To look at calisthenics athlete and fitness influencer Chris Heria, you'd think there's nothing he doesn't know about working outbut that wasn't always the case. In a new YouTube video, Heria shares five pieces of advice for people who are just starting out on their own fitness journey, inspired by the mistakes he made himself as a gym beginner.
"If you're not already doing so, being very aware of your macronutrients and having a balanced diet will immediately give you results," says Heria.
"When I first started working out, I was abut 135, 140 pounds, and I always knew you needed to eat to grow, and the importance of protein, and I would increase my calories and my protein intake to gain more muscle mass. But in the beginning I wouldn't track my macros; it was a lot of trial and error for me in the beginning, but if I had counted my macros, I probably would have gained a lot more muscle a lot faster."
Knowing how and when to breathe during a workout can make a huge difference in terms of your rep count and ability to lift heavier, Heria explains. "If you exhale all your air going down in a heavy squat, you may not be able to come back up," he says. "But if you exhale going up on your squat, you're going to be able to deliver more power, which is going to increase your repetitions. And if you're increasing repetitions, you'll be able to build more strength and muscle."
Ensure you are breathing in through your nose and filling up your diaphragm, then breathing out through your mouth, emptying out the diaphragm. "Breathing like this allows more oxygen into your body, which is needed for your brain and muscles while you're working out," he says.
When Heria first started working out, he had the common misconception that he couldn't start training for more advanced calisthenics exercises until he was at an advanced level. However, there are plenty of beginner-friendly progressions which can help you to prepare for those more complex moves.
"If I'd known exactly what progressions to do, in the exact order, I would have achieved these exercises way sooner, and I would have hit way less plateaus in the process," he says. "On the same note, knowing when to progress onto the next progression and not staying on one progression for too long, is very important."
Having a better understanding of your own body and how each muscle works is key to maximizing the effectiveness of your workouts, says Heria. "Without a proper understanding of physiology and anatomy, you can be walking into the gym thinking that you're going to get big arms just by doing dumbbell curls, not understanding that there's many muscle groups in your arm that make up and help the strength in your arms."
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"Find a physical activity that you're passionate about, and use it as natural motivation to work out," Heria advises. Prior to starting his calisthenics training, he was involved in skateboarding and martial arts, and he found that improving his performance in one area tended to have a positive impact on other aspects of his fitness too.
"Every time I would see improvements in my strength and workouts, I would see it transfer over into my other physical activities, like having more powerful legs for skateboarding, improved cardio for endurance, and more explosive power for martial arts," he says. "This mindset of having another purpose changed the whole mood for my workouts; instead of dreading my cardio sessions, I was actually excited and pumped to work out, because every time I would train and get stronger I would get better at my craft. That was easy motivation for me to be more consistent and train harder."
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A Calisthenics Athlete Shared the 5 Workout and Diet Tips He Wishes He'd Known as a Beginner - menshealth.com
