The average person, for whom the gym is an unknown world, often goes there and gets lost, not knowing where to put himself. There is a huge choice of fitness equipment around, so there is a great temptation to climb on any of them and start testing your muscles for strength, guided by the rule “it won’t get any worse”.
The opposite situation is when a person decides to “intelligently” approach to the matter and asks his friends, acquaintances, and sometimes just the people who came to the gym, about how best to start working out, how to eat right and in what time he will look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Such questions very much irritate experienced athletes, and therefore it is unlikely to get clear answers to them.
Basic Errors
In fact, all the questions that interest the beginner are quite simple and the answers are on the surface. In order to get these answers, it is enough just to think logically, but not all people choose this tactic, and, as a result, make common mistakes, of which we will speak below.
Lack of warm-up
Very often you can see people who, as soon as they enter the gym, immediately grab a barbell and begin “to work until they fail, so that the muscles are well hammered”. It’s a pity that in our time there are still those who do not understand the importance of warming up in strength sports. This mistake is quite trivial, but nevertheless, very common.
The warm-up is necessary!
Firstly, it prevents injuries and sprains. If a person hurts a muscle, any kind of gaining weight is out of the question.
Secondly, the warm-up improves blood flow, which means that the muscles get more useful substances and vitamins that are vital during training.
Improper nutrition
Here, most people have a very simple logic: eat more, gain weight faster. On this principle, they begin to consume everything in the fridge, from fried potatoes to glazed donuts. In fact, those who are gaining mass need to watch their diet just as much as those who are trying to lose weight. In both cases, attention should be paid primarily to the quality of foods, rather than the number of calories consumed.
If we are talking about gaining muscle mass, the basis of the diet should include complex carbohydrates and proteins. With proteins everything is clear, this is primarily meat, fish eggs, cottage cheese and other dairy products. The greatest preference should be given to chicken breasts, as they contain maximum protein with a minimum of fat.
Speaking about complex carbohydrates, most often different cereals and grains are meant, such as buckwheat, rice or oatmeal. Not to be confused in any case with simple carbohydrates, such as white bread, sweets and pastries. It is desirable to get rid of these altogether, because such products contribute to the accumulation of fat mass.
It will also be useful to minimize fats in the diet. They are necessary, of course, but the main source of fats should be fish or, as a last resort, olive oil, but not butter and not French fries. All of these things contribute to building up unwanted fat mass and make digestion heavier.
Costs of sports nutrition
Continuing the topic of nutrition, we can’t help but mention such a thing as sports nutritional supplements. The most common ones are proteins and gainers. They differ in the fact that protein is just protein, and a gainer is protein and carbohydrates together. People are often divided into two camps when it comes to sports nutrition. Some think it’s bad for the body, messes up the stomach, affects the hormones and is generally a terrible poison. Others are convinced that they can’t do without sports nutrition, it is necessary to gain weight as quickly as possible. Naturally, neither of them will be right. First of all, sports nutrition does not harm your health in any way if it is of good quality and consumed in moderation. They are just proteins that are produced from milk, not synthesized in test tubes. Secondly, sports nutrition plays no special role in building muscle mass. They are just supplements to basic diet, they only supplement it, but by no means replace complete meals. A beginner athlete can easily do without them, and he would lose absolutely nothing. In the first place should be a competent diet, and then supplements, if there is an opportunity to buy quality. If not, it is better not to spend a lot.
Training individual muscles
One of the main rules of successful muscle building is that the body must be developed in stages. It means that you can’t just come to the gym once a week and pump your biceps in the hope that it will help you build mass. It is necessary to work on each muscle, and for beginners it is better to use basic exercises, they involve several muscles at once. Such exercises include: the bench press, the deadlift and the dumbbell squat. These are the “three whales” on which a beginning athlete should build his training. They will help you to gain mass as quickly and evenly as possible. Various lighter exercises can be added to them, such as biceps bar raises or pull-ups. But you can’t replace them with anything else. This is the basis of the basics. So, these were the most common mistakes of novice athletes. If you avoid them, your training will be many times more successful and productive.
