I was always more involved in physical activities than academic ones such as track and field events like long-distance and running as well as playing football. But due to the COVID-19 situation, I didn’t get much exposure to practice any of them, hence I wanted to try gyming to build up strength as well as muscles and lose fat, and get toned. Strength training was a completely new component of fitness that I had never explored hence trying was were challenging and fun at the same time.

LO 1:-

STRENGTHS:

• My endurance was one of the biggest advantages that I had as due to being a long-distance runner and a football player my endurance would allow me to train more as well as lift heavy. Knowing my endurance was very beneficial allowed me to be workout and train more, I was able to push myself more.
• I had a good form as well as techniques since we used to have fitness sessions in football as well track and field, compound exercises such as squats were done hence, my form for squat as well as techniques for other exercise helped me add more weights, and made the process a little faster.
• As being an athlete my body was used to moments, and workouts making it a little easier for me and my muscles to recover and wake up less sore than other beginners, knowing I developed a growth mindset and not one of those factors that would keep me back.

WEAKNESS:

• Since my lower body movement was more compared to my upper body movement, that would be considered as one of my weaknesses making my upper body strength weaker than lower body, it took me around a week to squat and rep 5 kgs but doing a chest press and repping it took me more than a week. Hence training my upper body was more challenging than training my lower body. Knowing I had weak upper body strength helped me train it more precisely and efficiently. Slowly and gradually it became easier, fun yet hard at the same time. Training my upper body helped me get a clear idea of my fitness goals.

LO 2:-

• Training with weights was harder for me as for years I was used to training with my body weight, especially my upper body as most of the bodyweight workouts I did would incorporate lower body and core more than my upper body. When I started training earlier I would go it no weights in order to get familiar with the form, it would be hard as the bar for compound exercises itself felt so heavy. As for Isolation movements doing it with machines itself was hard, exercises such as chest press, and ones that require upper body strength were hard without weights.
• As I mentioned before I have done bodyweight workouts for strength and endurance but other than that I haven’t done anything like strength training and weight lifting.
• In order to overcome challenges I increased sets, and reps every single time I worked out as well I used progressive overload in order to build my muscle strength. Progressive Overload is gradually increasing the number of weights, frequency, or number of repetitions. For example, if I am squatting 5 kgs,15 reps, and 3 sets and am very comfortable with it,I would increase each set by 2 reps or if 5 kgs would get very lightweight for me then I would add 2.5 kgs.
• I feel accomplished having this challenge undertaken as it forms great strength for my upper body, and builds a stronger mentality that will help me grow in every aspect of life not just working out for my dream physique but also towards my life goals.
• I find it very important to learn new skills, they initiate a different type of mindset and help us train both our mind and body at the same time. Doing core exercises helped me build core strength as well as a mentality to work hard with suffering towards my goals.

LO 4:-

Staying committed to working out in the gym was hard, there were many days when I just wanted to lay on the bed and keep on binging Netflix but those were days that I had to get up and go, get a good workout done. During this process, I realized there is no such thing as motivation. Discipline and consistency is the key to reaching any goals in life and so is patience. I used to work out for a week, saw no results, and started binging on unhealthy snacks and high-calorie, less nutritious foods making it hard for me to see my progress. And that working out for a whole week won’t give me abs or help me build my back, it’s patience, discipline and consistency will since it is a long-term process.

All in all, through going gym and working on my health and fitness. I learned that without consistency and self-discipline you will not get any results. Gyming also helped me gain mental strength and it allowed me to push myself more in every aspect of life and become more mindful than intuitive, it gave me a direction to think more realistically such as working out for 2 weeks won’t give me abs or results right away, in order to get results, I need to consistent in everything be it studying, working out or anything.And if I couldn’t make it to gym I do workout at my house.