bothering you but!! i was wondering if you had any reccs for constructing a basic work-out plan? I want to go to the gym 2-3 days a week, but i just dont know what split to do or in what order to do excercises or how to split reps/sets. Any and all advice is appreciated!!
Also wondering if you have advice for protecting joints during workouts T-T my wrist has been bothering me a bit lately and its really demotivating
Ooooo okay I LOVE THIS!!! You’re not bothering me at all!! Talking about workouts and making workout/training plans is one of my FAVORITE THINGS TO DO!!
Tumblr world doesn’t know I’m a huge gym rat and gym rat world doesn’t know I run a gay-ass linguistics/fandom tumblr - I’m like Batman but gay and autistic.
MD’s non-intimidating gym guide for beginners!!!
Anyways, the first thing you want to do is decide on 1-3 goals:
They could be simply “I want to go 2-3 times a week it doesn’t matter what I do; I want to get better at running; I want to deadlift my bodyweight” - anything you want.
Having a goal of losing or gaining a certain amount of weight isn’t inherently bad (I’m not saying this is your goal I just know it’s a motivator for a lot of people starting at the gym), but you should be realistic and kind to yourself and also have some qualitative and performance based goals.
Qualitative goal: I want to feel more alert through the day
Performance based goal: I want to run a 10k in under an hour
When you start going to the gym, my unpopular opinion is that you don’t need a perfect plan (or any plan at all) for the first few weeks. You can literally just (1) show up, (2) dick around for an hour, (3) leave.
What matters though is that you SHOW UP. Let’s say you wanna go on Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday. You can make that a chest, back, and leg split.
Don’t worry about doing the “optimal” things. Just walk around until you see a machine with a chest drawing on it, go “oh! That’s for my chest!” Sit in the machine, put it on a challenging weight, and just push out some reps until you get tired. Then get up and walk around like an NPC until you find another machine. Repeat.
For someone completely new I wouldn’t recommend jumping right into the free weights because there’s a lot more opportunity to injure yourself and that can be pretty demoralizing. Also it’s where the Huge Guys will congregate and that can be intimidating for some people. Stick to the machines for the first month. They’re pretty idiot-proof.
Pro tip: keep a little notebook where you record your workouts in. Just write: what you did; how much weight; how many reps. This will help you in the next step.
Step three: now that you’ve dicked around for a month and are comfortable in the gym and know what some of the machines are; you can construct your for realzies workout plan.
Look at your notebook of the last moth. Are there machines you enjoyed? Put those in your plan. Do some googling. This is gonna sound silly but there a website called superhero workouts that take popular Marvel, DC, or anime characters and make workouts inspired by them. Scroll through that website and put some workouts in your plan. I’ll include pictures of my current workout plan at the end as a reference but I have some important points to make first.
Important point #1: everybody is a unique individual and no two peoples workout plans are the same. Seriously. Me and my gym bro friends each have vastly different plans that we’ve constructed based on our goals and experiences and what we like to do.
Important point #2: gym influencers can’t even agree on what to do. I don’t know if you follow Sam Sulek, Andrew Huberman, Will Tennyson or any of those guys - you don’t need to it’s not important - but it’s a bunch of jacked dudes criticizing other jacked dudes for getting jacked in the wrong way. You’re gonna see a lot of workout noise on the internet and most of it is people trying to confuse you in order to sell you something or get you to watch more of their videos. Just ignore it and do your own thing.
Important point #3: don’t make any drastic changes to your diet, either trying to “cut” or “bulk” in the first 6 months to a year I’d say. Just maintain regular eating habits and don’t worry about calories or protein or any of that junk. Right now you’re just trying to get your body used to the gym.
Sidenote: I could do a whole other post on bulking/cutting and its place in weightlifting. But the key thing for you right now is don’t think about it don’t worry about it.
[okay I originally had screenshots in here of my workout plan but then tumblr NUKED like half this post when I tried to save it so I’ll just dm it to you. Fuck you tumblr I had like 5 more paragraphs after this that you made me write again.]
The main thing I was trying to say here is that I probably follow my workout plan that I myself wrote like 60% - the rest I just wing it.
Last but not least: joints!
There are two philosophies on this and I follow the latter
The angel on your shoulder:
Stretching stretching stretching!!! Do these stretches every morning or before you workout to avoid injury; arm rotations, wrist rotations, neck rotations, touch your toes, reach for the sky, right over left, tricep stretch. And there are many more you can find online!
The devil on your shoulder:
I’m built like a tank I don’t need to stretch when I hear that “pop” and feel that sharp pain in my shoulder I just take ibuprofen and go on with my day, stretches are a waste of time.
I hope this is helpful!!!
If you have any other questions PLEASE DM ME I love talking about this. I don’t know your gender/height/weight but if you have goals related to those things then you can dm me and I can try to help too.
