“Ugh, look at all these people… Everyone seems to know what they’re doing—I’m completely out of place here.”
Our friend, let’s call her Becky, just walked into the hustle and bustle of a busy gym for the first time in a long time. The last thing she wants is to be noticed, especially fumbling with a machine that she has no idea how to use. “I hope these directions are real clear,” she thinks to herself as she takes a seat in what could easily be mistaken for a torture contraption in another setting. And then it happens…
“How many sets do you have left?”
Becky looks up at the glistening, oddly shaved, barely covered chest of a man who looks like he reallllllllly likes him some, well, him.
“How many wha—”
“Oh no, it happened,” she thinks to herself, “I should have never come here.”
“Just finished, actually—all yours.”
And off she runs to the line of cardio machines to walk on the treadmill.
And before we go on, sex is irrelevant here, we’ve heard similar stories from men, women, young, and—not so young.
The reality is, Becky doesn’t know what she really came to the gym for, and absolutely no idea why she picked that particular machine. She’s just tired of where she currently is, so coming to the gym seemed like a good place to start. And it is, but…
We all need a plan
Even in the absence of clearly defined goals, we’ve got to have some kind of direction we’re aiming for. “Not feel like an idiot,” Becky’s probably thinking. And to that, I say PERFECT!
So, if Becky dissected the idea of not feeling like an idiot, what would it take to accomplish that?
How about a plan?
Bet you didn’t see that coming…
That plan might come from a magazine, a book, a friend—anywhere really. But that initial plan at least provides direction, quite literally, for what to do in the gym.
Say the plan calls for 5 specific exercises. It really doesn’t matter what they are, but those 5 exercises are what Becky will attempt to do next time she walks in the gym. And with that plan in hand, she can preemptively look up how to use the machines, free weights, bands—whatever the heck the plan calls for—in advance, significantly increasing her chances at successfully navigating the land of iron and confidently telling ol’ glisteny Glen,
“I’ve got two sets left.”
A simple, simple plan allows Becky to go from, “I guess I’ll walk on the treadmill and then do a couple of these, some of those, and little of that“—which we all know means she’ll likely fall into the same exact routine day in and day out until she soon after decides to stop coming due to lack of progress—to having a clear objective every day when she walks in the gym (which may be as simple as following the program to get her confidence up for the first few weeks).
And once she follows the plan for a bit, she’ll more than likely develop some new goals she never even knew she had.
And then—you guessed it—get after a plan to work towards those goals next!
It all starts with a plan…
Looking for a plan?
We just created a COMPLETELY FREE plan to get your first chin-up (and beyond). Seriously, this thing has it all:
- Directions for how to follow the program
- A warm-up you’ll do before every training session
- The program—providing you with a blueprint for what to do in the gym 3 days per week!
- Levels of exercise choice, appropriate for beginners to advanced
- Videos or pictures of every single exercise
- A cool-down for after each training session
- PLUS a handful of bonuses!
