Braxton Gilbert Fitness

It is important to have a regular workout schedule while working towards your fitness goal. When I say a regular schedule, I don’t mean going to the gym on certain days of the week but more so a strategic routine to better the body. Having a regular workout schedule can benefit the most experienced person to the most inexperienced. In fact, the inexperienced would benefit the most from a regular schedule. Now of course depending on goals, things within the workouts are going to vary, but let’s look at this from a basic overview. 

3 TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Accountability is a big thing here because without that, the whole routine is foiled from the start. Another big point in a regular workout routine is designated days to train certain muscle groups and finding what style of  training works best for you. The last thing is actually tracking the progress you’ve made while on this routine. Let’s take a look at each of these points and see how each one of them can set you up for success!

ACCOUNTABILITY

Keeping yourself accountable is very important when it comes to training. Let’s say you have a very long and eventful day at work and by the time you get off, you’re exhausted and not in the mood to do anything else. Trust me when I say I understand and can relate. This is where you have to push yourself and say, “Hey let’s do this!” Because there are going to be plenty of days you’re not going to want to go to the gym. So moments like these are going to be very critical when it comes to meeting your goals. Accountability has to come with a change in your thought process. It’s hard to do things we don’t want to do sometimes but this is something we will all commonly be faced with in different aspects of our life. What we have to get in the habit of is weighing the benefits and rewards. For example, we all go to work on time everyday not because we want to, unless you are one of those lucky individuals that love their jobs, but because the rewards or paycheck outweigh the wants of not going. So on those days that we don’t feel like hitting the gym, just think of it like you’re putting hours in for a big check!

FIND A ROUTINE

Now since we’re keeping ourselves accountable, the next part of this is to figure out the workout schedule or training routine. We want to figure out what days of the week you’re working, what muscle group, how often, and for how long. Now of course finding time to dedicate to the gym is up to you but you want to make sure you hit each muscle group. 

Muscle groups are basically broken up based upon their function. So push days usually consist of training  the chest and secondary muscles that assist in pushing such as the triceps. Pull days are days that are primarily centered around training the muscles of the back . While leg days, which are also push days, focus on training the muscles of the lower body which mainly include quads, hamstrings, glutes and muscles of the calves. When someone is just getting into working out regularly and training for an hour at least and for three days a week, focusing each of these days on muscles in these groups would benefit them exponentially by building up strength, stability and mobility. As one gets further along in their training, you can then start hitting each muscle group at least two times a week. There are different strategies for getting this done, you just have to find the strategy that works best for you!

TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

Once you find the strategy that works best for you and ties in well with your goals, the final thing would be to track your progress in some shape or form. One should take careful measures to make sure it’s goal oriented. So if you’re looking to improve your run time then you would track your mile time. If you want to track your strength, you would track it by your 1 rep max on lifts. You can keep a mental note of your progress or if you’re a very organized person then keeping a log book would work great. The best thing about tracking progress is that you can see where you’re at in your training exactly and if you need to make any adjustments. One thing that generally happens when training is that we get comfortable doing a certain weight on a lift which can halt your progress.

IN CONCLUSION

With that being said, getting into the habit of working out regularly has so many benefits. Sure, getting into a regular routine with training can be a tedious thing but also can be exciting! Keeping yourself accountable is going to be the most important thing here because without it, the whole plan falls apart. Making sure that you change your mindset and training on your most exhausting days is going to grow you both mental and physically. Make sure you come up with a strategic plan that works with your schedule that trains each muscle group, building up your strength, mobility, and stability. Keeping track of your progress and making sure that we don’t plateau by progressively overloading the body is something to keep track of as well.