18 bits of Advice for the gym cultivated from 10 years of making mistakes and learning.

From the day I moved out at the age of 16 I started going to the gym. Partly to help with my career (I’m a professional ballet dancer) but mostly because I was so skinny growing up, I was bullied and insecure and I thought getting bigger would solve that. In parts it did but I did so much more for me than that. It made me calmer, more disciplined and yes more in shape. In fact I got so much muscle mass I was actually told to lose some size by the staff in my company despite being below 10% body fat I was to big and it was affecting my lines. (They where right, I dance much better now I’m a little smaller) . I feel the need to add that I’m not telling you that you must do this. I’m not an “expert” this is just my experiences, take them or leave them.

So what have I learned over the years?

1. Don’t drink alcohol. I almost never drink. For me I would have a great night out but then after 2 days I would be depressed. It would also slow my muscle recovery and I would be less motivated to train.
2. Do cardio and weight lifting. Originally I was just trying to get bigger so I was Almost scared to do cardio. I thought it would make me smaller. It won’t, it will increase your capacity to train and most importantly help you live longer.
3. Don’t post your gym photos to much. Take photos to track your progress and to remind you how far you’ve come. But uploading every time you go to the gym makes you look like an A**h0le . (Sorry 16 year old me). Work for you. Validate yourself. I know I posted vain photos at the bottom of this article, but some people love to criticize on this app so I kinda feel I need to support my case when writing this article.
4. Learn to cook, eating healthily doesn’t mean boring chicken and rice. Trust me, learning a few healthy high protein meals as well as investing in some good sauces will make eating healthily a pleasure.
5. Never sacrifice form for a heavier weight. When tryi;g to increase size you need to be lifting heavy for low reps but if you start ego lifting it’s to much. Not only do you risk injury you will also just cheat the rep and use the wrong muscles anyway. Form is the key, keep good form and the weights you can lift will keep going up.
6. 10,000 steps per day will help you lose body fat.
7. If your not gaining size eat more, make sure your eating enough protein.
8. If your losing fat/getting more shredded your over eating or not burning enough calories. (Obviously this doesn’t apply when bulking) on the note of bulking I personally think it’s better to make gradual healthy improvements than dirty bulk and then shred but that’s a whole other article.
9. Train core. A lot of people say you don’t need to train core specifically. That compound lifts are enough, for me you should train core, it will protect your lower back and help with control.
10. You don’t need a lot of equipment to train. I used to think I needed access to every machine and I wouldn’t train if I couldn’t get to a good gym. I’ve learned ultimately it doesn’t matter if your lifting dumbbells or stage weights your working the same muscles. Don’t find an excuse find a way.
11. Your making more progress than you realize, in the beginning you get “newbie” gains and you feel great, then you feel like you’ve plateaued. You see your body everyday so you don’t see the changes, trust me there happening, after a year you will have made so much progress.
12. You don’t need to follow a crazy diet, I reaserched keto, carnivore diets and all sorts of things, ultimately it just equates to this, eat the right amount of calories,fats, vitamins and protein and you’ll be fine. How you achieve this isn’t important.
13. Sleep enough, make sure your getting at least 7 hours sleep, preferably more. I’m sure you see this one a lot and it’s with good reason.
14. Find exercise’s that work for you and you enjoy doing. There loads of YouTube videos and workout plans out there, you don’t need to pay for some special program.
15. Train legs. A lot of people neglect legs as they just want a good beach body. Trust me train legs. Firstly you look stupid if you have a huge upper body and chicken legs, secondly your more likely to get injured if your body is disproportionate and thirdly training legs will also improve you upper body strength training.
16. You cannot target an area for fat loss. I see so many adverts for how to lose tummy fat or how to get a thigh gap… this is nonsense! You just need to lose fat and be patient.
17. If you body hurts rest. An injury will cost you a lot more than an extra rest day. Injury prevention should always be your priority.
18. Work on mobility, stretch before and after lifting.

I hope this list was interesting and helpful for you! If it was please consider clapping, commenting and following me for more

Thanks

Alfie