The holiday season features a multitude of cultural festivities centered around spending time with loved ones, taking time off to be thankful for what the world has granted us, and enjoying holiday-themed treats is coming to an end. The new year 2024 is just around the corner and symbolizes a fresh start to many important aspects of our lives. Along with a new calendar year featuring a fresh start to financial logistics, new semesters at school, and new seasons of our favorite television shows, we also partake in the invigorating New Year’s resolutions. One of the most common New Year resolutions resides around self-care and improvement to our health.
New Year’s resolutions featuring a health and fitness goal could include losing a few pounds, decreasing stress via exercise, or establishing another routine throughout the week that focuses on ourselves and sets distractions aside for a brief moment. Whether these New Year fitness goals involve the veteran gym goer, an individual recovering from a significant injury, or a person who has never stepped foot in a gym, entering a fitness-based regimen can be a daunting process. Establishing an exciting new tactic to practice featuring health and fitness sounds like an amazing idea. However, one might sign up for the New Year’s special offered by our local gyms and take one step on the gym floor and wonder, “Where do I begin?”
There are a few key themes that should be focused on when just starting a fitness program. First off, ensure that the efforts being made to enhance the desired fitness variable are safe. The last thing anyone wants is to get physically hurt from a bout of exercise. Additionally, research should be conducted on how to perform certain exercises and what contraindications might be present that could pose a potential injury. Furthermore, find a time in which distractions are at a minimum throughout your exercise sessions. Social interactions, looking at your phone, or being rushed for time takes much-needed attention away from exercise sessions. We want to get the best bang for our buck when focusing on our exercise sessions. Therefore, ensure to have laser-sharp, brain-surgeon-like focus when entering a foreign local gym, exercise class, or home fitness setting.
Safety is of the utmost importance when a newbie enters a group fitness class or local membership-driven gym setting. A jaw-dropping amount of state-of-the-art exercise equipment lays the groundwork for modern fitness facilities. For veteran gym rats like me who’ve been in the fitness industry for over twenty-five years, I have a pretty good idea of how these contraptions function. However, for the rookie exercise participant, a leg press machine might look like the newest rocket ship designed by Elon Musk. If entering a gym floor setting looks like you just emerged from the wardrobe and set foot into Narnia, perhaps seeking guidance from an experienced and trained fitness professional could support a novice fitness enthusiast to engage in a safe, efficient, effective, and fun exercise journey.
Most gyms offer complimentary training sessions led by a personal trainer. Don’t be afraid to sign up for those free sessions. Simply venturing around a new setting with someone who knows how to navigate around the gym is a powerful tool to acclimatize a human to a setting of optimal and avoidable locations on the gym floor. Additionally, most small group fitness classes such as Yoga, Pilates, and cycling classes offer the first session on the house. Attending a class with the mindset of testing the waters to see if the experience is a good fit or not is a great opportunity to see which setting resonates with your fitness goals. Our personal training studio always offers the first two sessions free of charge to ensure our product connects with the exercise participants’ desired outcomes.
New Year’s goals pave the path for an exciting vision of the future. To fortify our profound goals to enhance our quality of life, make sure to lay out a few plans to get the most benefit out of the efforts invested in these goals. Making safe, effective, and fun decisions toward your health and fitness aspirations has the power to make this next year the best year of our lives.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com, or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
