Is gym fitness useful?

It is absolutely useful for the vast majority of people who are willing to spend time and find the right method, but if you hold on to the expectation that "applying for a card will mean losing weight" and "you can get your vest line after two visits", it will most likely be useless.

I met a young man who worked in Internet operations two years ago. He sat in front of the computer for 12 hours a day. When he had a protruding waist, he had trouble tying his shoelaces. The doctor asked him to strengthen his core and lower back muscles. He practiced Xiaoyanfei at home for half a month. The more he practiced, the worse the pain became. Later, I went to the gym to find a sports rehabilitation coach, adjusted my movement patterns, and used fixed equipment to train my back and core three times a week. In less than half a year, my lumbar protrusion basically didn’t happen again. I even ran a half-marathon last month. This is a real and tangible effect.

But if you browse fitness forums, you must have seen many people patting their chests and saying that gyms are purely IQ taxes. This is not unreasonable - the girl next to my desk snatched the annual card of a chain gym on Double 11 last year, which cost more than one yuan a day. As a result, the card holder has not been removed yet. She is too tired after get off work and doesn't want to use it. Do you think this card will be useful to her? You can't just put the card in your wallet and your muscles will grow and your body fat will fall off, right?

I have come into contact with both groups that are arguing fiercely on the Internet. One group says that you can practice bodyweight squats, push-ups, and jumping jacks at home by following videos at home and running laps in the park. This is really not an argument. During the three months of the epidemic lockdown, I also lost weight in two months. 6 pounds, my core is much more stable. I can usually carry 20 pounds of cat litter up to the sixth floor without gasping for breath. If your need is just to "move around to sweat and maintain basal metabolism", there is really no need to spend thousands to apply for a card. Running twice downstairs is not bad.

But the other group says that "practicing at home is nonsense, only the gym can build a good figure", and there is truth in it. I used to practice back training at home for almost a year, but I always felt that the strength was not right. Then I went to the gym to use a high pull-down machine and adjusted the appropriate weight. I practiced latissimus dorsi for three days for the first time. It was a stimulation that could not be achieved by rowing with a mineral water bottle at home - if your goal is to gain muscle and shape your body. , impact powerlifting performance, or if you have postural problems such as lumbar protrusion or rounded shoulders that need to be improved, the fixed equipment in the gym (the trajectories are specially optimized for novices, which can reduce the risk of compensation), the training atmosphere, and the professional guidance you can find can indeed help you avoid detours for at least half a year.

To be honest, it is never the gym that is useless, it is the wrong way to open it. Last week I met a girl at the gym. She set the resistance of the elliptical machine to the maximum and pedaled for ten minutes until she was almost out of breath. Then she sat in the rest area and took photos for twenty minutes. She ordered a cup of full-sugar milk tea and drank it for half an hour. Then she packed up and left. What do you think her trip would be for except a waste of time and money? There is also the kind of guy who deadlifts with heavy weights and bends over so that his face turns red. The guy I saw last time went directly to the hospital to take a lumbar spine X-ray the next day after training. The money he spent was more expensive than a half-year fitness card. This is not fitness at all. He is delivering performance to the hospital.

I have been practicing by myself for almost three years. I practiced blindly at the beginning, following online videos to learn movements. After half a year, my shoulders were not widened, and I also developed acromion impingement. It hurt for almost a month. Later, I followed a veteran in the gym who has been practicing for ten years. To feel stronger, I practice four times a week for an hour each time, without using my phone or taking pictures. Now my rounded shoulders have improved, and my physical condition that caused me to catch colds during the change of seasons has improved a lot. Last year, the problem of high blood lipids in my physical examination was normal this year. These are real benefits that I got, not some fabricated chicken soup on the Internet.

In fact, there is really no need to worry about whether the gym is useful or not. If you are not sure, just spend tens of dollars to buy a weekly card, practice three or four times, try out the equipment, feel the atmosphere, and see if you can persist. It will be more effective than reading a hundred posts on the Internet about "Is the gym a tax on IQ?" To put it bluntly, the gym is a place that provides you with professional tools, which are no different from the watercolor pens, ovens, and skateboards you buy. If you use them every day, they can help you get the results you want. If you leave them to collect dust, then they are just a display that takes up space and wastes money. It is never the venue that has the final say, but you.