10 Things No One Tells You Before You Join a Gym . 2

5. You learn how to read a personal trainer’s behaviour

Many of the chain gyms are packed with personal trainers, who compete against each other for clients with ferocious tenacity. Learning how to parry or embrace their advances is crucial to your first weeks at the gym.

-Later down the line, It’s a pretty fair sign that you are training well and looking good when all the PTs acknowledge you, but never try to sell you personal training.

6. To succeed, you have to check your ‘cool’ in at the door

Gyms can seem like intimidating places, filled with people with amazing bodies who seem to know exactly what they are doing. The worst thing you can do when you join a gym is to try to maintain your sense of ‘cool’ in the face of such a sea of experience. Everyone has to start somewhere, so forget about how you compare to others and throw yourself into your training.

7. You don’t need to go to every class

Gyms will try any means necessary to get you through the doors of their exercise classes to fill numbers. Of course, any exercise is better than no exercise – but don’t fall into the habit of having your whole schedule and training program determined for you by a class timetable.
Cherry pick the classes that will help you towards your particular goal, and never be afraid to interrogate instructors on whether a class is actually useful for you.

8. Personal space and hygiene rules aren’t universal

There is always That Guy in any gym who wants to have an entire changing room conversation stark b****** naked. So, while you may habitually wrap a towel around your bits and pieces out of social awareness, don’t assume that everyone else does. This also applies to the amount of space you consider your own when changing. I’ve seen some people take up half the changing room all to themselves, while others seem keen to get changed right on top of your toes.
You’ll come across the everyday shavers and the toe clippers – both of which are tolerable. It’s the body hair shavers that you’ll learn to truly fear.

9. Your induction will be about the gym, not you

Most gyms have a set induction program and whilst you may get a generic workout program for someone of your exercise experience and goals, essentially the talk is going to be about using the equipment safely. I recommend requesting a more thorough assessment with one of the trainers of the gym before really diving into your workouts: you should know that what you’ve been instructed to do is actually right for your body and aims.

10. No matter how much gym kit you buy, your T-shirts are always in the wash when you need them

An irrefutable law of gym-going is that you never have enough clean training clothes. You’ll be surprised how little time it takes before you happily wear the same dank and mank kit all week long.


                                                       

This article originally appeared on : fitnessandpower.com