Try new exercises or exercise routines

[Rivière]

In my years of experience with exercise, the one thing I've noticed is that people tend to gravitate to the same few exercises. For example, bodyweight squats, dumbbell bicep curls, and bodyweight sit-ups are the most common. It's likely due to their simplicity, whereas other exercises such as a barbell deadlift for example, is considered a more compound exercise (an exercises that uses multiple muscle groups at the same time).

One of the biggest concerns new clients have when they approach me and tell me they've never exercised or even been to a gym before, is that they have absolutely no idea where to start, what exercises to do, and if they did experiment, they fear hurting themselves. Understandably so, given that there are so many things that could go wrong. However, one thing I like to suggest to others is to try new things. You don't have to go to the gym and try out crazy YouTube workouts that seem near impossible because the instructor is some super fit and healthy person.

Home workouts provide a great environment to not only help give you confidence in trying new things, but also to try them where nobody is around. For example, The Body Coach provides low-impact (no jumping) home workouts for complete beginners. If you have home equipment such as dumbbells, or even something similar, home workouts such as this one, provided by Scott Herman, are absolutely great for learning new exercises due to the camera positioning and visual cues provided when needed.

Trying new exercises or routines has a number of other benefits as well, such as:

• Learning something new.
• They can keep your exercise routine exciting.
• Build muscles in areas you hadn't thought about before.
• Prevent repetitive strain injuries. Doing the same few exercises repeatedly can be more harmful than you think.
• They can help overcome plateaus. One of the reasons why people don't progress in fitness is because their body has become so used to the same few repeated exercises.
• ...and more!

Many years ago after I started gaining confidence in the gym, and buying new home workout equipment, I found looking up YouTubers such as Scott Herman, and Athlean-X (whom I've mentioned in another thread here) helped me develop my 'exercise dictionary' so-to-speak. The information they provide is not only educational, but scientifically and anatomically factual, which means you have less worry on whether or not the information being given is correct.

What kind of exercises or exercise routines do you like doing? Have you considered trying out any new exercises or workout routines?

[Everglow.]

These are really useful tips so thank you for sharing them. I'm a bit of an exercise-phobe because of my anxiety out of a weird irrational fear that people will make fun of me. The low impact exercises will definitely come in handy though because I can do them alone without drawing attention to myself at home. I'll definitely give them a go and see what works. In the past I've followed low impact youtube videos, or gone for walks. But variety is a good idea.

[Celyn]

Originally Posted by Everglow.

I'm a bit of an exercise-phobe because of my anxiety out of a weird irrational fear that people will make fun of me.

This. Combined with my health anxiety fear that I'll end up doing the exercise incorrectly and hurting myself in the process.

But I do want to add some variety into exercising. I recently dug out my wondercore which I'm hoping to do sit ups, press ups etc. because I don't feel comfortable doing them without having some kind of aid to make sure that I'm doing them properly. I'm not expecting great results or to look like the models advertising it, I just wanted it to help get me used to doing exercises properly before trying them on my own. I've never watched exercise tutorials on youtube but that's something I'd like to do as well, especially if you don't need any extra equipment.