5 Things Every Fitness Beginner Must Know
Starting something new isn’t easy. There are so many things to think about and so many sources telling you conflicting advice. We recognize this at SoloStrength and want to give our readers what they need to be successful.
When starting your fitness journey, it's common to worry about things like which program will give the best results, what exercises provide the most growth or burn the most fat, is my form perfect, and a million other variables. The truth is most of these should not matter to the beginner. They matter more as you transition from beginner to intermediate in your fitness journey.
The most important thing to do is to find a program, get started, and learn as you go. The purpose of this guide is to highlight the 5 most important things you should be thinking about when on this journey.
Table Of Contents:
Consistency: The most important aspect of exercise
The most important thing to focus on when starting your fitness journey is consistency. Achieving your goals means showing up whether you feel like it or not. To beginners, this can seem intimidating but there is an important reason for this. Many have it backward. They exercise when they feel motivated.
The reality is motivation is fleeting. It comes and goes… it’s discipline that must be consistent. When you show up, even if you don’t feel like it, often you end up having a great workout and the motivation comes afterward. This is why we say many have it backward. Motivation is the result of staying disciplined, resulting in compounding gains over time.
Compounding gains, like compound interest, are the other reason why consistency matters. Einstein famously said compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. He intuitively understood that large gains can have small beginnings, if and only if consistent effort was applied. Everyone knows a person that has been exercising for years, yet you wouldn’t know by looking at them. Some of these types lack consistency and work out sporadically, in bursts.
It’s more effective to have regular short workouts than occasionally putting your body through hell to make up for the lost time. The added benefit is you build off your learnings more easily, with regular workouts always being at the back of your mind. This is impossible if you occasionally exercise. Too much time passed between workouts means you forget, lose momentum, and most of your progress.
Routine: Stick with a beginner workout program
Equally important to consistency is finding a workout program and following it for at least 3 months. You don’t want to break your momentum by googling or thinking about what exercises to do during the workout. Instead, set the plan beforehand so you know what to do. Doing this means you will keep your heart rate up and your muscles ready to go. Few things are worse than taking a break in the middle of the workout, cooling down, and losing all your steam.
Your goal is to get started as soon as possible. Nothing kills momentum and motivation faster than being stuck in research mode before you ever get started. This happens to many people starting to learn new skills or starting businesses. Prioritize starting, then learn as you go. SoloStrength’s SpeedFit has been designed specifically to solve this problem. They are intense 15-, 20-, or 25-minute works that take the guesswork out, hit every muscle group, and leave you feeling great.
The truth is, as a beginner, you probably don’t know enough to design a workout program anyways. And that’s ok. More knowledgeable people have done the work for you so you can focus on getting results. Have the humility to know what you don’t know, but trust that you can figure it out as you go. The key is starting.
Your first workout program may or may not be the right one for you. And that is also ok. Everyone is different, and the chances of starting with the perfect program specifically for you is near zero. The point of a beginner workout program is to introduce the breadth of possible movements so that you can adjust as you gain more experience.
Push Yourself: Try to best your previous bests
Your goal should be to improve upon your last performance. Whether it be more reps, more sets, better form, or even a better mind-muscle connection. There are many ways to learn, improve, and get stronger. Set the intention ahead of time to decide what will be improved upon, then do your best to achieve it.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. The mind and body have a tendency to take the path of least resistance. This is an evolutionary coping mechanism to survive when resources are scarce. We no longer live in those times but have not yet evolved out of those mechanisms. It’s easy to fall back and do the same thing every day. Our lizard brain wants this. The problem is the body gets used to it and stops growing.
Trying to beat your previous best also gives you something to aim for. How will you get where you want to go if you don’t know what the next step looks like? The mind needs a target, otherwise, it gets lazy. David Goggins is one that popularized the 40% rule. It says that when you feel like you can’t go anymore, you’re 40% done. You still have another 60% left in the tank.
Although you should aim for improvement, you realistically will not improve in every workout over the course of years. What works best is phases of intensity followed by phases of “rest,” where you exercise at a lower intensity (also called a deload). An example could be 8-10 weeks of high-intensity training, followed by 2-4 deload weeks. The body sometimes needs phases to grow and regenerate. Maintaining low-intensity exercise for a couple of weeks keeps your momentum going without halting your progress. Feeling like you’re running on fumes is your body’s way of telling you that you need a deload.
Tracking: You should be doing it every workout
Once you have consistency with your workout routine, the next thing to focus on is tracking your workouts. For the beginner, this is especially important. If you don’t improve upon your previous best, you won’t grow. But you can’t improve upon your previous best if you don’t know what it is! Make sure you write it down in a log book. How many reps? How many sets? What was the weight/resistance? Feel free to add comments as well.
Tracking helps you find weak points in your fitness. Suppose you are doing a full body routine and notice you’ve plateaued on squats for many weeks now, while pushups and situps keep increasing. This is a clue. Use it. Maybe you need more glute work. Maybe you need to focus more on quads. Maybe your form needs work. The point is you won’t be able to notice these things if you don’t log the workouts.
An added benefit is it frees your mind to focus on other things. Instead of trying to remember every exercise and its numbers, you can focus on what’s important. Getting better at the form, improving your mind-muscle connection, and reflecting on how you can do better next time.
Learning: Compounding your gains
Regardless if you are a beginner or not, the most important thing to do is to always be learning. Taking an active role in expanding your knowledge will get you 10-100 times the results. It could be as simple as watching a youtube video, reading an article, or listening to a podcast. What is important is doing so several times a week, or every day if possible. The time investment does not have to be large. What matters is that you consistently think about it. In doing so, you will experience huge growth and your results will exceed expectations.
Summary
In summary, the most important things you should focus on are:
Stay consistent.
Find a routine.
Always aim for improvements.
Log your workouts.
Always be learning.
What’s Next?
We would love to hear what made your fitness journey a success through email or social media.
If you are looking for exercises to add to your routine, check out our article on Dip Bar Exercises or our series on training each body part:
View more SoloStrength SpeedFit® Training Here.
Posted: March 13, 2023
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