Introductory fitness books for beginners

First match your current needs. Don’t blindly chase popular products or chew through tomes. 90% of novices buy fitness books for the first time and fall into the trap. They take back professional textbooks that are thick enough to smash walnuts. After turning 3 pages, they throw them in the corner to gather dust.

I also encountered this pitfall when I first got into fitness. At that time, I saw a blogger recommending "Schwarzenegger's Complete Book of Fitness" as the "Bible" for fitness people. I placed the order without saying anything. When I received it, I was stunned. There were more than 500 pages, all of which were professional terms and bodybuilding-style training plans. I couldn't even hold a 10kg dumbbell. A novice who was unsure of how to hold it flipped through two pages about the difference between the long head and short head of the triceps brachii and put it on the top shelf of the bookshelf. It wasn’t until after practicing for more than a year that he could accurately find the force feeling of each muscle. Then he turned it out again and found that the comparison of correct and incorrect movements in it was more detailed than that of many novice trainers in gyms. Nowadays, many people complain that this book is too old. It is based on the training logic of bodybuilding in the last century and is not suitable for ordinary enthusiasts who want to get in shape and improve their physical fitness. This really makes sense. If you don’t want to build big muscles at all and just want to move around after get off work to lose some belly fat, this book is indeed too heavy for you and has extremely low cost performance.

At this time, it is more practical to have a thin, full-color page, a small practical book with correct and incorrect photos of each action, such as the common "Basic Illustration of Muscle Strength Training", which can be carried in a gym bag. Just glance at it before practicing and you will know how to do it. When squatting, the knee should not be higher than the toes, and the arc of the waist should be maintained when deadlifting. It is much more reliable than the scattered short videos you can search on the Internet. After all, most authors who write books have to endorse the content and will not just make up wild moves for you that are easy to hurt your joints. Some people think that this kind of book is too shallow and contains little useful information. However, for novices, it is much more important to ensure that the movements are not injured first than to understand super sets and drop sets. Oh, by the way, if you don’t have time to go to the gym and just want to exercise at home, then books like "Fitness Without Equipment" are also very popular. I have a friend who practiced with this book for three months. The mineral water bottle and the back of the sofa at home were used as temporary equipment. His waist circumference was reduced by 7 cm. Of course, if your goal is to increase muscle and strength, the training intensity of this kind of book is indeed not enough, so there is no need to stick to it.

If you are always confused by various fitness rumors, such as "Will doing abdominal exercises make your waist thicker?" "Will drinking protein powder hurt the kidneys?" "Do you need to eat as much protein powder as you need to practice?", then you can look for a few reliable introductory books on sports nutrition, such as "The Complete Book of Fitness Nutrition", which has more evidence-based content and does not have messy folk remedies such as "Fat diet" and "Acidic body constitution". However, Some people also say that this book is too dry and reads like a college textbook and cannot be read. Then you can choose the more popular "Exercise Diet 1:9". Although many people complain that it exaggerates the role of diet and says that "9 points for eating and 1 point for exercise" is too extreme. But for people who can't control their mouths and go to the gym every day to lose weight, just waking them up is better than drinking a cup of milk tea full of sugar after practicing for 2 hours a day.

I once took care of a child who had just entered college. He ran 5 kilometers a day to lose weight. He ate less than a cat and fainted twice in half a month. Later, I gave him a thin introductory booklet on sports nutrition. Then he realized that eating less is not always better, but also counts basal metabolism. Now he eats normally and does strength training. He has lost 20 pounds in three months and is more energetic. Think about it, you can’t even hold a dumbbell firmly. Even if you memorize the starting and ending points of the muscles, you still can’t feel the force during exercise. What’s the use?

Oh, by the way, there are also books with the words "Lose 10 pounds in 7 days" and "Lie flat and build a vest line" on the cover. It's not that you can't buy it at all, but you have to figure out its positioning. If you want to take wedding photos or attend an important class reunion next week and want to save the day, the dehydration and low-carbohydrate method in it can indeed make you lose weight quickly. But if you want to keep fit and improve your posture for a long time, don't use this kind of book as a long-term guide. There is a high probability that it will rebound and damage your basal metabolism.

There is really no need to worry about which one is best to buy. I have seen many people hoard a shelf of fitness books and never even complete a complete training. It is better to just pick one that meets your current needs and follow it for a round. It will be better than anything else. If you really can't make up your mind, go to the gym and find a well-proportioned veteran who has been practicing for three to five years and see what kind of books they are turning over in their hands. Then you are right to buy them. After all, only those books that can be turned into pieces are really useful.