What to do in the gym as a beginner

There are a plethora of ways you can organize your workouts. There are two very important aspects that should guide your decisions.

You should enjoy your workouts.
The exercises you select should allow you to make them tougher and tougher over time by increasing the weight you use

The first point may seem counterintuitive for most people, and the second is obscured by most fitness advice out there.

Table of content

The one thing that matters most in your workouts

How many exercises should you do

How many sets and reps should you do

Progressive overload

The one thing that matters most in your workouts

I always tell my clients that adherence is the most crucial factor of any training program. Are you going to do your workout consistently yes or no?

The easiest way to ensure this happens is to create a workout routine that you enjoy doing. Choose the exercises you like doing.

This is tough because we are constantly bombarded with information about the best workout for abs, the best workout to build muscle, or the best workout for weight loss. Between Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube or wherever you consume content, people always push onto us what we should be doing.

Although the intention might be noble, to save us time from figuring it out on our own, I'm finding it's not helping anyone. The amount of time I have a client tell me "I don't know what to do because so many people say different things" is insane.

The unfeasibility of a lot of these supposedly "best" workouts is another huge flaw. I once came across an article that assured me the best way to grow my quads was with the hack squat machine. This astute, science-backed assertion failed to take into account that I had no way to access such a machine. Was I supposed to simply accept I was going to have chicken legs forever?

Thankfully, I did regular squats and lo and behold, my legs got bigger.

But let's assume I had access to a hack squat. What happens if I hate it? Or if just doesn't feel good? I could probably tough it out for a bit, but would I really stick with it long enough to get results?

Any trainer worthy of that title can give you the latest "science-backed", most efficient and best workout for your goals. But if you don't like doing it, or worse, if you don't have access to the required equipment, that program becomes as useful as a bicycle with square wheels.

The easy solution here is to find exercises that you enjoy doing. As we will see below, consistently doing your workouts on the long term is more important that the actual workouts themselves. So find something you like doing.

The squat is one of the best leg exercises out there. If doing a back squat doesn't work for you, try a goblet squat, or a front squat, or a lunge variation. Each exercise has tons of variations so take your time playing around with them and picking the ones you like most.

How many exercises in your workouts?

Once again, keep things simple.

Pick two leg exercises, one exercise where your arms push something away from your body and one exercise where your arms pull something towards your body.

That will give you a total of four exercises per session.

If you are starting out, try to have two different workouts per week.

Workout one could be:

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Squat	3	8
Bench press	3	8
Leg extensions	3	10
Rowing machine	3	8

Your second workout could be

Exercise	Sets	Reps
Dumbbell lunges	3	8
Shoulder press	3	8
Leg press	3	10
Lat pull down	3	8

Keep repeating these two workouts each week for four weeks then change up the exercises. This will simplify your experience at the gym, and give you the opportunity to progressively overload your routines (more on that later).

How many sets and reps

The most basic rep scheme is the three sets of eight reps. Yes it's very basic and if you're starting out in the gym, it's a very good place to start.

Once again, you can see the simplicity here.

When you finish a set, you should feel like you worked hard but not so much that you can't do it again two minutes later. Two minutes is a good rest period when starting strength training.

Now here is where it will perhaps get a little hairy.

As mentioned earlier, what you do in one particular workout is as relevent for success as what you do over a longer period of time.

This is where progressive over load comes into play. If you feel like you need to digest all the information above, go apply what we just talked about and come back to this article in a couple weeks. You will do just fine as long as you read what's below sooner than later.

Progressive overload: the close second most important factor

Progressive overload is the process of intensifying your workouts week over week by either lifting heavier weights or doing more reps.

This is important because this is how you build strength and muscle.

Let's imagine I go to the gym and do 3 sets of 10 squats with 100 pounds on the bar. I go home and the next day my legs are sore. I eat and rest properly and the following week I do the same thing. It gets a little easier. I repeat this again on the third week and don't feel sore at all afterwayds.

If I keep doing the same thing months on end, do you think my body would benefit from it?

The answer is no.

After a few weeks of doing the same workout, your body will stop adapting to it simply because it doesn't need to.

To keep challenging your body, you need to make your workouts harder with time.

Now don't go crazy on me and double the weight you lift each week. That is not sustainable.

Again, keep it simple. Try adding reps to your sets every other week until you reach a number that's high enough for you.

Here is an example of how I could progress my squat over time.

Squats	Sets	Reps	Weight
Week 1	3	8	100
Week 2	3	10	100
Week 3	3	12	100
Week 4	3	8	105
Week 5	3	10	105

Repeat this cycle each time you get to 3 sets of 12.

This is a very simple way to start for beginners.

You also may not be able to progress like this every week. It might take you two weeks to go from 3 sets of 8 to 3 sets of 10. And that's fine. As long as you are slowly progressing.

The more you train, the slower your progress will be. Advanced lifters may lift heavier weights once or twice per year whereas beginners can lift heavier weights almost every week.

Start with this and see how far you go. As a new lifter, you should be able to steadily progress for a year or so before you hit your first training plateau, which will be the topic of another post.

Happy training,

Clem