16 Gym Tips For Beginners (According To Personal Trainer)

To make the best of your efforts in the gym, make sure you go into each session with a plan.  When you get to the gym, turn your phone to silent to avoid distractions and focus on the intensity of your exercises. When you leave the gym, focus on your diet, sleep, and recovery because these are also critical components of reaching your fitness goals.

As a coach and trainer who has helped hundreds of beginners start their journey, I have been able to observe and help navigate many of the common issues beginners face when starting out. 

Ready to reach your fitness goals?  On average, a new Fitbod user who trains 3 times a week for about 45 minutes will see a 34% strength increase after 3 months.

Best Gym Tips for Beginners

1. Ease Into the First Few Weeks of Training

I find beginners are ready to crush themselves in their very first workout. In other words, go too hard, which is not advised. 

I recommend that lifters ease into their workouts by stopping just shy of all-out failure on all exercises, at least for the first two weeks.

This doesn’t mean you are not training hard, it means that you’re giving your body the chance to adjust to the extra stimulus.

The reality is as a beginner you are literally starting from nothing. 

You can do very basic exercises, with moderate to hard effort, and get good results. 

While those beginner gains will last only a few months, it is important not to go too aggressive as it won’t help you get anywhere faster. 

In fact, it may derail you right out of the gates due to injury, excessive soreness, and the inability to work out multiple times a week because you are too “beat up”.

2. Focus on Completing At Least 12 Workouts in the First 30 Days

I give all my new clients a goal of working out 12 times in their first month. 

If they can master carving out time to get 12 workouts in (on average 3 per week) over a 30-day period, they will have made the necessary behavior changes to stick with going to the gym long-term.

Getting started as a beginner can be tough, as you need to create a new lifestyle routine to accommodate you going to the gym, working out, and then coming home. 

If you also have to do that before or after work, you will need to pack a bag and some meals.

Like any habit, working out is all about repetition and making consistent practice. 

12 workouts in 30 days not only provide the muscles with enough stimulus to get stronger, but it gives you the opportunity to create a whole new system on how to allocate your time.

3. Choose 5-6 Total Exercises to Do Each Day 

I suggest that every beginner finds a program that has them doing no more than 6 exercises on a single day. 

Ideally, you would be choosing 2-4 compound exercises, and another 2-3 isolation-type movements to build out a good workout program.

As a beginner, it can be tempting to do every exercise you see on social media on a single day. You are constantly bombarded by “new cutting-edge workouts and exercises”. 

If you train more than 3 days a week, you would simply just add more workouts during the week, but still, keep the same number of exercises per workout.

Check out these workout ideas:

• 3-Day Beginner Workout Program
• 2-Day Beginner Workout Program

4. Keep Workouts Under 1 Hour

I recommend beginners get efficient with their workouts, i.e. do a lot of work in a short amount of time.  The idea is to push yourself hard to get a full workout done in an hour. 

Beginners often struggle with two things. 

• The first is being consistent in the gym, often saying they don’t have enough time to get three or more workouts in during the week. 

• The second is when they are at the gym, they often have less than optimal workouts because they are too busy getting distracted.

Both of these can be solved by having a clear workout program that is designed for beginners and can be done in under an hour.  This will keep you focused and feeling like you’re accomplishing a lot by the end of the workout.

Once you get three workouts a week at an hour each, and you are doing all your exercises every workout with efficiency, look to add another workout in the week to take your results to the next level.

5. Put Your Phone on DO NOT DISTURB Mode

I suggest you turn your phone to not disturb mode, and switch over to airplane mode so you cannot access social media or emails. 

The phone is a huge distraction in the gym. Most lifters will rely on their phone for everything: looking at their workout program, texting people during workouts, surfing social media, and answering emails (or even taking calls).

I understand some lifters have their workouts on a mobile app (like Fitbod), which is great, but do NOT use that as an excuse to do other things on your phone.

6. Stay Off Social Media

Stay off social media! We live in a time where everyone is connected on social media, and the gym is no different. Too often I see people (not just beginners) on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook mindlessly scrolling between sets. 

This is one of the fastest ways to lose precious minutes in your workout, and not lose focus. I tell my clients that if they have enough time to do mindless things between sets, they have rested long enough. 

You should be working hard enough to warrant your rest period, which typically consists of you sitting down, catching your breath, shaking your muscles, and mentally recovering for your next set. 

Any more than that, and you are just waiting time.

7. Time Your Rest Periods

I often find beginners either rest no time at all or rest an eternity between sets. Both are wrong. The reality is, most beginners can get by resting 90 seconds between sets.

This allows you to recover from a tough set, but also keep the stimulus on the muscle enough between sets to have a  compounding fatigue effect (basically, over the course of the workout you want the muscles to tire out).

While more advanced lifters may need longer than 2 minutes, most beginners are not strong enough relative to their body mass and abilities to warrant a very long rest period like you would see in elite-level powerlifters.

8. Review Your Workouts BEFORE Walking Into the Gym

Taking the time to review your workout before you head into the gym is something many lifters do not give enough attention to. 

I recommend that at the very least you look long enough at your workouts to know most of the movements you need to do in those sessions off the top of your head.

By having a clear understanding of the movements and goal of that day (for example you have leg day today), you are able to move more quickly within the gym and can visualize yourself attacking the movements beforehand.

Lastly, if you are unsure how to do something in your program, you should review your exercises BEFORE you go into the gym, as this again will cut down the time you are spending on your phone.

Fitbod has videos that you can review of each of your lifts so you know what the technique is supposed to be prior to stepping foot into the gym.

9. Record Your Workout Performance Every Session

Recording your performance is very helpful as it allows you to adjust your weights or add reps or sets to further workouts to push progress. 

You can also look back on your workout notes and soreness levels to see how to adjust the following week if needed.

What is not recorded, is not only lost but is not able to be used to guide your decisions on how to progress your next workout. 

Fitness apps like Fitbod make this extremely simple to do, and even have the ability to do the thinking for you and progress your workouts every week based on the performance of past workouts.

10. Keep a Journal to Review Your Workout and Next Day Soreness Levels

Beginners should write down any notes they had on the sessions, such as anything that they found challenging, a cue that helped them dial in the movement, and a rating of how sore they were after the workout.

Most workout apps do a great job of having you record your sets, reps, and weight, however, I recommend beginners (and all lifters) take things a step further by recording a brief summary of their workout. 

All of that info is helpful to look back on the following week to try to repeat “the good” from a prior workout and to fix “the bad”. 

I really enjoy looking back on my notes from prior weeks on how well I was able to feel the muscle during a certain movement, and often find it helpful to remember my soreness levels to help dictate how hard I can push in the next workout.

11. Take a Before Picture

One of the most common regrets beginners have after training for a few months is that they don’t have a good “beginning” picture to look back on. 

Most of my clients are not overly excited to document their beginner physiques, lack of muscle tone, and excess body fat stores.

However, looking back on the picture throughout your process is a great way to stay motivated, but also to see how far you have come. 

Every day when you look at yourself in the mirror, you might not notice significant changes because it’s hard to see small changes over time. 

That’s where a picture from a specific date can be extremely valuable. 

12. Workout Sometimes WITHOUT Music

This is one that some people may scoff at, but I have come to love working out without music for a few key reasons. 

The first is that I find so many lifters (of all levels) become externally dependent on what song is on their playlist or get bent out of shape when the music playlist isn’t good. 

Relying on music to motivate you 100% of the time is a huge handcuff to your overall success. 

Learn to drive yourself, and learn to do it from the onset.

The second reason is that people tend to space out on rest periods when listening to music. 

By not focusing on your next set or your rest interval, people tend to just drift mentally, only to then lose workout efficiency.

13. Eat Enough Protein to Fuel Recovery and Muscle Growth

When looking to build muscle and recover fastener, protein is essential. 

I recommend that beginners aim to consume .8g of protein per pound of body weight, per day. 

Once you are consistently hitting the minimum, you could bump that up to 1g per pound per day.

Why? Protein is a building block of all tissue in the body, and it is also a key nutrient necessary for hormonal production.

Focus on sources like lean meats (chicken, lean beef, pork), eggs, fish, and greek yogurt. Depending on your diet, you may need to supplement with protein to increase your overall intake.

• Related Article: The Powerlifting Diet: Eating for Strength

14. Use Protein Powder to Increase Protein Intake

If you are someone who is able to get enough protein without protein powder, then you don’t need to supplement with it. 

But, in my experience as a coach and trainer for almost 20 years, I find that almost every single beginner consumes half of the recommended protein needed to build muscle.

Protein powder is a supplement that is used to increase your overall protein intake. 

Protein powder is simply protein (from various sources, which you can choose based on performance) that has been concentrated into a powder form, making it a fast and easy way to mix into a liquid and drink.

I suggest you go with whey protein (unless you cannot have lactose), as it is inexpensive and easy to find.  Here’s a list of the cheapest protein powders that are still high quality.

Most protein powders should deliver 20-30g of protein per serving, and be under 200 calories. If your protein powder doesn’t hit those two criteria, then I would not recommend you choose that one.

15. Try Creatine to Help Increase Strength 

I recommend that all lifters supplement with creatine throughout the year.

Creatine has repeatedly been shown to be a safe and extremely effective supplement to help all-level lifters build muscle and increase strength. 

Aim to consume 5g of creatine per day in the form of creatine monohydrate. 

Any other form claiming to be more potent, more beneficial, or cutting edge is just trying to take your money. 

You should be able to get creatine monohydrate from any health food store, just be sure the ingredient list says creatine monohydrate, and nothing else.

• Related Article: The 30 Best Food to Get More Creatine Without Needing Supplements

16. 200-300mg of Caffeine Can Help Boost Energy to Crush Workouts

Caffeine can be a very potent supplement for all-level lifters to take before workouts. It increases mental focus and energy levels. 

While it is not essential to supplement with caffeine, you may find it helpful from time to time to have a cup of coffee or a pre-workout (just be sure it is not pumped with sugar) on days you need an extra jolt.

One caveat to this is when beginners get overly dependent on a pre-workout. 

You should be able to have great workouts without caffeine. If you cannot, then you are becoming overly dependent on caffeine, and may in fact be using it to mask poor sleep, nutrition, and recovery.

Remember, caffeine is addictive, and the more you take to get a benefit, the more you will need to take it in the future to get the same benefit. 

This is why it is important to not use it every single session otherwise your receptors will downregulate and you will be left to rely on caffeine for every workout thereafter (or until you break your habit and your body upregulates its receptors).