, quite interesting.

[Dangirdas]

You should start with doing mini workouts each time you wake up and before you go to bed.  Some push ups, sit ups, and squats. It won't take more than 5-10 minutes, so you will be able to do them everyday with no problem. As these become easier and you can do more reps, you should just lengthen these workouts, till they simply become to easy, and then you should join the local gym and start out with basics like, squats, bench press, deadlift, overheadpress.

[Youssef]

Greetings, Matej.

I have instantly assumed that you are performing the crunches exercise to burn down your belly fat, I hope that I'm correct in this regard.

If you really desire to burn them down dramatically, then you should not only practice doing crunches, but also attempt to mix them with squats and lunges. Because the change in your belly-fat that you may get to notice after performing the crunches is due to working your belly muscles up which burns calories in return and those calories that are burnt through-out the process are not from your belly region alone, although you are only working up that part of the body. Therefore, the more you use your body muscles, the more you burn fat generally even in rarely used parts of the body. And your thighs resemble the biggest muscle group in your body, which implies that using them would help in burning down your belly fat way quicker than when you just use your belly-muscles. 

In advance, exercising quickly as in the High Intensity Interval Training style enables you to use more muscles than when you exercise slowly in the Cardio way, implying that you shall grow more muscles and burn more calories. It also raises your heart beating rates near the maximum bpm possible which results on accelerating the Human Growth Hormone productivity that brutally burns body-fat and slows down the aging process. 

[Matej]

Wow guys, I'm really grateful how helpful you all are.

Another question that raised my mind is the importance of stretching and warming up before starting. If I'll make something as fast and simple as a push up on few occasions, there is no time to prepare for it. Is it important only when the excersise lasts longer and/or will be more demanding? With the high intensity training without stretching I think I could seriously mess myself up. Considering I didin't excersise for very long time and the body is weak. The only exception is job of a warehouse operator, where I do need some physical strength, but that is going to an end.

My firend at school mentioned that it's better to start with working with the torso, rather than limbs.

Using more muscles at once seems to be more benefitial for fat-burning and strengthening heart etc, while working with narrow selection of specific muscles will make them grow selectively.

The whole anmount of things that is can be done and what should be done is kind of scarry when you have no experiences. All I can use are your suggestions and my logic.

[Youssef]

Warming your body up before beginning to exercise is important only when you have to prepare the muscles that are going to work by allowing your blood to access them in the purpose of avoiding injury. Furthermore - if the exercises do not involve a large muscle group that you rarely use i.e a Push Up then warming up lacks importance, however it's still recommended.

Cooling down through stretching just does the reverse effects of warming up. It restores your blood vessels back to your brain and organs while calming down your heart. For those reasons, I think that it's more important to be done than warming up.

 

[Matej]

2 minutes ago, Youssef said:

Cooling down through stretching just does the reverse effects of warming up. It restores your blood vessels back to your brain and organs while calming down your heart. For those reasons, I think that it's more important to be done than warming up.

 

Never heard of cooling down after excersising. I thought that your heart will just get used to changing the tempo when you excersise every day.

[Boza Maps]

Integrate simple yoga moves into your day to day activities. Mindfulness during exercise and breathing tech more vital than the activities themselves

 

[Matej]

17 minutes ago, Boza Maps said:

Integrate simple yoga moves into your day to day activities. Mindfulness during exercise and breathing tech more vital than the activities themselves

All I know about yoga are guys and girls saying namaste all the time. But it sure might be something worth checking out. I'm trying to be mindful and/or concentrated every time I "wake up" from the parts of the day I run on autopilot. Those parts are getting shorter and shorter, which is great achievement.

[louvar]

If you're working within the warehouse sector, focus on getting your diet and nutrient content stable enough to give you enough energy throughout the working day. Are you a student or  have you considered looking elsewhere for a job as warehouse manual labor can be quite demanding, both physically and mentally.

Edited February 7, 2016 by louvar

[Matej]

2 hours ago, louvar said:

If you're working within the warehouse sector, focus on getting your diet and nutrient content stable enough to give you enough energy throughout the working day. Are you a student or  have you considered looking elsewhere for a job as warehouse manual labor can be quite demanding, both physically and mentally.

You're right, manual labour is demanding in both ways. Now I'm standing in front of another life-change - after two years of living in UK I'm returning to my beloved homeland. So this warehouse job is very temporary. Setting some sort of nutrition program sound very serious thing to do but at the same time it sounds very reasonable. The body needs certain things and I should know what it is and how to provide them. Meat-free is one step, one raw meal daily is another. Now just alter the rest.

[louvar]

You may have many other things you have to prioritize, it doesn't have to be a strict nutrition program right now per say right. I'm currently experimenting with my diet and weekly shopping lists and counting my calorie in take daily and keeping note of my mood, level of concentration and a list of other things every re-feed window as i'm currently trying an intermittent fasting diet. 

For you I'd recommend just keeping it simple for now and have an open mind for the future towards the lifestyle choice. My advice would be to take care of your physical health and safety  to  take care of your body and therefore your mind when working. 

 

Louvar

[nbolt]

I use this as my morning exercise routine: reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine

[ayokolomo]

On youtube search fitnessblender beginner workout.  An easy 20 minute workout with warm up and cardio.

[Therealbigyo]

Start with getting more active. You need to care about it. If you don't care to lose weight or reduce the size of your belly, then no exercise regiment, diet plan, or anything will work for you. You have to start by giving a dam about what not exercising your whole life will do for you down the road. 

With that being said, you need to just start getting more active. Get something regular started and find other people to exercise with. Make friends with self motivated people, so they can motivate you to get up and go walking, jogging, hiking, etc. with them. Try different things like basketball, yoga, Crossfit, running, cycling, waterpolo, dodgeball, softball, martial arts, etc. Figure out what you enjoy, and stick with it. 

I do Crossfit myself. I don't really like the cardio aspect of it so much. It's grueling, but good. I think when my contract is up, I'll go to a power lifting gym. That's what you gotta do! Hope this helps. 

 

Cheers 

[Truth]

Firstly I created a vision for what I wanted, a year goal, and stick to a 4-6 days a week, no matter what, put a challenge on my board for 30 days, during my 30 days I assess what I will do for the next 30 days what I can handle where I want to step something up and so forth. right now I'm on month 3, I've been consistent ever since, ultimately I've decided that I will work out for the rest of my life, so long term planning is necessary, doing research is just the details, and really a part of the joy of it, keeps you motivated and you learn a lot about what makes others motivated.

[JevinR]

Start Stronglifts 5x5 If you are a noob with no gains http://stronglifts.com/5x5/ Work on compound lifts, especially as a noob http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=118920551 Bodybuilding.com is an excellent site, remember that your nutrition is x10 more important than what you are actually doing (exercises). So a simple way to both bulk and cut (bulk = Gain muscle) (Cut= Lose Fat) is to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, also to track all your calories, so you know whats going in and out, which is your macros. Macros is Protein, Fats and Carbs. Protein and Carbs = 4 calories/gram , Fat = 9 calories/gram. Use myfitnesspal.com to track calories, and use http://www.iifym.com/iifym-calculator/ 

 

Thats it, hours upon hours of pointless research composed in one paragraph - DONE

Edited February 9, 2016 by JevinR
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