New to Exercise and Fitness? Where to Start

Lately I've been falling short in my fitness endeavors. Missing workouts and slacking when I do work out. While I am by no means new to the fitness game, these recent weeks (dare I say months) have given me more insight to being a beginner than ever before.

I'm not going to pretend like I understand the psychological struggles of trying to get into fitness for the first time in your life, or in a very long time. But I have learned quite a bit about approaching fitness once taking a considerable amount of time off.

Recently, I've made the frustrating error of returning to lifting with the same thought process as I left it. Unfortunately my body wasn't in the same kind of shape I thought it was, and now I'm limited by "injuries" or aches. That being said my first piece of advice for someone getting into fitness is to start slow....and I mean VERY slow. Physically you might be able to push up more weight in your squats, but when starting out, take it slow and increase your repetitions. Get used to being in a squat (for example) and stretch out those muscles for a couple weeks before pushing for weight.

This is a great time I your life to discover what is going to work best for you. Perhaps lifting isn't your thing. Maybe it's swimming. Maybe it's running, or climbing, or any number of sports. Take your time and experiment with different sports and through this adventure you'll find yourself living a more active lifestyle, which is really going to help, no matter where you are headed.

This will also help you not get burned out too fast. Variety is a great thing, and I personally have experienced get benefits of being involved with different sports. For example, currently, my right quad hurts when I engage it with much more than my bodyweight, but thankfully I don't only lift, and this is a great opportunity to focus on my climbing while my legs heal.

For most people this is all very redundant. But if you are actually reading this with a true interest in getting into fitness...my only real advice is to get out there and try things.

Momma Doesn't Always Know Best

As of late the pressure of life has prevented me from posting much of anything on this blog. That being said, I have a list of things I've been thinking about day after day as I listen to the people around me.

Common trend provoking this post: You just don't know bro!

I hear things almost every day regarding diet and exercise that drive me crazy! Why? Because people just don't how unhealthy their habits are, despite attempting to be healthy. I'll try to skim over my current pet-peeves for now and save the rest for later posts, but the main point of this post is to remind people that a little research goes a long way.

Which brings me to my first point...
       Just because your momma said it was healthy don't make it so. Ideas about health have evolved drastically over the years and thankfully old trends are dying. Case in point, people from our parents generation (born in the 50's-70's) knew very little about nutrition compared to what we know now. Credit that likely falls to the internet and the current health and fitness boom we are currently entering due to the availability of knowledge. So, you think you know something about health? Seriously, for your own good, go online and do some research regarding you current fitness goals and form your own opinion.

Current pet-peeve:

• Health isn't based around calories! 100 calories of Oreo's will never be healthy, I don't care who you ask. Calorie counting should be well calculated around your fitness goals. For the average person, avoiding excessive consumption and eating a well balanced diet will more than suffice.

Better Food

A few days ago I was very happy to see that Fred Meyer (Kroger) started carrying organic GRASS FED beef!! Fantastic step in the right direction.

If you haven't already seen it, I highly encourage people to watch Food, Inc. It's on Netflix instant watch. More about it here. http://www.takepart.com/foodinc/film

This documentary will teach you a lot about where food comes from. It's filled with great facts, but as an animal lover I was most interested in the livestock parts. They aren't supposed to eat corn people!

Anyways, go check it out. Well worth your time. "every food purchase is a vote for what you want"  be the change

Beginner Rock Climbing Training

Lots of people ask me how to get good at rock climbing. It's actually kind of a weird question and it has a million different answers that are all correct. Here's the thing, if you're just starting out, lets say 5 months or less, the best real advice I can give is to be patient. Like anything, with time comes improvement. If you climb on a regular basis, the first year you're doing it will hands down, be your biggest spike in improvement.

Just about every climber out there has had someone at some point say something to them like, "I could never do that!" or "I don't have the upper body for climbing." Untrue. Absolutely anyone can climb. It might feel impossible at first, but that's just because you are doing something that your body is completely not used to. Get to the gym, or outside, about 2-3 times a week when you are starting out. Depending on how long each session is, 4 days a week is fine as well. You body will quickly adjust to the new sport and you'll be climbing 5.10 or V3 before you know it.

Start out Bouldering or Top Rope?
To be honest it doesn't matter. At the early stages in your climbing career your main goal is to just spend time on the wall, whichever way you prefer. I will say that if you expect to improve to that V3 5.10 range and up, it is important to spend a decent amount of time bouldering. Bouldering will add valuable weapons, or moves, to your arsenal that you will need to draw on later. Bouldering will also give you valuable time spent learning how to read rocks to see the best possible route.

Monthly Goals

Alright. Been a while since I put up a new post and I can't claim this one my own either. It's actually my girlfriends idea, but it fit perfectly with what I talk about a lot, and that is setting goals. Goals are an important part of staying motivated and in previous posted I mentioned setting S.M.A.R.T goals. Now, since working out has been less than plentiful in the month of April my girlfriend decided it would be smart to set "monthly" goals. Goals to follow for just one month, four weeks. It would make sticking to them that much easier. "Workout four days a week for four weeks...it's just four weeks, I can do that easy." That's the idea.

This can be for workouts, nutrition, both, whatever you want. Try it out and let me know how it works for you. Comments always welcome below.

What do you want to know?

Wow! This blog just passed 7,000 views and I've been off my game for a while. As a reminder to my readers...feel free to send me thoughts, comments, questions, or suggestions via the email address located in the "comments" tab.

I'm excited to hear what's on your mind.


What I've been up to:
Now completely moved in and living with my lovely girlfriend in Portland Oregon, I have been on the job hunt since mid January. Curse this economy! On the plus side I've had plenty of time to stay in shape, and no excuse for not writing...

As a first time big city person my sympathy is growing for people living in big cities trying to stay in shape. Thankfully I live next to park, but holy smokes I still don't like going out for runs around here. Me I need a back country road or an empty forest trail. But...My inability to get off the couch and go running has, I think, helped with my bulking goals.

Till next time...