So last night was my first proper session back at the gym after about 20 days off. I don’t realise most of the time but it gives me a real psychological boost and is a really good contrast to cycling (I would be skin and bones!). Anyway it was full of stragglers with obvious new year resolutions - quite amusing really there were more than double the numbers of people in the gym last night compared to an average night before Christmas.
I have experimented with various forms of training routines over the last decade, so what works? Well obviously it depends person to person, but the key factors I think are consistency and flexibility, no matter what your real goal actually is (be it weight loss/fitness/strength/flexibility etc).
You need to have the motivation to do it obviously. But you need to incorporate the ability to shift sessions too, and also the mind set to occasionally let one or two session slip for other reasons, without letting too many slip either! In my opinion the current system I have at the moment works well, I go to the gym on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for just over 2 hours, which can be shifted if needs be (bit of forward planning required here), and cycle whenever I can. This time last year I experimented with going 3 times a week but I found it too much, 6 hours a week is excessive when you are mostly doing weights.
With all these new people in the gym, with their new year resolutions and stuff, I feel that many will really punish themselves, for what?
Fallacy 1: Punishing yourself over extended periods of time is good training
Doing miles more than you are used to, with no extended breaks is very likely to completely exhaust you and make you ill, forcing you to have time off and probably quit permanently.
Fallacy 2: The gym makes you fit
Sure, it has the potential to make you fit but to actually get there you either need to be a complete loser or something. The gym on its own is very hard to sustain and will eventually just bore you entirely, its better used as a tool to complement something else you do (with added fun!).
In addition to those above points, I see so many guys in the gym lifting very heavy weights to build muscle quickly - more likely to result in injury, very unsustainable and will possibly leave you very large and fat due to the associated weight gain by the time you reach your 40’s (unless you keep the routine up).
Repeat after me: BEEFCAKE! BEEFCAKE!