Tips to help you live a fit life!
- Don’t obsess over the scale! Age isn’t the only thing that is just a number; your weight is too. The number on the scale doesn’t always accurately represent your fitness success. It is possible to weigh more or stay the same while shrinking in size because muscle is more dense than fat. If you choose to weigh yourself, stay consistent. Weigh in the morning on an empty stomach and no more than every two weeks. As a better alternative, use how your clothes fit or take measurements once every two weeks to a month to see how far you’ve truly come! Using a measuring tape or even a string and a ruler, measure your waist, hips, upper thigh, upper arm and neck. Keep these measurements along with the date you took them in a journal and track your progress. It’s much better than some stupid digital number.
- Take a “before” picture. This doesn’t have to be for anyone’s eyes but your own. Take a picture in a bathing suit. Even if you can’t stand to look at it, hide it in some remote dust-accumulating box in the back of your closet. In a couple of months, you will want to look back and see how much you have transformed, and it will motivate you to keep pushing harder because remember, this is a lifestyle change not just a temporary fix.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you are a student at UF, you have no idea how much help is available at your fingertips. Southwest Recreation Center offers personal trainers, group fitness classes, a personal fitness assessment and small group training at an affordable cost for students. These individuals are highly trained and some have gone through major physical transformations of their own. They are there to help, so ask if you have any questions!
- Give it all you got! Okay, you made it to the gym. Bravo! Now, it’s up to you. As college students, we are in our prime. Our metabolisms, energy levels and responsibilities—let’s be real, we don’t have many of those right now—are only going to get worse after graduation. Capitalize on your time now. Give it all you got in the gym. You should invest as much effort in your health as you do in school. Consistency is key, and don’t be discouraged if you don’t see results by tomorrow. The most important thing to remember is being better than YOU were yesterday. Set a goal. Reward yourself when you achieve it. Keep going.
“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” –Helen Keller
WTF does does that mean?
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Meathead Term |
Definition |
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Rep or repetition |
The number of times a lift or exercise movement is made continuously without rest. |
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Sets |
A group of repetitions. Each workout usually contains multiple sets of each exercise. |
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Superset |
A combination of two or more exercises performed one after the other without rest, equaling one set. For example: If you superset 20 crunches with 20 push-ups, you would do the crunches, immediately after perform the pushups, then take a short rest. That is one superset. Repeat for the desired number of sets. |
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Circuit |
Similar to supersets, circuit training is multiple exercises performed one after the other without rest. When all exercises have been performed, that’s one circuit. After a short rest, one will repeat the same circuit for a desired number of times (usually 2-4). This is a great way to build strength and endurance while keeping the tempo high enough to sizzle the fat away. |
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Plyos or plyometric |
Also known as “jump training.” These explosive exercises are designed to use short bursts of maximum energy in a short amount of time. Think: box jumps, squat jumps and jump switches. |
