How to take an introductory fitness class for beginners

Don’t just focus on movements and weights when you start the introductory fitness class for beginners. Spend half of the class first to understand your body’s foundation, and then start practicing from the most basic movement patterns. It’s better than anything else.

A while ago, I took over a young girl who had just graduated. I had hired a personal trainer who focused on "quick results". In the first class, I arranged 15 sets of Bulgarian split squats. I shouted "It's just soreness" and forced her to do it. As a result, the next day she went down the stairs with weak legs and fell. Her knees hurt for almost a week, and she even had to take leave from work. Later, when I evaluated her, I discovered that she had congenital knee hyperextension. Her previous squatting method was to lock the weight with her knees, so she was lucky not to injure her ligaments.

Speaking of it, there are indeed two completely different views in the fitness circle on how to take introductory classes. A friend of mine who runs a studio in Shangjian firmly believes in the "first effect" school. He said that most novices are interested in three minutes, and if they can come three times after applying for a card, it is considered an advantage. Quality customers, if you spend a class on improving posture and teaching joint mobility, people will think that you didn’t teach anything useful, and they will drop out of the class. You might as well just teach a few moves that look good in photos. Only if your muscles feel sore the next day after practicing, will they feel that the money was well spent. This statement is not unreasonable. I have seen too many novices sign up for a class and come only once, because they feel that the things they learned in the first class are too "watery" and cannot be posted on Moments.

But I have been a coach for four years and have coached nearly a hundred novices. I still feel that even if it is crowded, I still need to squeeze in 20 minutes for a basic assessment. There is no need to engage in professional assessment packages that easily cost hundreds of dollars. Just a few simple actions: stand naturally and see if there is an anterior pelvic tilt and rounded shoulders and head. Stretch and raise your arms above your head to see if you shrug unconsciously. Squat with bare hands to see if your knees are buckled in or your heels are lifted. After a few movements, your body's weak links and easy-to-compensate areas will be basically clear. You can completely avoid many unnecessary injuries when you practice later.

I just picked up a boy who works in game development last week. He had been practicing squats at home for half a month following the video. Every time he finished the exercise, his waist was so sore that he couldn't straighten up. He thought his core was too weak, so he practiced plank support like crazy. As a result, his back pain became worse and worse. When I evaluated him, I discovered that his ankle mobility was nearly 30% worse than that of ordinary people. When squatting until his thighs were parallel to the ground, he had to raise his heels two centimeters to stabilize himself. Before, when he squatted hard, he relied on his waist to push forward to compensate, which was not a core problem at all. Later, when I taught him how to do squats, I first put a one centimeter thick small barbell on his heels. After the first practice, he stared and said that his waist was not sore at all. He even said that the previous half month of training was in vain.

After evaluating the remaining half of the class, don’t be too busy adding weights. Just practice the most basic movement patterns - pushing, pulling, squatting, and hinges. For each movement, just use your bare hands or use a 1kg small dumbbell to feel the force. For example, when practicing seated rowing, you will first touch your latissimus dorsi. When you pull back, you can feel the tightness of this muscle. This is much more useful than shaking your arms and pulling a 15kg dumbbell. Many people think this is too simple. They pay hundreds of dollars for lessons and learn to row with bare hands. In fact, it is not at all. Novices can't find the feeling of exerting force. No matter how much weight they put on, they only reach the parts that can rely on force. In the end, their shoulders and waist hurt, and there is no reaction at all in the areas they want to practice.

I usually leave a very simple homework at the end of the first class, such as doing 10 standard dead-worm movements every day, which can not only relieve backache caused by sitting for a long time. I will check it next time I come to class. If the standard of the work can be praised, the students will have a sense of accomplishment and be willing to continue.

To put it bluntly, the most important thing about the novice introductory class is not how many movements you have learned in this class or how much weight you have practiced, but whether it can help you lower the threshold of fitness, without injury, and provide some small positive feedback. Otherwise, you will not be able to go downstairs in the first class. Next time you don’t even want to enter the gym, how can you talk about subsequent muscle gain and fat loss?