The benefits of group exercise

When people first join a gym or fitness centre they are often unsure about what to do with the machinery there or even how to best use the gym to get the best results. So what do these people do when they are just on the beginning of their own fitness journey this summer?

There are often two groups. The stubborn thinkers who mostly begin using a piece of equipment incorrectly and exercising wrongly but won’t take any direction from anyone and indeed continue to do these every time they enter the gym. Then there is the second group who actually want to take some advice from the experienced and trained professionals who will indeed grow from the wise words of others and eventually grow their own exercise playbook.

Whether you’re a beginner at the gym or you don’t have the basic exercise knowledge behind you it may seem that group classes or exercises might be the answer for your lack of experience. Joining a group class can help to build a solid foundation that you can rely on later down the line with your own training schedules.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of group exercising and how it can help over a no-doubt-busy period of training for most people of the summer months.

Proper form

The one biggest mistake most people can make when exercising is that they do not keep the correct form during exercises. This can lead to injuries and more importantly the waste of your own time as you won’t be hitting the muscle groups you want to. During group exercises it’s the instructor’s job to not only show you the correct form but to make sure that everyone is completing the exercise correctly. Seeing everyone carrying out proper form with good timing will only increase your chances of remembering this when exercising alone in your own training time starting over the remaining months.

Time management and structure

Group fitness is a great way to become accustomed to the rigours of timed and planned workouts for your eventual own training. With lots of people being really busy in the summer months it can be hard to plan your training around your life but with a planned trip to a class two or three times a week you can train yourself to become more time organised and have a plan of your own too. Most group classes have some form of warm up and cool down which can only help towards the prevention of injuries and keeping your body in the best possible shape it needs to be. This is also something you should aim to implement into your new structured summer training life as it will help with all aspects of your training.

Motivational

Everyone who has ever entered a gym or tried some form of training on their own knows too well the wall you might hit at some point that really tests your own personal commitment to the cause or your motivation, especially during those sweat infused long summer months. Being part of a group class or exercise can seriously improve your motivation to the cause of getting and staying fit. It’s highly empowering knowing that a group of people with the same goal as you are turning up each week during the hot summer months to conquer their goals, and that you are a permanent fixture in the class too. You can always be the helpful one during a class to someone who is slightly faltering or you can be the recipient of a well needed push or shout to dig deeper if you are coming up short yourself.

So do yourselves a favour and make sure to get involved in an organised group exercise or training of some kind and reap the benefits to improve your own fitness goals. Go out there help other and yourself to just ‘Do The Damn Thing!’.