Starting Out at the Gym? Give It a Month for £30 with Code STARTOUT5

Thinking about starting the gym, getting back into training or simply trying somewhere new? You don’t need to make a huge commitment and you don't need an induction or fuss from us. Give it a month. Use code STARTOUT5 at Office Gym Club and your first month is £30 on a rolling monthly contract, then £53 per month thereafter.

There’s a strange idea surrounding gyms: that you should somehow be good at going to the gym before you actually go to one.

You should know the exercises. Know how the machines work. Be reasonably fit. Own the right clothes. Have a programme. Understand sets and reps. And preferably walk through the door looking as though you’ve been training for several years.

It’s nonsense.

Everyone who trains regularly had a first day.

And “starting out” doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve never set foot in a gym before.

Maybe you trained years ago and life got in the way. Perhaps you’ve moved to Cornwall and need a new gym. Maybe your current gym no longer suits you. Or perhaps you simply want to get back into training without making a big commitment.

Wherever you’re starting from, the best approach is often to make the beginning smaller.

Don’t promise yourself you’re going to completely transform your body.

Don’t decide you’re suddenly training six days a week.

Don’t worry about becoming a “gym person”.

Just try the gym. Better still, give it a month.

That’s why we’ve introduced STARTOUT5. Use the code when you join Office Gym Club and your first month is £30 on a rolling monthly contract, then £53 per month thereafter.

No long-term commitment. And if you’ve used a gym before and know what you’re doing, there’s no need for an induction or any fuss from us. Come in and train.

If you’re completely new and would like some help, that’s fine too.

Your First Goal Should Be Getting Comfortable

If you are new to the gym, success in the first week doesn’t need to mean lifting more weight, running further or seeing a change in the mirror.

Success can simply mean turning up.

Gyms are unfamiliar environments when you haven’t spent much time in one. There are machines you haven’t used, terminology you don’t recognise and people who appear to know exactly what they’re doing.

But something changes surprisingly quickly.

After a few visits, you know where everything is. You know which bit of the gym you prefer. You remember how to adjust the equipment. You start recognising a few faces.

The unfamiliar becomes familiar.

That might not sound like fitness progress, but it is an important part of starting out.

Confidence often comes after you start doing something, not before.

If you want help getting started, ask us. If you’d rather put your headphones in and get on with your workout, do that.

There doesn’t need to be any ceremony around joining a gym.

Keep Your First Gym Programme Simple

One of the easiest mistakes when starting out is trying to do too much.

You watch a few videos, save a dozen workouts from Instagram and suddenly your training programme contains 14 exercises, supersets, drop sets and something involving a resistance band you don’t entirely understand.

You don’t need any of it.

A beginner gym programme can be straightforward.

Choose a manageable selection of exercises. Learn them. Practise them. Become comfortable with them. Then gradually improve.

Machines can be useful when you’re learning because they provide a guided movement. Free weights introduce other movements and skills that you can develop over time.

You don’t need to use every piece of equipment in the gym.

And there’s no prize for having the most complicated workout.

A good programme is one you can perform well, progress with and realistically keep doing.

That principle is also at the heart of the beginner advice in the original training guide: learn the movements, build gradually and establish consistency rather than rushing into more advanced training.

Technique Before Ego

This is a habit worth establishing from your first workout.

Nobody worth listening to cares how much weight you are lifting.

Choose a resistance you can control. Learn what the exercise is supposed to feel like and concentrate on performing good repetitions.

You’ll have plenty of opportunities to increase the weight later.

Trying to lift too heavily before you understand a movement usually achieves very little. Technique becomes untidy and it becomes harder to tell whether you’re actually improving.

Start lighter.

Control the weight.

Learn the movement.

Then build.

That isn’t timid training. It’s sensible training.

Build Up Gradually

Once you become comfortable with an exercise, start making it more challenging.

That doesn’t mean doubling the weight.

Progress might be one extra repetition with good technique. It could be a small increase in resistance. You might improve your range of motion or simply make the same weight feel noticeably easier than it did three weeks ago.

Small improvements accumulate.

This is something social media doesn’t always represent particularly well. We tend to see personal bests, dramatic transformations and impressive lifts.

What we don’t see are all the completely ordinary workouts in between.

And those ordinary workouts are where most of the work gets done.

Consistency Beats the Perfect Programme

People spend an extraordinary amount of time searching for the “best” workout.

The best workout is usually the one you’ll actually keep doing.

Two or three sensible sessions that fit around your job, family and life are more useful than an elaborate six-day programme that lasts a fortnight.

Your training has to exist in the real world.

Choose days that work for you.

Turn up.

Do your programme.

Go home.

Repeat.

It isn’t particularly glamorous, but it works.

And if you miss a session? Come back for the next one.

One missed workout hasn’t ruined anything.

Don’t Try to Do Too Much Too Soon

Starting—or returning to—the gym can give you a sudden burst of enthusiasm.

That’s great.

But more isn’t automatically better.

You don’t need seven workouts in your first nine days to prove you’re taking it seriously. Your body needs an opportunity to adapt to training, particularly if you haven’t exercised regularly for some time.

Rest and recovery are part of the process.

A successful workout doesn’t have to leave you completely exhausted either.

You’re trying to establish something you can continue doing next week, next month and potentially next year.

Don’t make your first fortnight so brutal that you never want to come back.

Give the Gym One Month

This might be the most useful piece of advice in this article.

Give it a month.

Not because four weeks will completely transform your body. It probably won’t.

Give it a month because your opinion of the gym after visit one may be completely different from your opinion after visit ten.

The first session might feel awkward.

The second feels slightly more familiar.

By the fifth, you know the equipment.

A few weeks later, perhaps a weight that initially felt difficult is becoming manageable. Maybe your technique is better. Perhaps you’ve stopped having to persuade yourself to go.

You just go.

That is progress.

Rather than asking yourself after four weeks, “Have I transformed yet?”, ask a better question:

“Do I feel more capable and comfortable than I did when I started?”

If the answer is yes, you’re moving in the right direction.

Progress Will Slow Down — and That’s Normal

When you first start training, improvements can sometimes come surprisingly quickly.

You’re learning new movements, becoming more coordinated and getting better at applying effort.

Eventually those improvements become less dramatic.

That doesn’t mean training has stopped working.

It means progress takes time.

This is where patience becomes important. Rather than changing your entire programme because you haven’t increased a weight for two workouts, look at what is happening over longer periods.

Think in months rather than days.

Building strength, muscle and fitness is a long-term process. Small, consistent steps can produce surprisingly big changes when you give them enough time.

You Don’t Have to Become a “Gym Person”

Maybe you want to get stronger.

Perhaps you want to build some muscle.

Maybe you’d like to improve your general fitness, change your body composition or have more energy.

Or perhaps you’ve spent the last couple of years saying, “I really should get back to the gym.”

All of those are perfectly good reasons to start.

You don’t need a dramatic goal.

You don’t need to change your identity.

And you certainly don’t need to organise your entire life around training.

You just need to start.

Starting Again? We Won’t Make a Fuss

There’s another group of people we particularly want this offer to work for.

You already know what a squat rack is.

You know how to use a treadmill.

You’ve trained before, perhaps for years, and you really don’t want someone taking you around a gym explaining what every machine does.

We understand.

If you know what you’re doing, come in and get on with it.

There’s no compulsory induction and no fuss.

And if you’re new, unsure about something or would like a bit of guidance, just ask. We’re happy to help.

It’s your gym session, not ours.

Try Office Gym Club for a Month

If you’ve been thinking about joining a gym near Padstow, Wadebridge or elsewhere in North Cornwall, this is an easy opportunity to stop thinking about it and simply see how you get on.

Use code STARTOUT5 when joining Office Gym Club and get:

Your first month for £30 on a rolling monthly contract.

After your first month, membership is £53 per month thereafter. No tie-ins or contract tricks.

No need to promise yourself a year.

No need to arrive with a perfect programme.

No need for an induction if you don’t want one.

Come in. Get your bearings. Train your way.

Give it a month and see what happens.

That’s what starting out is for.