5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Weight Lifting

If you have been thinking about weight lifting, we have some tips that will guide you through on your journey to a healthier and sexier body. 

If you are reading this, you are most probably thinking to yourself that you need to boost your full body strength and live healthier and happier. You are right, weight lifting can do it for you, and welcome you are on the right path. Read on.

Most people come into the world of weight lifting with certain myths and misconceptions that make it hard for them to continue once they realize how unrealistic their expectations once were. So what is your real reason for wanting to lift weights?

Have you tried cardio and other exercises? Are you sure that more weights will give you what you need? These are not questioned to discourage rather encourage you and make sure that you have managed your expectations. If you do not have a personal trainer then perhaps you are just fumbling the dark not knowing where to go. Reading our blog will give you some level of information but that can only be converted to knowledge once you are it to put it down on muscle. 

We thought to give you this article to challenge your thought process in preparation for the transition you are about to undergo. This should help you avoid some common pitfalls beginners fall into.

1. You don’t need to train long hours daily

Most people will start with a very ambitious routine that could end up punishing them too much with little or no notable gains. On the downside, long hours at the gym mean two things; either you are not lifting heavy enough so you keep going or you are punishing yourself too much which is counterproductive, according to https://www.herbalnutritionhealth.com. The takeaway here is that too often too long actually deters muscle strength gains. Longer training is for marathon runners, they require endurance to win long races. If you are trying to be stronger you have to break your personal bests persistently.

2. Being sore has nothing to do with muscle gain

Yes, no pain no gain, but it does not mean physical pain. It means pushing yourself so even you are surprised by your performance. People often make the mistake of interpreting the saying literary to mean that proper training should leave you strained and aching all over. On the contrary, this causes harm to the muscles you are trying to train and does not produce measurable gains in strength.

3. Love compound exercises

Often people look down on compound exercises because they are not as strenuous as training that isolates a group of muscles. This is of course inspired by the consumer demand for certain body types and such. Training only select muscles of the body is not the right way to go about being strong and healthy. Remember this could be harming a different group of muscles and unbalanced growth is unnatural and unsustainable.

4. Recovery is equally important as training

Again when you are overly ambitious, you might tend to forget that even though our bodies are unlimited, they do require time to recover from strenuous activity. The gains are actually made when we rest. You push the body to breaking point and let it reconstruct the same muscle bigger and better to match the new lifting requirement. According to experts at Herbal Nutrition at least 8 hours of sleep should be ample time for your body to regenerate broken tissue. Sounds painful but that’s precisely how it works, so you should really take those rest days

5. Gains are made at the dining table

People often over-complicate their diet to see faster results. Carbs are requirements for workouts but unhealthy overly processed foods have no place in a weight lifter’s diet. Yes, a post-workout snack packed with all the vitamins and minerals your body requires is a good idea but watch it, no more than 200 calories. 

The bottom line is that there is a learning curve to everything and self-care is the answer to a fit body. The magic word here is transitioning. Ask any pro and they will admit to having expected instant results which do not happen. Forget wonder drugs and such paraphernalia, nothing gives you instant strength and muscle. Every gain costs pain not necessarily physical but sometimes that too. It takes hard work and determination to advance beyond week one of a good training schedule. It’s not easy to push your body beyond its comfort zone, but once you do, you will surprise yourself the most.