Workout More!

Our health should be paramount if we want to have happy and effective lives.

I’d like to make an appeal to those that don’t already work out. TikTok and Instagram are rife with exercise motivation, recommendations, and many more health-related posts and videos. This may be confusing or even annoying to some because this side of social media can be somewhat overwhelming. This is a niche that is chock-full of information just waiting to be thrown at the user, yet, this can be used to achieve a deluge of goals, whether they be personal or practical. My purpose is to simplify this niche to those that don’t already understand it and maybe convert some to this lifestyle of personal growth.

Now, you may be asking questions, such as:

• What are the benefits of exercising?
• How do I make time for exercising?
• Why should I exercise?
• Should I join a gym?
• What exercises should I do for (enter body part here)?
• What should my nutrition look like?

These are all the pivotal questions that will determine what you should be more disciplined in and what your motivations are. Firstly, we should be cognisant of the benefits of exercising. According to the CDC and Mayo Clinic, the practical benefits of exercise are:

• Strengthening your bones and muscles
• reducing your risk of depression and anxiety
• Increasing your confidence
• Better sleep
• Weight management (gaining or losing)
• Reducing your risk for cardiovascular disease, Type 2 Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome, some cancers
• increasing your chances of living longer

It has been these benefits and many more that millions of people have testified of that millions of others can experience as well. These testimonies are continuously shown on social media through posts and comments, which is a net positive for these people and an encouragement for others working towards that ideal.

Secondly, how you will exercise is very important. You cannot do 100 pushups or bench presses everyday and then expect there to be massive change. You must let the muscles rest for about 1–2 days before you work them out again. There are 2 main regiments that are recommended for this purpose, and they are:

• Push-pull: This is when you target specific muscle groups because they are considered “pushing” or “pulling” muscles. In this workout routine, there is a separate day for working out the legs (this depends on who you ask, but I would make it a separate day).
• Opposites: This is when you work out the biceps and triceps on the same day (you can include shoulders on this day as well). The same goes for the chest and back. In this routine, there is a separate day for legs as well.

There are many exercise routines on the internet and you must discern which ones you are comfortable with. Youtube is rife with beginner workout videos. There are also many ways that you can do these exercise routines. The main way of doing these exercises are in sets. Sets are a combination of repetitions done at once. For example, in my workouts, a set would be equivalent to 10 repetitions of the same exercise, whether it be bench presses or tricep pulldowns. For you, it may be 5 reps (shorthand for repetitions) or it may even be one. That is okay, you’ve only just started. Access to workout materials may be an issue for you. That is absolutely fine. Not only does Madison have a great gym, bodyweight exercises are a great and cost-effective way for you to achieve your health goals as well. That has been my mainstay since I was in middle school. Great health practices can never be gatekept by wealth.

Thirdly, diets are formative to this journey of fitness. As I’ve come to learn from experience, working out is only part of the battle. Your diet is just as, maybe even more, important as exercising. There are many diets out there, and you want to pick one that would be pertinent to your health goals. If you want to gain muscle or lose weight, the keto and carnivore diets are both high-protein diets that may help. You may approach many of these diets with skepticism. That is completely healthy. However, there are many videos and books available on this subject and there are many testimonies of people that have gone through all kinds of diets expressing what they thought were pros and cons. I believe the main problem America has is that we eat too much processed junk, so as far as I understand the facts, it doesn’t really matter what diet you go with. All that really matters is that you are comfortable with the diet and that it’s yielding the results that you want.

Overall, there is almost nothing but good that can come out of working out frequently and intelligently. I ask those that want to embark on this journey of personal growth to do things with caution and precision. You may need help along the way. There are many channels that I have looked at to help me understand an issue: guys like Jeff Nippard and Sean Nalewanyj and channels like Bodybuilding.com have had an effect on the way I view working out as a whole, even if I may not always agree with their advice. I highly recommend these channels, whether you are starting on your journey or not. Good luck.