1. Be consistent – if you want to get results, they will most likely not appear in the first weeks (or even months, depending on your body type/diet/workouts). This is the time when you get discouraged. Happened many times with me too. Hell, it even happens now from time to time. So, if you want results – give yourself 3 months, and start doing it. Don’t expect anything in the first 3 months. Just do it, think of it as a way of getting ‘there’.

2. Adapt your gym schedule – OK, us, newbies tend to either overtrain or undertrain. Start carefully and pick a selection of exercises for each day. Create a diary (if you feel it will help) and note how you felt during each workout. Revise these often – you’ll be able to figure out what needs to be changed/removed. This way is much more easier and painless.

3. Exercise correctly – or ‘follow correct form of exercise’. This will help muscles to get enough tension and will work the correct muscles . Youtube or other sites are full of exercise examples – just search them out, and try to follow these at the gym.

4. Pain – no pain, no gain work perfect. But just for the muscle. Be careful for anything extraordinary – a good sportsman should know his body and stop immediately even after the smallest sign something is not OK.

5. Diet – I found myself eating way too much calories and crap after I started to log everything I eat. This is again something that needs to be adapted, but

6. Advice – ОК, you read a lot of advices, have some friends guiding you in the gym. But… why not try to gather some opinions, rather than catching the first. Always doubt…

7. Change – change the routine once in a while. This way you won’t get bored and will maintain interest during workouts.

8. Partner – it’s always useful to have a helping hand to drain the last drops of energy from the muscle. Sometimes I just feel I can do 1 or 2 more reps, but if there’s noone nearby to help I would just reach the farthest point of the exercise and stop….

9. Supplements – even if these are just some vitamins, supplements are important for reaching your desired form, weight, shape. I’ve personally used vitamins (B, C, E), minerals (Zinc, Magnesium), L-carnitine and Whey protein.

Blah – could it sound more stupid-er . I doubt it. But this is what I’ve learned so far. It will help me in my future months of building and working out.

Stay healthy.

Today’s workout:

4 superseries of leg lifting and ab crunches;

4 superseries of Arnold presses and biceps curls

4 series of lateral raises

3 superseries of standing calve lifting, sitting calve lifting and trapezoid raises.

10 minutes of elliptical running at avg. speed of 11 km/h.

This is part of a new workout scheme to keep me from getting too bored, tired, etc. I will review this in a while, after I feel some results. What I can tell from the first one – I’ve probably been doing some of the exercises incorrectly. Now when I do them right (considering right) I get much more tension in the working muscle and do the reps with lower weights.

Enough for today’s report. Stay healthy all…

I’ll describe my workout like that:

Warm-up: 4 series leg lifting, 3 series ab crunches, 4 series hyperextensions

Power series: 4 series lateral raises, 4 series Arnold presses, 3 super series calve machine (both seated and standing), 4 series trapezoid muscles

Cardio: 10 minutes elliptical

That pretty much describes it. I usually do 30 minutes of elliptical, but I felt slight pressure in my lower back at about 10th minute and decided to stop. Nothing special, I guess, considering that I suffered from Radiculitis back in 2001. I haven’t mentioned that yet… well…. it was time. I have to be careful with my back too

Cannot add anything special for now – I’m trying to arrange a small mountain hike for the weekend with a friend. Hope it will be OK and will take place, actually.

Reports for today’s workout and food log->

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OK, for today – some kind of average-to-low energy day.  But my workout turned out to be nice – had enough for it. The cardio felt a little tiring though. Now I feel some kind of tickles in my whole legs. Don’t know how to describe them. Somewhat disturbing, but we’ll see.

Reports below->