Why Gym Classes Can Be Better Than Free Training By Yourself

You may have been training by yourself for a while and some of your friends have been telling you good things about what training at the gym has done for them. You may just want to mix it up a little because you have hit a plateau. Whatever the reason, there are different things that recommend signing up for gym classes rather than soldiering on alone, and having to administer that kick to the butt you need by yourself. We are going to look at some of those reasons below.

Motivation

You know yourself better than anyone, and maybe you are one of those people who has no issues getting up in the morning to go out for a run, or on those bad days where they aren’t feeling very happy they just can’t bring themselves to get rolling.

Some people are not going to do much if they don’t have someone standing over them driving them onward to achieve their potential. Why? Because the alternative is much easier. Sitting around and letting that hard earned level of fitness decrease and that muscle mass turn to fat slots right into the attitude that a lot of people have outside the gym.

Even if you are going to the gym regularly, it is easier to slack off if it is just you running yourself.

If you enroll in classes today you are going to be around people that are motivated to make sure you stick with the program and reach your fitness goals, and your trainers can drive you until you start driving yourself.

Structure

When you are training yourself, unless you have a very well-worked out schedule that is designed to work all the muscle groups, and take care of aerobic exercise as well, you may end up all over the place, just doing what you feel like.

This is better than doing nothing, of course, but you may not be optimizing your regime to get the most from it. You may need to be doing more work in one particular area and neglecting other important aspects of training.

Classes are designed to make sure that you get a full workout, and that you address your needs in terms of both strength and stamina. Structure also comes in the form of having a regular schedule that you are attending, which is also going to train your body in a way that pushes it but also allows it to heal.

That structure will make it easier to keep training every week, and that regularity is going to make those goals easier to hit.

Maintaining Proper Form

When you are doing any aspect of training you want to make sure that you are doing it correctly or you are not going to get the benefits from it that you are wanting, and you could actually be doing damage to yourself.

When an instructor is giving a class they have a vested interest in making sure that they themselves use the correct form, and teach it correctly, and they are going to insure that it carries throughout the classes.

You are going to be exercising with not only the extra set of eyes that the instructor brings to the game, but all of your classmates as well. If you are unsure there are people to ask, and it is also easier to observe what the proper form should look like when others demonstrate it.

Safety

Whenever you are exercising there is always the potential for you to injure yourself, and while this is still true when you are in a group setting, the chances are greatly decreased.

You may be teamed up with someone that is going to spot you and make sure that you are keeping the correct form, and you have the instructor to hand, so you can make sure that you fully understand what you are supposed to be doing before you try it. There is less opportunity to do something wrong and hurt yourself in this scenario.

There can be a tendency to kind of fudge through things when you are by yourself, and work it out as you go along. This can mean that you don’t get the form right, so you aren’t getting the true benefit of the exercise, and you may be putting yourself at risk of injury every time you repeat the action. You owe it to yourself to be as safe as possible and why waste time doing something that might do nothing for you, or worse might leave you unable to exercise for a while?

Variety of Exercises

When you train it is not unusual that you find something that you enjoy doing more than other exercises. You may end up to the point where you are hobby horsing that one type of exercise to the detriment of your training and the benefits you get from it, so you take a lot longer to get anywhere near your fitness goals.

Classes, with their intention of making sure you get a full workout, are built around a variety of exercises. You may be doing cardio, kickboxing, Pilates, any number of combinations. Obviously you are signing up for a certain reason at the gym, and certain classes are going to be better suited to your needs, but you are going to be spoilt for choice.

Doing the same thing all the time, even if you like it, is going to eventually lead to boredom, and you may plateau. Variety tests your metabolism in different ways which is a great thing for your exercise.

Accountability

Signing up for a gym sometimes means you have to sign up for classes too. Being signed up and having it on your schedule can make it less likely that you are going to skip it. Another way to ensure that you feel more inclined to going to classes is to get some friends with similar fitness goals to sign up as well, and the thought of letting them down is more likely to make it so you turn up.

By yourself you may go to one thing, not turn up on a week where it is difficult, and then turn up again later, and not keep a good schedule. This isn’t going to give you any kind of solid routine that is going to contribute to your training, and you are going to get patchy results at best.

Behaviors can be habit forming and you want something that helps you rather than hinders you, so until you have it locked in, getting some encouragement to do so is not a bad thing.

Fun

Not to say that you aren’t going to have fun working out by yourself – some people have no trouble entertaining themselves, but being in a group puts a lot of energy into the space, and you can feed off that, and you can compete with others and add to that energy.

Whereas the whole thing can seem like a chore after a while if you are by yourself, and you are having to challenge yourself to even do the exercise (obviously not true for everyone), that group setting can have such a fun environment that you forget the whole work aspect of working out and you just enjoy the heck out of the whole thing. You can end up pushing yourself even further when you are enjoying yourself.

This kind of feeds into the motivation point, but it can be fun to see others doing well and getting a lot out of their training. You get to listen to the music, you get to meet people.

The Social Aspect

Meeting other people with the same interests is a great part of going to classes. Obviously you are there to get the benefits of the training, but making connections with people that are trying to achieve similar goals is going to make you want to go more. It is going to make you feel that you have a support network and you are going to look forward to your training.

It adds to the motivation on all levels. You can add some healthy competition to the mix, and you are going to have a whole load of people that are great resources for asking advice about what has worked for them in terms of training.

Training by yourself you get none of that. You set your own benchmarks, you are your own cheerleader, and you may be your own worst enemy when it comes to hitting those targets. Your friends that you make are going to keep you on target.

Conclusion

As you can see there are some very good arguments for not doing it all by yourself, and taking a class with some like minded people that are similarly motivated. Best of all you geyt to have the advice and enthusiasm of trained professionals at your disposal, and they are going to get you and everyone else in their classes moving in the same direction, and with all that energy, how could you not have fun? Training doesn’t have to be serious to be effective. You are going to love the atmosphere, and you may find that it increases your focus and helps you hit those fitness goals you set yourself earlier, and you  may have to come up with some brand new ones.