Don't Overthink These Things When You're Getting Into Fitness - Lifehacker

That’s all you really need to know to get moving.

Should you do eight to 12 repetitions of each strength exercise?

As a beginner you really don’t need to worry about whether you’re in the “optimal” rep range for your goals, so long as each set feels like hard work.

But you don’t need to connect that to your fitness goals.

One of the first things you need to learn when you take up running is how to run slow enough that you don’t exhaust yourself in the first 30 seconds.

But if you’re squatting a loaded barbell and it feels good and the weight is moving well, you don’t need to obsessively rewatch videos of yourself in search of subtle signs of “knee cave” or “butt wink.”.

As long as you’re doing some kind of cardio and some kind of strength training, you’ll be okay.

Whether we’re talking cardio or strength, the point of a warmup is to prepare you for the workout ahead.

All the gadgets these days can measure your heart rate and tell you whether you’re in the right “zone” for the kind of training you intend to do.

But they all use a formula based on your maximum heart rate, and they’re probably wrong?

While there are formulas that can guess your maximum heart rate, every body is different, and your gadget doesn’t actually know your max heart rate unless you’ve done a max effort (which, as a beginner, you probably never have.).

Instead, know that most cardio should be done in “zone 2,” which is the effort level where you’re breathing a bit harder than at rest, but you can still easily hold a conversation and you don’t feel out of breath.

Go by these perceived effort levels at first, and simply notice what your heart rate is when you’re in them.

If a heart rate of 135 feels hot and sweaty but not killer, that’s probably in your zone 2, no matter what your watch says.

If you’re doing the exercise, the muscle is working, whether you feel it or not.

You know that about everyday life: you don’t expect to be optimally focused at work every single day or equally patient with your kids every second of every hour.

But the truth is, a lot of people in there don’t know what they’re doing

And if somebody tells you you’re doing something wrong, don’t question all your life choices up to that point