Benefits of gym fitness

It can help you achieve your exercise goals with lower trial and error costs and higher efficiency in a controllable professional scenario, while greatly lowering the threshold for long-term persistence in exercise.

I had been practicing blindly at home for half a year, following online videos to do push-ups and deadlifts. I didn’t spend much money, but my waist slipped twice. I collapsed in the push-ups until my core was not trained at the end, and my neck was sore for three days. Later, I gritted my teeth and got an annual pass to the gym downstairs. When I went to a trial class for the first time, the instructor sold the class before he showed up. He just casually widened the palm distance of my push-ups by two centimeters, put a thin yoga brick under my belly, and said, "When you collapse, you will hit the brick, and you will feel it yourself." I found the feeling of tight core on the same day, and found the way to move that I had not figured out in the previous six months, in ten minutes.

Don’t believe it, many people say, “You can also practice with a dumbbell yoga mat at home.” This is true, but you need to score points. If you just want to move and sweat every day, dancing Pamela at home and doing aerobics with Liu Genghong are enough. But if you want to build muscle in a targeted manner, improve posture problems such as rounded shoulders and hunchback, or even recover after injuries, the advantages of the gym are really unmatched at home. After all, the core requirement for building muscle is progressive overload. You can't exactly add 2.5kg of weight to every training session at home, right? The dumbbells in the gym are available from 0.5kg to 25kg. You can add as many as you want. Let’s just talk about hip thrusts. If you want to lift 80kg, you can’t just pile up dumbbells at home, right? There are also special fixed equipment, and the tracks have been repeatedly adjusted by the manufacturer. Even if the movements are not so standard for novices, they are not prone to major compensatory injuries. I had a friend who had an old knee injury, and it hurt even when doing bodyweight squats at home. I went to the gym to use the inverted pedal machine, and adjusted the foot position to the upper position of the pedal, so that the knees do not need to go over the toes. After two months of training, the quadriceps muscles have grown a lot, and the pain in the knees when walking has been relieved a lot.

Of course, some people complain, saying that the gym is an IQ tax, and they don’t go there even after getting a card, which is a waste of money. This is true. According to previous industry statistics, about 30% of people who apply for an annual card do not go more than 10 times a year, and their money is basically wasted. But to put it another way, this kind of "sunk cost" is also the motivation that restrains you from moving. When I first applied for the card, I felt very distressed about the 3,000 yuan annual card. Even if I was so tired after get off work that I just wanted to collapse, I would go to the gym for a 20-minute walk and do two sets of shoulder exercises before going home. I persisted like this for two months. Now I don't have to worry about money. When the time comes, I always want to do some activities. The habit has been formed long ago.

Another great thing is the atmosphere in the gym. It's not the kind of chicken-blooded atmosphere where coaches surround you and shout, "Come on, try one more." It's the kind of atmosphere where everyone is practicing in their own way, but if you really encounter something, they will help you. I practiced deadlifting last month, but I couldn't find the feeling of hip hinge, and I couldn't help bending my waist. An aunt who had been practicing for almost ten years passed by and handed me an elastic ring to tie on my knee. She asked me to do 15 good morning poses first to find the feeling. I did less than ten, and I instantly understood what "hip flexion" meant. It was more effective than watching the instructional video ten times. The last time I bench-pressed to failure, the big brother who was warming up next to me didn’t wait for me to call. He stretched out his hand to help me avoid being hit by the barbell. After the exercise, I handed him a bottle of water. The two chatted for ten minutes and even got a new move for practicing triceps.

Of course, I don’t mean that everyone must go to the gym to work out. I also have friends who like to do street fitness with bare hands. They play horizontal and parallel bars and have beautiful muscles. I also have friends who practice yoga at home and their posture is better than many people who go to the gym. But for most ordinary athletes, especially those who don’t know how to get started, or who have been stuck in the bottleneck period for a long time, the gym is indeed the most cost-effective option - you don’t have to spend a lot of money to buy a bunch of equipment to take up space at home, you don’t have to figure out the right and wrong movements and have to spend money for medical treatment if you get injured during practice.

After all, where to practice is just a matter of form, and being able to persist for a long time is the most important thing. But if you are struggling now and don’t know how to start exercising, or if you haven’t seen the results you want after practicing for a long time, you can really find a reliable gym and try it for a month or two. Maybe it can open the door to a new world for you.