Sport and work: the mistakes that made me quit, and what finally worked
We tell ourselves every time that this time it's for real, I'm going to work out at least three times a week and get the body I've always wanted. But after a week, all sorts of reasons stop us from keeping our promises.
I've always had a particular approach to my life: I test, I fail, I adjust. With everything I take on, I try to look at it analytically and ask myself the same questions. What result am I getting? Is that normal or not? If it's not normal, what's the problem, and why? And finally, how do I fix it?
One thing matters more than anything in this approach: believing in effort, while staying realistic with yourself. Otherwise, you end up damaging your body and your mind. When it comes to sport, I've tried several methods at different points in my life. Let me tell you what worked and what didn't.
Should you start with a friend?
The first method: signing up at the gym with a friend and going together.
It's a good way to start, especially if the idea of walking into a gym alone for the first time makes you anxious, whether from low self-esteem, other people's eyes on you, or simply the fear of failing. For a first visit, or to discover this new "home" you'll be visiting several times a week, having someone with you really helps.
But the flaw in this method is huge. The motivation from sign-up day fades in less than a month, you get used to it, and by the second or third session, you lose that initial excitement. The excitement where, after each session, you told yourself "if I keep this up for two years, I'll look like that impressive man or woman training next to me." Then, little by little, the excuses arrive.
And your frequency drops sharply. It's hard to find a slot that suits you both. False excuses invent themselves. Sore muscles become a pretext for extra rest days. And what's missing, at bottom, is a realistic, sustainable plan.
What I took from it. For the very first visit, yes, call a friend to come along. But after that first time, you have to be clear with yourself: the only person you can trust in this fight is you. You're the only person you control one hundred percent, and the only one who, no matter what, can honor your commitments to yourself. You're alone in this fight, and it's better to accept that from the start.
If your friend is understanding and you feel up to it, be clear with him: "I'll come train x times a week, and I'll stick to my plan no matter what. If you want to come fight your own fight next to me, you're welcome, but let's not become an obstacle to each other."
By getting used to training alone from the start, you'll be more focused on your goals and your exercises. The results will be more visible. And you won't waste your time in the gym commenting on last night's football match or NBA game.
Which program should you choose?
The second important point, for me, is the program you've prepared, or had prepared for you. I've personally tested several types of training programs. There are countless choices, depending on the number of hours you spend at the gym, the number of days, which days and times, which muscles to work, the exercises and how many. By combining all these factors, you can create dozens of different programs. And I have concrete experience of the consequences of each of these choices.
The five-days-a-week program. I've tried a program with five sessions a week, an hour to an hour and a half maximum. Some athletes love this format, but personally, I'm not a strong supporter of it.
Why? Because you forget a series of things that, added together, end up killing your motivation, especially when you're starting out. The time to get ready, the round trip, the recovery time after the session, these are energy costs you never account for. And telling yourself that tomorrow you'll have to do it again, then the day after, and so on, wears down your motivation. On top of that, after two weekend days spent getting back to your comfort, Monday becomes hard, and that difficulty is enough to grant yourself the excuse that breaks the whole program.
The second mistake: doing too much. The other classic beginner mistake in weight training is having ambitions that are too big and overloading your sessions, often with several isolation exercises on the same muscle. But when you're starting out, the muscle isn't used to training yet, and it takes far less volume to trigger hypertrophy. By overloading, you waste the ease your body offers you during those first years, and you make things harder by putting yourself in very tough, unnecessary situations.
What worked for me. From my experience, the ideal way to start is to go to the gym three times a week, spacing out the sessions to let the body recover, plus one cardio session.
You spend two hours maximum at the gym, and you focus on one large muscle group per session. For example: Monday chest and abs, Wednesday legs and arms, Friday back and shoulders. On the weekend, you keep the cardio session, to do on Saturday or Sunday depending on your need for rest and your soreness, which always leaves at least one real full recovery day. To start out, it's an ideal setup.
What I take away
It's this plan that truly allowed me to train regularly, every week, alone, enjoying it as much as possible and seeing results arrive over time, the fruit of steady effort.
If I had to sum up: start with someone if you need to, but become independent quickly; don't overload your sessions when your beginner body responds to little; and choose a frequency you can keep all year rather than an impressive pace you'll abandon in three weeks. The best program isn't the most intense one, it's the one you'll still be following in six months.
This article shares a personal experience and does not replace the advice of a healthcare professional or a sports coach, especially in the case of a medical condition.
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