Let me introduce myself, my name is Zakaria and I’m currently 21 years old, Weight-lifting changed literally my life. I’ve never been a person interested in sports or any physical activity until 19 years old. Being overweight, I always felt insecure and had a poor physical condition. I suffered a lot of ridicule and bullying especially in school due to my fat frame, my teenage life was full of self-confidence issues which led me to a terrible depression and loneliness. Two years ago I discovered how rewarding going to the gym to work on weightlifting was, it was a little bit weird and hard in the beginning because I had zero knowledge about proper training techniques, however, I was very determined to workout. Once I started to notice the changes physically and most important mentally it became a lifestyle. In this article, I’m going to give you a rundown on how to get started in weightlifting, and how it can be beneficial in anyone’s life, whether you’re going through a hard time or just need to find a way to stay fit and gain strength, weight-training brings it all.

 

How to start yours

When you think of weight training, bodybuilders with bulky muscles and chiseled chests come to your mind, but it’s not totally true. Starting as a beginner, the first thing to do is to get yourself to the gym as that is one of the hardest parts when you’re just starting. When you start training, try to stay safe and learn to train with the correct form using lighter weights as your body will first need to get into the habit of training with weights, this will decrease your chance of injury and soreness, once you master the technique then start to upgrade weights. During this process of adaptation, it is expected to feel a huge soreness in your muscles, to feel tired and not having the desire to train. With time you will be able to surpass all that and go to the gym no matter what. Therefore it is going important to consume foods that are nutritious such as sources of protein, carbohydrates, and healthy fats and to get the right amount of rest to recover. You should wait at least 48 hours before you train the same muscle group once again.

Benefits of weight-training

Training with weights has many advantages associated with it.  

Weight-lifting cannot be boring:

Switching up your routine to keep your body guessing is the perfect way to receive strength gains and to enjoy training instead of feeling bored. There are various compound movements that weight-training offers in order to engage multiple muscle groups such as Squats, deadlifts, and shoulder presses. Deadlifts are my all-time favorite compound movement, it helped me a lot to gain strength and improve my posture and mobility. Deadlifts are pretty much one of the main staples in any training program in my opinion. Isolation techniques also form a huge part of weight-training. Isolation exercises allow you to focus on just one area, you can work on proper technique and load the muscle with an exact amount of weight and reps to work it to exhaustion.

Weight-training can be very beneficial for your health:

Strength training has you burning through glucose which is good news for people who want their insulin level to stay regular alongside with diabetes who need consistently to manage blood sugar levels. It also improves bone density. Strength training helps to increase the number of calories you burn in a day and thereby shed extra pounds.

Weight-lifting helps you deal with stress and improves your self-confidence:

Stress can be caused by many things your work, your studies, your family, or your life in general. However weight-lifting can be the solution for all your stress-related troubles. It will help you feel much happier and build up self-confidence. While you gain muscle and start noticing changes that give you massive boost confidence. You prove to yourself that if you set yourself goals and work towards them, you can achieve anything. Lifting weights is the perfect space to practice goal setting, planning and prioritization because it’s the fastest and easiest way to improve.

Drawbacks

Is weight-lifting bad for you? No, not really, however training with weights can have some disadvantages as well. After working out it is common to experience muscle soreness, muscles go through a bite of physical stress when you exercise. That discomfort that occurs between 24 to 48 hours after activity is totally normal, you’ll get used to it with time. Weight-training can be dangerous if the load used is too heavy and used with poor form. It’s always recommended to train with the correct posture and technique and don’t let your ego get in the way.

Find people who support and motivate you

 

When you begin, it’s not easy to keep yourself always motivated, gyms are a good place to come across people who have similar goals to yours it will be helpful to support and motivate each other with various fitness tips. Groups and pages of fitness on social media platforms can be a good idea also as you can share with people interested in weight-training your passion and exchange ideas and tips with them. Motivating each other can also take the form of asking for their opinion, so be sure to ask them for their thoughts and opinions on various health and training related topics. Fitness and bodybuilding events also are a great place to find people interested in weight-training.

Weight-lifting helped me to develop myself as a human being, helped me to build confidence, it also helped me free myself from my fears. It became my type of meditation, It’s eventually the only moment in the day I can focus on myself. I’m still learning new things about training, but all I know for sure is that I’m going to keep pushing myself to do more which is easy when you are doing what you love. I hope you begin your long exciting journey into weight-training, it is really worth it and can be one of the most rewarding challenges you can take up in your life. Good luck and remember to stay safe.