Structured Exercise
When it comes to exercising, everyone has their own way of doing things. However, whether you prefer cardio-based workouts or classes, is it essential to have some structure to your workouts. One of the best ways of ensuring structured workouts is to join a gym.
Without structure and a routine, fitness goals can fall apart fast. For this reason, gyms are a haven of structure! Having a dedicated place for your exercise can encourage you to push your limits during your workouts, as well as ensuring you have the correct support and equipment for this exercise.
Unfortunately, the recent lockdown in the United Kingdom has meant that gyms, including Beckwith Health Club, have had to close their doors temporarily. However, we do not expect this to last much longer.
As gyms can do wonders for your fitness, let’s look at some ways to re-adjust to gym-based workouts once we re-open, and why these are right for you.
Don’t Overdo It: Maintain Your Established Fitness Goals
The excitement of being able to rejoin the gym and have at your disposal lots of new equipment might lead you to overdo it in the first few weeks. Avoid this scenario at all costs!
Pushing yourself too far and too fast can lead to injury, which in turn will drastically delay your fitness goals.
Not to mention, this can also overwhelm you mentally. If you find that you’ve been working out less, or not at all, during the lockdown then a difficult workout when you return to the gym might feel demotivating.
In reality, given the constraints of many home workouts (space, equipment, or even time), it is possible you haven’t been able to maintain the intensity of your pre-lockdown workouts. There’s nothing wrong with this! In fact, the change to your routine brought on by returning to the gym might be the perfect thing to shake up your workouts and keep you motivated.
Remember to Stick to Good Exercise Habits
Don’t let the change of environment distract you from your healthy workout habits. By this we mean, ensure you are still incorporating rest days and maintain a varied workout.
Rest days are essential to a healthy exercise routine for many reasons. The main one being, a day off allows your body to recuperate following your previous workouts, and repair and grow your muscles.
Rest days are also important to prevent overuse of your muscles and thereby avoid injury. Remember, a day off will not negatively affect your performance during your subsequent workouts! Why not come by Beckwith for some slow stretching on one of these days? Check out some stretching tips here.
As for maintaining a varied workout… for a healthy fitness plan, you need to focus on more than one muscle group and one type of exercise. Don’t let the change of environment brought on by returning to the gym distract you from good exercise habits!
As you readjust to gym-based exercise, make sure to include elements of cardio, resistance training, and flexibility in your workouts.
For specialized help in forming a healthy fitness plan, ask our excellent PTs for their help once Beckwith reopens. Learn more about them on our website.
Set Goals to Keep You Focused and Motivated
We can’t emphasise enough the importance of setting yourself goals when embarking on a new sort of fitness journey.
Now that you’re going back to the gym and will have access to much more equipment, you may end up spreading yourself thin when it comes to new workouts. Instead of jumping between machines, classes, and stretches, set yourself concrete goals.
For example, these goals could look like the following week:
- 10 km of running
- 2 strength-training classes
- 1-2 hours of stretching
The important thing is to find what works for you and stick to it. When it comes to exercise, consistency is key. If you over-achieve in the first week and under-achieve the following three weeks, you won’t be doing your body (or your motivation) any favours.
Take This Opportunity to Sign Up for In-Person Group Exercise Classes
A major drawback of home workouts is the absence of guidance, expertise, and fun that comes with a group class. While some have been taking place over video calls, this does not compare to the real thing.
So, when you return to Beckwith Health Club, be sure to take advantage of our extensive group class offerings. We have lots going on at all time, so take your pick! Will you try spin, PiYo, circuits, yoga, or something else? You can find the details of our available classes on our timetable.
Group exercise has so many benefits that extend beyond fitness but also covering mental health, motivation, and new experiences. Some of these benefits include challenging yourself, getting your workouts back on track with some structure, exercising with friends, and more! Read on in our blog for more on why group exercise is beneficial.
At Beckwith, We’re Looking Forward to Welcoming You Back Shortly
Beckwith Health Club will be reopening as soon as possible. For continued updates on our reopening, as well as fitness tips and tricks, follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
We look forward to seeing you back in the gym soon!
