Wellness Wednesday: Gym Routines Dos and Don'ts

Welcome back, fellow fitness junkies! This week on #wellnesswednesday, it's going to be a short sharing of my take on gym routine's dos and don'ts. 

However, disclaimer first, I'm no expert when it comes to fitness related matters or gym routines. These are just my own opinions and please share with me your dos and don'ts in the comments down below. :)

Let's start with my top 5 to dos for gym routines.

1. Do write up a set of fitness goals.

You have to know what you wish to achieve in order do know what you need to do. Do you have thunder thighs that's in desperate need of some toning up? Do you have butterfly wings (flabby arms) that's keeping you from waving goodbye to your friends? Do you have a flabby tummy so big, commuters are fighting to give up their seats for you on public transports, mistaking you as a heavily pregnant lady? Does your BMI and body fat percentage tally to OBESITY? Or do you have so little muscle mass that you're practically skin, bones and fats? 

Know your body, analyse out your problematic areas, and find out what action plan (fitness goals) you need to undertake to bid them goodbye in the most sensible and practical time frame. 

2. Do start small.

If you're just starting out on a new fitness plan for a healthy lifestyle, please remember. BABY STEPS! Be it with weights, or cardio, start small. Your current muscle mass and heart might not be able to take it if you kick start your first day at gym with an hour's running on the treadmill. Aim for perhaps, just 15 to 20 minutes if you're just starting out. 

3. Do find a gym buddy, and make sure it's a good one. 

It's a good form of motivation boost, and he or she will be the main pulling force on days you feel just plain lazy and plans to skip the gym. But please, find the correct buddy who will motivate you and not one who's even lazier than you. If that's the case, it's better you work up the independence and go buddy-less. 

4. Do diversify your routines. 

Especially true for ladies, whom I realised are the ones who tend to skip weights training to NOT build up any muscles (I shall touch on this further under don'ts). By sticking to the same old routine day in day out, not only will it tire or bore you out quickly, making you more prone to giving up or skipping gym, it may also give you unbalanced and unsatisfactory results in the long run. 

5. Do hydrate yourself!

Drink plenty of water throughout the day, and especially during and after your workouts. For myself, I will not drink water right before my workout, nor chug on too much water during my workout, as it tend to give me stitches. I'll usually chug down minimal 500 to 800ml one-shot after I'm out of the showers at the gym, and make sure I'll hit at least 2L of water intake on a daily basis. 

And now, for my top 5 don'ts for gym routines.

1. Don't skip your warm ups and cool down stretches.

Every week at the gym there bound to be some people coming in late (skipping warm ups despite instructors' repeated reminder that nobody shall join in after class commences) and leaving early (skipping cool downs) for group-x classes. And I really wonder, just how badly their body will ache the next morning. Or perhaps, they just do not work out as hard as they should be to not bear any dire consequences after?

2. Don't believe in spot reduction routines. 

I tend to hear people asking on how to cut down the fats from a specific area of their body without losing fats at other *erhm* important areas (yes, ladies tend to wish for spot reduction). Sorry ladies, you can't. When you work out, even if you think you're focusing only on a specific area, you're burning fats from all over your body. You can better spot-train to build muscle and tone up certain areas, but not to lose fats specifically from them. 

3. Don't associate perspiring with burning of calories.

Sweating like a horse actually just means you have a more active sweat glands, nothing else. Or at most, it can also mean you've purged out more toxins from your body. Sweating is all about water weight and that 0.2kg you've lost from sweating like a horse in that 55 minutes of "intensive" spinning will come back to you with a snap of the finger once you re-hydrated yourself. 

To lose weight, you need to focus on the intensity. How hard is your heart beating? At the fat-burning zone of 70%? That's not good enough if you have more to lose. Slowly work your way up and push for more. 

The point is simple. The harder you push yourself (but please first make sure your heart can take it! Baby steps, remember?), the more you burn. And no, you need not necessarily sweat like a pig. 

4. Don't get obsessed with losing weight. 

Do you know, muscle tissue burns roughly around 7 to 10 calories per lb per day, which is about 3 times more for fats, at merely 2 to 3 calories per lb per day? 

So, what does this tells you? Lose FATS, not WEIGHT. 

And while the saying that muscles weigh more than fats is just a big fat lie, adding in the magical phrase 'by volume' will make it right again. 

So what does that mean again? It simply means that if you do not have a scale tipping body fat content in the first place and really just need to tone up and build up some leanness, focusing your attention solely on decreasing the weighing scale reading will probably mean a further loss in your muscle mass and not necessary an actual fat loss. 

5. Don't avoid weights training for fear of building up muscles.

This is for all the cardio bunnies out there. Cardio is your monthly salary, but weights is like an investment. If you've gone through pointer number 4 above, you'll be able to understand why I'm saying this. 

You can focus more on doing cardio (I am, too), but do not omit weights/toning exercises totally to avoid 'bulking up' and putting on weight (for 'muscles are heavier than fats'). 

Remember, for every lb of muscle you developed, you'll burn more calories at rest everyday. 

So, what are your gym routine dos and don'ts? 

Till then,

Mia Foo