Despite the fact that you probably know a lot of people who love their workouts, studies show that 80% of American adults don’t get the required amount of exercise to stay healthy. As you might imagine, this leads to problems like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
For this reason, exercise is essential, and one of the best ways to get it while building muscle and upper body strength is by lifting weights. Here we’re going to give you a beginner’s guide to Olympic weightlifting to help you stay fit!
Know Why You’re Doing It
Even though you’re working on Olympic weightlifting, you almost certainly know that you aren’t doing it to get into the actual Olympic games. It’s important, then, to identify what you hope to get out of your time spent exercising. This will let you set realistic goals, create a schedule, and work your way up to what you want to do.
One of the biggest reasons you’re doing CrossFit is probably because you want to stay healthy. This is one of the best goals of exercise since obesity-related illnesses are the highest cause of death in America. Since you’ll be exercising, you’ll be keeping heart healthy and preventing other issues with your muscles. All in all, it’s totally worth it!
If you want another more tangible goal to work up to, consider enrolling in local weightlifting competitions! There are a lot of bonuses to doing this, and you’re bound to have fun.
Work Your Way Up
As with pretty much any workout, you’re not going to start lifting a hundred pounds right away. Instead, you should work your way up the ladder and start with a smaller amount of weight than your goal is. This will let you build up muscle and make it easier for you to lift more weights. A slow progression will be easier on your muscles and not cause strain and tear.
Another part of working yourself up to your goals is building up to longer workouts. In the beginning, your workouts shouldn’t be that long. Twenty minutes or so should do the trick. After a while, though, you’ll have worked up to hour-long sessions!
Take Rests
Lots of people don’t think about it, but taking breaks in workouts is just as important as the actual exercise. You should really only be intensely working out three days a week. This will ensure that you don’t pull muscles and tear tendons.
Taking rests also lets your muscles have the time to build strength! When you lift weights, your muscles break down and build back up to be stronger. Breaks are the time where your muscles will strengthen, so you need them unless you want to just wear your body down.
The Beginner’s Guide to Olympic Weightlifting
While a lot of people struggle to get motivated to exercise, it’s a very important part of anyone’s routine. Plus, weightlifting isn’t a chore as long as you know your goals and limits. It’s fun!
Now that you’ve read this beginner’s guide to Olympic weightlifting, it’s time to get started with CrossFit! Click here to start your journey to health and wellness.
Enjoy the workout! Stay healthy!