National World reporter, David George joins Horizon Havant Leisure Centre with all you need to know about basic gym training
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 With the new year in full swing people have been arriving in droves at gyms across the UK.
00:08 Each gym has its own setup but generally speaking the machines, weights and exercise benches are largely the same.
00:15 However if your New Year's resolution is to frequent the gym and get fit it can be quite daunting on the first few visits.
00:22 Instead of forking out for a personal trainer we've been given a tailor-made workout for beginners by Horizon Havn't.
00:29 So Mark we're here at Horizon Havn't, can you just explain what we're going to be going through today?
00:34 So first things first, if you've not been to Horizon Havn't before we will give you a welcome visit which is a walk around to show you exactly where everything is,
00:40 what sections of the gym we have, the cardio section, the strength section etc, where the changing rooms are, the water fountain, all the important things.
00:47 After that we'll sit down and we can book you in for an induction where we'll sit down and talk about you, what your goals are, what you want to achieve, any health concerns you've had previously.
00:56 And that's where we're going to sit down and write you a programme designed for you to get you to your goals.
01:00 Excellent, and if you're new to the first week and you've just joined the gym for 2024, your New Year's resolution, what sort of exercises should you be looking to do?
01:07 So I'd recommend we start off with a little bit of light cardio to start off with and a bit of strength work.
01:12 Excellent stuff, let's get into it.
01:16 So today we're doing the treadmill. The idea of the treadmill today is we do between 5 and 10 minutes and it's purely just to warm up.
01:22 So we're not going flat out into a sprint or a run, it's just to start off slowly, get the joints warmed up, get the blood flowing so we're then ready to go on to our strength exercise afterwards.
01:31 So again it's just keeping your body upright, getting your breathing into a nice rhythm and you'll pace yourself off your breathing really.
01:42 So on each machine there's a little illustration telling us what target muscles we're hitting on each machine, the name of the machine and a start and finish position.
01:48 So on the shoulder press we're just going to start off at the lower point and we're going to push up to full extension and then bring back down.
01:55 Everything's done in controlled, slow paced movements to make sure we're targeting the muscles right the way through in movement.
02:07 So we've pulled down, we're starting at full extension and we're pulling the weight resistance down.
02:12 The key point of this is making sure our elbows are back behind our bodies, we're not pulling to the front, we're not leaning back.
02:18 So we're leaning forward into the machine and really squeezing and contracting our back muscles.
02:22 Bench press again, it's coming in this range of motion so we're starting the weight far back, we're driving the weight forward, keeping everything nice and controlled.
02:35 Similar pace, one or two seconds on the way up, one or two seconds on the way down.
02:39 And again, aiming for the 10 to 12 repetition range, we're not going for high reps or nothing lower than that, we're just getting the muscles used to that movement.
02:47 So again, all the resistance machines have set up positions, set up for the chest pad, set up for the seat height, depending on a person's stature.
03:01 Again, full stretch on the row as it goes forward and we're squeezing that row back again, making sure we're using and contracting our back muscles.
03:08 So legs again is the biggest muscle group in the body. We start off with the leg extension, making sure we're setting the machines up correctly, which the instructor will go through and show you.
03:21 And making sure we're getting full extension, fully squeezing those muscle groups.
03:29 So leg curl is hitting more of the back part of our hamstrings and glutes and again, it's setting the machine up correctly and just going through in a nice controlled manner, squeezing the weight up and controlling on the way down.
03:47 So leg press is hitting all the muscles in our legs. We set the range of motion to as deep as we can go comfortably without straining ourselves and again, we're just extending, pushing the weight back, controlling it on the way down.
04:06 Abdominal crunch, okay, so we want to make sure we're working our core, it's probably one of the most important areas in the body. And again, that position we're just starting off, we're just crunching our abdominals forward and down.
04:21 So the plank is a really good exercise for hitting our core, not just the front but our lower backs as well. And again, they're very important areas. I'd start off slow, maybe set sort of 20 second targets.
04:32 Then have another 60 seconds off and do another 20 seconds and it's something we can build up over time. So 20 seconds become 25 seconds, 25 seconds become 30 seconds. It's something you can focus on over time.
04:46 So the cross trace day is going to be the last exercise. It's more of a cool down exercise, it's going to bring your heart rate down slowly. We're not going flat out, we're not going at high speed, it's just literally a slow pace, 5 to 10 minutes just to cool ourselves down with.
05:00 It's just a way of bringing our heart rate down, getting rid of the lactic acid stores in the body, just flushing everything through nice and gently as we finish our workout off.
05:14 Okay, so we're all done at Horizon in Haven. Thank you so much to the guys for inviting us in and to Mark, the manager, for taking us through his workout. I am absolutely knackered now, so I'm going to go home, lay down and have a cry.
05:25 Bye!
05:27 [Music]