#also fwiw im unemployed and live w my parents and everything in my life sucks so its a lot easier to go to the gym like daily

[10001gecs]

congrats on arm!!! also no worries if you don't want to talk about your workout routine but do you have any tips for how to get started working out if you're new to it? i want to feel stronger but feel really overwhelmed and unsure where to start!

ok so actually yes as someone who’s tried to like working out for YEARS I have so many thots basically

1. Get a gym membership. I know you CAN work out at home but personally it’s way harder for me bc im like. Ok I COULD be working out rn or I could just stop and go play some video games. If ur at the gym tho it’s like ok im already here so I might as well

2. Spend like, a month literally just hanging out at the gym. Like I went in without a plan and just did random machines for an hour until I got tired. And this was rly important for me bc it turned working out from like, “something I have to do and it hurts and I have to do a prescribed regimen every time” into just a fun thing I do for as long as I wanna. I like to think of it as enrichment in my hamster enclosure. If you get any visible progress here it’s also a slay because that’s encouragement!

3. ONLY WHEN you’ve done these things get an actual workout program. I tbh just stole one from someone I know who’s buff as fuck. Don’t be afraid to modify it, too. My friend is strong and has been going to the gym forever so he does a bunch of barbell stuff… which is scary to me. So instead I just do machines that work basically the same thing (eg bench press -> machine chest press).

4. Form is basically the most important thing, bc otherwise ur working the wrong muscles. And at least personally as a beginner, when I was getting my form wrong, it was usually bc I was trying to lift too much, my muscles couldn’t manage it, so my form slipped so other muscles could take over. Like, after a while of doing bicep curls, your forearms might start to take over the load. If you take ur thumbs from curling around the bar to sitting underneath it, you can stop that. For every new machine I did for a while I’d put the weight at like, 10 pounds, and just focus on getting the form right. This is also fun bc it feels more like enrichment. Wheee im pulling levers and such!

5. Nutrition. Eat a lot of protein. Like the amount u think u should be eating and then double that. Ppl recommend .7-1 g of protein per pound of body weight (im starting from a higher body fat %, so I can eat closer to the .7 range… which is nice bc otherwise ur eating SO MUCH). Like, again, don’t freak out about it, the most important thing is that ur going at all… but once it becomes something u enjoy, you wanna make sure you’re not doing a bunch of work and then not giving ur muscles the nutrition they need

So basically overall my advice is like, make going to the gym easy and fun before you make it useful. Like, you can do the best workouts of your life but if it sucks, you’re not gonna do it consistently. Once u break the habit, you’ll never pick it back up. If you make it fun first, you want to go… and you can always make it more difficult later. If you ever notice it not being fun, give it a break and figure out how to make it fun.

Also basically nobody is looking at you in the gym ever. Also I specifically got a membership to a gym that has really low membership bc I hate fighting for machines and I hate feeling like ppl are looking at you (they’re not, but I hate the feeling). My planet fitness is 24/7, and for a while I went at like, 11pm bc it was empty.