Fitness
4 Weight Training Tips for Beginners
Share
You did it! You made the decision to get fit and take on a new workout challenge—weight training. So where do you start? Success with weights (and in the gym) begins with a plan and evaluating your eating habits to best support your routine.
No matter your exercise experience, here are my four tips for your first time with weights:
Set a goal.
The first step on any fitness journey should be to set a tangible and attainable goal. The best way to track progress is to have something you are working toward and to measure against. The goal can be an ideal weight or the number of days to make it to the gym or class each week. The Mindbody app helps you keep track of the classes (and services) you’ve participated in, which is an excellent way to track against your goal. As you make strides toward your goal, it should be adjustable so you can continue to push forward!
1
Set a goal.
The first step on any fitness journey should be to set a tangible and attainable goal. The best way to track progress is to have something you are working toward and to measure against. The goal can be an ideal weight or the number of days to make it to the gym or class each week. The Mindbody app helps you keep track of the classes (and services) you’ve participated in, which is an excellent way to track against your goal. As you make strides toward your goal, it should be adjustable so you can continue to push forward!
Work out at home, first.
One of my favorite sayings ever is, “Your fitness journey is a marathon, not a sprint.” This really resonates with me now, especially as I look back to six years ago when I decided to dedicate myself to a healthier lifestyle. A gym atmosphere can be very intimidating at the beginning of anyone’s process. I wasn’t comfortable enough yet with my physical progress to set foot in the gym, but I was ready to make a change. The solution for me was to train at home first. For a half-hour each day, five days a week, I would have an intense timed workout at home. For legs, I would do step-ups on a chair or lunges. For abs, I would do sit-ups and mountain climbers. For chest and arms, I would do push-ups.
I set a date as a goal, that I would go to the gym at the end of that summer. In the interim, I developed a solid foundation at home, that helped me feel more comfortable once it was time to go to the gym. This is a helpful tool I recommend for any beginner to bypass “gymtimidation.” Practice goal-setting and develop consistent positive behavior. In terms of which workouts to do at home, that leads us to our next step!
2
Work out at home, first.
One of my favorite sayings ever is, “Your fitness journey is a marathon, not a sprint.” This really resonates with me now, especially as I look back to six years ago when I decided to dedicate myself to a healthier lifestyle. A gym atmosphere can be very intimidating at the beginning of anyone’s process. I wasn’t comfortable enough yet with my physical progress to set foot in the gym, but I was ready to make a change. The solution for me was to train at home first. For a half-hour each day, five days a week, I would have an intense timed workout at home. For legs, I would do step-ups on a chair or lunges. For abs, I would do sit-ups and mountain climbers. For chest and arms, I would do push-ups.
I set a date as a goal, that I would go to the gym at the end of that summer. In the interim, I developed a solid foundation at home, that helped me feel more comfortable once it was time to go to the gym. This is a helpful tool I recommend for any beginner to bypass “gymtimidation.” Practice goal-setting and develop consistent positive behavior. In terms of which workouts to do at home, that leads us to our next step!
Use your resources.
Here on The Ensō, there are tons of helpful articles with tips and tricks. Also, the Mindbody app is an excellent resource to find professional wellness coaches in your area. These coaches can answer questions and provide educated direction based on your fitness goals. Believe it or not, the internet is still an underutilized tool when it comes to using it as a means of education for workout routines, nutrition, and the science behind them. Using reputable resources available to you, such as a professional coach or an instructional video, are excellent ways to ensure you are working out correctly.
3
Use your resources.
Here on The Ensō, there are tons of helpful articles with tips and tricks. Also, the Mindbody app is an excellent resource to find professional wellness coaches in your area. These coaches can answer questions and provide educated direction based on your fitness goals. Believe it or not, the internet is still an underutilized tool when it comes to using it as a means of education for workout routines, nutrition, and the science behind them. Using reputable resources available to you, such as a professional coach or an instructional video, are excellent ways to ensure you are working out correctly.
Go slow.
My last tip is to slow it down. To gain the best results and avoid injury, this is extremely important. At this point, you have a goal, a solid foundation, and have used tools available to you to be prepared. Going slow can be how you attack your goal or just taking your time once you are actively training your muscles. Working at your own pace is largely imperative and, more times than not, going slowing creates more tension in a targeted muscle-building workout. The more time under tension, the higher chance there is for hypertrophy, or muscle growth.
Explore new classes and trainers on your journey with weight training through the Mindbody app or Mindbody.io!
4
Go slow.
My last tip is to slow it down. To gain the best results and avoid injury, this is extremely important. At this point, you have a goal, a solid foundation, and have used tools available to you to be prepared. Going slow can be how you attack your goal or just taking your time once you are actively training your muscles. Working at your own pace is largely imperative and, more times than not, going slowing creates more tension in a targeted muscle-building workout. The more time under tension, the higher chance there is for hypertrophy, or muscle growth.
Explore new classes and trainers on your journey with weight training through the Mindbody app or Mindbody.io!
Wellness
Your Guide to Releasing Stress and Finding Peace
Share
Since 1992, April has been recognized as Stress Awareness Month. It was established to help shed light on the issues behind stress, teach us how to fight it, and create methods to overcome it. While this initiative has existed just shy of three decades, this year it seems particularly important.
With a year under our belts in pandemic mode—a lot of us had to get creative when it came to keeping our cool. On top of that, everyday stresses didn’t just magically disappear during this time either. Just think about it—have you ever been in a situation that was overwhelming? Maybe you’ve had a looming deadline or a to-do list that seems, well...totally un-doable? If you’ve ever felt you were in over your head, please know you’re not alone—you never are. At one time or another, we’ve all been affected by stress—although each person may manifest it differently. Me? I'm definitely a frequent rider on the "hot mess stress express."
There are many ways to help combat stress—some of us seek out support from friends and family, while others find solace in taking up meditation or unwinding with a relaxing yoga class. Whatever helps you find peace, just keep doing you. But also know we have some resources to help you overcome stress whenever the need arises.
Here are some blog posts that are always available to you when you feel a little stressed out:
1. Foundational Steps to Cultivating a Daily Self-love Practice
When in doubt, breathwork expert and sound healer, Shanila Sattar, always has tips to help ground yourself—especially in times of need. In this blog post, she gives you the recipe for incorporating self-love into your daily routine by encouraging us to ask ourselves these questions: How do we treat ourselves? How do we talk to ourselves? What foods are we putting into our bodies? How are we thinking about our overall well-being when practicing self-love? As we all know, self-love defines and redefines itself for everyone over the years, here are a few foundational tips to think about when easing into your self-love journey.
2. I Tried Virtual Meditation...Here’s What I Learned
Yoga Nidra, or “yogic sleep,” is a practice that has been around for thousands of years and it aims to restore the mind, body, and soul through deep, guided meditation. The way it works is like the way a power nap helps one feel refreshed during a particularly exhausting day, except you aren’t technically sleeping. I describe it as a long-form of savasana—anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour. (Real talk: savasana is one of the best parts of practicing yoga, am I right?)
TLDR: I learned that I could conquer stress in a matter of minutes with Yoga Nidra.
3. Accessible Yoga Poses for Emotional Balance and Release
Are we safe in saying this last year brought up a ton of emotions the likes of which we did not plan for? The good, the bad, the “unprecedented”—our hearts and minds have been taken on a wild rollercoaster ride, and for many of us, our mental health is suffering. With our minds running in thousands of directions, it’s hard to notice our own needs. Yes, our attention to the goings-on of last year is vital but caring for ourselves is as important as ever. Here are some tips from our favorite yoga instructor, Dani Schenone.
4. Top Breathing Exercises for Anxiety and Depression and The New Normal
Have you been feeling it? The big emotion floating around the last year is the Big Anxiety. Coupled with the stress of what the COVID-19 pandemic has bought for millions of people, disturbed wellness routines, and worry, we have a recipe to create massive damage to ourselves. Adjusting to the new normal, with social distancing practices in place and adapting to precautions and routines, may be the root of even more anxiousness for many as we’re navigating uncharted territories.
5. The "Staying Grounded" Guide to Stress and Anxiety Pre- and Post-COVID-19
If you've got those familiar feelings of stress and anxiety coursing through your body right now, you're definitely not alone. We get it. Times are uncertain, our mental health is taxed, we're doing what we can to reduce stress and anxiety in general, and relaxation has taken a back seat. It’s no secret that stress is proven to weaken our immunity, so now more than ever, it's important to relax, deal with what's happening, and find the coping mechanisms to help you reclaim your mental health and reduce your involvement in stressed moments. Let's deal with stress and anxiety together and see what we can do to reduce them.
6. How to Meditate: A Beginner's Guide
Meditation will change your life if you let it. The pace of our modern life is at least ten times what it was just 10 years ago. Technology improved our lives but also created a more frenetic and stressful pace. If we decided to stop, breathe, and become more mindful, we would reduce stress and experience much more enjoyment in each moment of our everyday lives.
7. Cultivate Your Calm with These 7 Yoga Poses
There’s always something to worry about. Whether it’s our career, relationships, dating, or trauma, we go through moments that bombard us with negative thoughts that can make us feel anxious and stressed. Our worries may often define our choices, our view of the world, or ourselves. This doesn’t mean they are faults, flaws, or downfalls—we just need to practice managing them in a healthy way, placing deserved value on self-care. Yoga is only one connection. Check out these seven yoga poses that can help your mind and body when you’re experiencing anxiety, depression, or overall stress.
8. Mindfulness Tips to Stay Intentional, Focused, and Aligned in 2021
We’re all guilty of our routines and habits running our lives at one point or another. We’re all guilty of being attached to our schedules and our to-do list. We’re all guilty of running on a loop every now and then. As the energies of 2021 continue to shift, we get to ask ourselves the intentions of why and how we are participating in the places we are participating in, the thoughts we are thinking, the habits we are cultivating, and the communities that we are a part of. This intention and mindfulness process can not only shift our own experiences but of those around us as well.
9. Why It's Time to Try a Healing Virtual Sound Bath
If you have found meditation to be useful in trying times, right now is an incredible time to also try virtual sound baths to receive the deep sound healing benefits. As many of us are processing a variety of emotions as a collective—stress, worry, fear, anxiety, uncertainty—we can start to cause long-term damage to our bodies, especially to our immune and nervous systems. Giving ourselves self-care in a way that is easy, non-intrusive, and simple, can be the perfect way to help your body restore.
These resources aren’t the only thing we have to help you deal with stress—they’re just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, there are tons of classes available to you on the Mindbody app and through Mindbody Flex to help you reignite your calm whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed. And always remember, at the end of the day, your best is always good enough.
