Fitness Goals for Beginners
At some point, everyone is a beginner. Whether you’ve started on your fitness journey 10 minutes ago or you’ve been at it for 10 years! Regardless, we can all remember what it’s like to be challenged to learn new things, and maybe feel a little daunted by the whole thing.
That’s where this little gem fits right in…”You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” A favourite quote of todays’ PT expert, Andrew Franze.
Based a Zap Fitness Prospect, Andrew specialises in getting beginners at the gym to feel comfortable and build the body and mindset they set out to achieve. “I put a strong emphasis on the psychology behind what motivates my clients and new-comers to the gym. I think my involvement in psychology at school sparked this interest. I want everyone in the gym to have a purpose of why they are there and have an action plan to stay consistent and reliable to themselves.” Andrew explains.
With a broad fitness background under his belt, Andrew has worked as an Aqua Aerobics instructor, group class instructor, outdoor bootcamp trainer and then finally becoming a qualified personal trainer at the end of 2017, Andrew joined the Zap Fitness team in April 2018 and is loving it.
As a bona fide specialist in helping beginners reach their goals, Andrew has some pretty clear recommendations when it comes to setting out fitness goals, “I would advise starting from the end point and working backwards to the starting point. Determine your end goal and how you want to look, feel, progress, and think. Visualise that end goal. How will life be better? Why do you want to look/ feel this way? Is it worth your time and energy? Then work backwards to determine the steps you need to take from the very beginning to make this goal a reality.”
Speaking of reality, Andrew offers up his proven method to help beginners create realistic new habits, and stick to them, “Always start small. Your body needs time to adapt and the last thing you need to do is shock your body and mind by making too many changes too quickly. Determine one specific sticking point in your lifestyle that you need to improve to get closer to your goal and solely focus on fixing that – one step at a time. For example, if you struggle with getting over sweets before bed – focus on just that challenge first. Don’t try and fix everything at once.” says Andrew
According to Andrew, another one of the biggest things that derails new gym goers is expecting too much of themselves, “Don’t expect quick results. Don’t expect yourself to completely re-invent all the foods in your pantry, train 7 days a week AND go to sleep at 7pm every night right from the moment you decide to make a change. Do it slowly, be surprised by the progress you make. Don’t tell yourself you will quit if you don’t see results, rather, tell yourself you won’t quit until you do.”
As an expert in the delivery of motivation, the role of any PT worth their salt is to guide their clients through lulls in motivation, Andrew finds that it pays to remind his clients why they started, “Long term progress happens slowly. Don’t be in it for the short-term; you are now on a journey, a quest for a better lifestyle. In ten years’ time, you won’t care what the scales showed this month. Accept the fact that it’s not easy and it will be hard, and it will take time, energy, and persistence- after all, if it were easy, everyone would do it.”
Andrew stresses though that motivation will only take you so far, “In my opinion, motivation is a tool people use to fire themselves up when they lose sight of their direction. I believe motivation should only be used to propel you forward temporarily until you grow your own fire within you. Discipline, on the other hand, is focus. Discipline is knowing where you are going, knowing that every step you take is getting you closer to your goal and knowing all the pain WILL be worth it.”
Just to prove that Andrew is, indeed, an actual human, he reveals out his own bag of tricks what keeps him on track, “The way I feel when I eat healthy and exercise keeps me going, as simple as that. I don’t feel as good and I don’t feel as confident when I avoid the gym and give in to my lazy tendencies. My body tells me I can’t stop, and my progress tells me I must keep going.”
– By Prue Houston
Contact Andrew Franze at Zap Fitness Prospect
Phone: 0415 877 195
Email: [email protected]
Instagram: Andy Franze