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title: Why fitness makes me where I'm right now slug: why-fitness-makes-me-where-im-right-now description: The author shares their experience of working out full-time for two years, starting from being a beginner to training others. They discuss the importance of being consistent and offer tips for motivation. The author recommends sticking to compound movements for beginners and avoiding overload of information, changing gym plans too often, focusing on numbers, and spending money on supplements or gear. The author concludes by discussing how fitness helped them develop good habits and become more productive. tags: - Personal Development - Habit date: 2023-09-09T22:04:01.837+07:00 altthumbnail: Habit featured: false type: Blog thumbnail: /blog-image/Gym-structure-1080x675.png ---j It’s been 2 years since I working out full-time, and it’s I never felt this best before, starting from truly beginner who didn’t know how to do basic movements like bicep curl or bench press to training my friends who try to change his life with doing workout, starting with cheap gym which the plates and bar is rusting who cost only $5 a month to $30 a month.

Actually i already do some lifting since 5 years ago but it was not really full time, and i quit after 3 months because i need to move to other city due to internship and i can’t find any gym here due to very remote area.

Why i started lifting?

Well obviously to get the SIX PACK!!! like everyone else i also have the dream to get six pack, but well yes it’s been 2 years and i still didn’t get it 🥲 i almost get it though but yes it still far away, and my main focus already moved away from six pack to just get good overall body figure that has some muscle.

How to start lifting?

Starting lifting is quite easy but it can be hard at the same time, it’s easy due to usually you can find a lot of material to learn from the internet or just ask other member to give you a brief idea how to use the weight or machine.

The hard part is to be consistent, to resolve this issues the easiest way is to get partner or usually we call it gym bro that can help you keep motivate and maybe he can train you throughout your fitness journey, and maybe later on you can do it yourself after building the habit.

If you don’t have a partner here is few ways to keep you motivate during your gym journey:

1. Force yourself to go to the gym although you don’t want, it’s sounds dumb advise indeed, but i didn’t ask you go to the gym and spend 1 or 2 hours right away, you can just spend 10 or 15 mins go to the gym and even do nothing is fine, the goal is to build the habit and trick your brain that going to the gym is your daily routine, later on you can increase the time 2. Get a coach for maybe 5-10 times so you can have a partner and good trainer that can teach you everything about fitness and curated based on your goal 3. Set a goal, if you obese and want to reduce your weight you can set a rational goals like from 100 kg to maybe 90 kg in span of 2 months and don’t set a big goal because it can be a pressure for yourself and there is a lot of people fail due to this reason

What movement i should learn?

If for beginner i rather stick to the compound movement and treat those movement as my primary session, compound movement is movement that affecting multiple muscle groups in single movement and here is my go to beginner compound movement:

1. Bench Press, and it’s variation like dumbell bench press, smith machine bench press ,etc. 2. Barbell Row, and it’s variation like T-bar row, cable row, etc. 3. Squat, and it’s variation like dumbell squat, lunges, weighted lunges, etc. 4. Deadlift (It’s better to ask someone to teach you for this movement) and it’s variation like RDL.

There also an isolation movement like bicep curl, tricep extension, leg extension, etc that mainly focussing on single muscle group, the reason why beginner is better to stick with compound is because beginner had something called newbie gains, newbie gains is basically condition where the person is never hit a gym before and when he start working out his body is get shocked due to new type of load to his body, so his body need to makeup for it and add a lot of muscle in the process that why sometime beginner can get muscle fairly quickly due to this process.

What i should avoid?

There a few thing that in my opinion need to avoid not only for beginner but also for the seasoned one:

1. Don’t overload your brain with a lot of information, in this internet age you can access unlimited resource, and this can be a pressure for beginner who think that more information is better, not every fitness advice in the internet is good. 2. Don’t change your gym plan too often, stick with one plan for at least 3 month to see the progress, and then adjust it. 3. Don’t focus on the numbers, but focus on the form especially for beginners this always be an issues due to beginner always see the seasoned one who can lift a lot of weight, although your body can technically lift a lot of body but if the form is not correct it can lead to injuries, and some injuries because of fitness can be serious. 4. Don’t spend your money for supplement, gear etc right away, just stick with the movement and build your habit, supplement can be tricky because you need to know what you’re consuming, and for gear you need to know what you trying to wear, because supplement and gear can lead you into miss information that “if i lift weight i need belt or i need drink protein drink”.

Enough with fitness guidance, lets move to the why fitness makes me where i’m right now

I always had a problem where i tends to lazy, consume a lot of internet content and i never try to learn something new, this became a problem when i graduate from the college and start working at startup company in indonesia, because i just working at that time, i had quite good amount of time to spend but i keep use that time for not productive one.

I read Atomic Habit by James Clear that if you want to build new habit, don’t force yourself to change in big way, and start with the small things. that’s where i start with 30 mins session in the gym and i find that i even spend more time than i was intended to, so i also start with other habit like reading book, jogging, etc and it works for me.

Now I have a playbook if i want to do something new and to stick with it.