As part of my job, it is common for me to introduce people to the gym who may have never stepped foot in a gym in their lives before. I understand that it can be very daunting to step into a gym, let alone onto the weights floor if this is new to you.

I noticed that a lot of things that seem obvious to me in a gym setting are not obvious at all to people who are new to training, so I thought I’d compile a list of common ones and share them with you. 

How to take the clips on and off 

You push down on the little bit (often, but not always, a different colour) in the middle of the clip while pulling up on the clasp part. Hard to describe in words, check out the video! 

How to add up how much weight you are lifting 

You add up the weight of the barbell plus the weight of the plates. Remember most barbells are 20kgs. Some are 15kgs . It will sometimes say on the bottom of the bar, like on the circle part on the end, but if not you can tell by the thickness. 20kg bars are consistently the same width - after a time you’ll (hopefully) start to get a feel for which is which.

On weights machines there can be a lot of variation and it is more realistic to track your weights relative to the same machine every time, not different machines across different gyms, as the machines themselves often weigh different amounts making it hard to add up accurately.

How to structure your workout (within a session)

In general, big or ‘compound’ exercises will be early on. These are exercises that use lots of muscles at once and are tiring e.g. squats, deadlifts, bench press, overhead press. The workout will then move to more isolated movements that use less parts at once, e.g. side raises, bicep curls, knee extensions. If you are brand new to the gym, it would be very helpful to get someone else to write a program for you, or buy a template online. 

How & why to warm up for lifting weights 

Warm up sets are to warm your body up for the exercise you are about to do, but also to build up to the weight you intend to lift. 

If you are lifting a weight that is not that heavy for you for 12-15 repetitions, you probably don’t need to warm up - lifting the weight is the warm up. However, if you are intending to lift a weight that is heavy for you, and for a small number of repetitions, you will need to warm up. 

For e.g. if you are capable of deadlifting 60kg as a maximum weight, you may do 5x30kg, 3x40kg, 1x50kg as warm ups before working with 60kg. The heavier it is, the more warm up you need, however again this will depend entirely on you and your experience level.  

Usually you would do large compound exercises at the start of the session and warm ups matter a lot here (eg deadlifts, back squats etc). Later when doing more isolated exercises you are likely to go higher rep and may be able to go straight to your working weight (eg seated rows, lateral raises). You may not need any warm up sets for exercises later in the workout that are high repetition. 

As with everything it depends also on experience and how certain you are you can do a given weight - this makes knowing how many warm up sets you need etc more definite. 

Everyone needs to build up to a heavy first exercise but with more experience you may be able to start heavier & make bigger jumps. No one is turning up and squatting their max weight with no warm up! 

Warm ups help get your body prepared for the exercise, so they reduce risk of injury but also make it more likely that you’ll be able to actually lift the intended amount. 

How long to rest between sets

If you want to really get stronger, you should be lifting heavy enough that you couldn’t do the same weight again 30 seconds later. 

If you’re going near a max effort lift for 1-2 reps you may find you need up to 5 mins to repeat it. Doing 5-6 reps you may need 3 mins or so. 

The most effective way to convince yourself of the truth of this - do something you find super hard (eg chin up) and try to repeat it 30 sec later … then wait 5 mins and try again. Once you’ve felt the difference that extra recovery makes, you won’t need to be convinced! 

A way to make your workouts go a bit quicker is to superset upper and lower body exercises together so that you can rest one body part while working another. In this way, you may be taking 2-3 mins rest between working one part of your body, but you don’t need to spend it sitting and doing nothing. When going really heavy, however, like with your first exercise of the day (usually a big compound lift) and you are trying to build strength, it is probably better to just sit for 2-3 mins between rounds (if you have time).  



How many sets and reps to do 

Reps = how many repetitions of an exercise in a row

Sets = how many rounds of that exercise

E.g. 5 sets of 3 reps = 5 rounds with 3 repetitions in each. 

How many sets and reps you have been given for an exercise as part of a program is not arbitrary. If you are doing less reps, you should be going heavier than when you are doing more reps.  If your program says to do 3 reps, for example, there is no real point doing 3 reps of a weight you could do for 10. A way to think of this is ‘reps in reserve’, which is how many repetitions you think you could do if you had to keep going. So, if you are programmed 10 reps, you lift a weight you could do for 12/13 reps, but not 15. A good way to check if you are on the right track is to see how many reps you can actually do of the weight you’re lifting (go until fatigue, like you cant do any more) and see how close you are. In my experience, women tend to hugely underestimate their weight selection! 

Sometimes my clients say things like, ‘you programmed 3x10, so I’m doing 30 reps, I just did them all in a row’. T echnically this should not be possible; you should be able to do about 12-13 reps only of that weight, then need to rest a solid minute or two before doing It again. 

How many sets and reps to do for each exercise is very dependant on your goals and how frequently you train and is outside the scope of this blog. 



How to structure your workouts across a week 

If you are exercising 2 days a week it makes the most sense to do a full body workout both days and allow a few days rest in between. The more days you train, the more you can separate out what you work on. Just as a general rule of thumb, targeting each muscle group twice a week as a minimum is ideal, so consider this when deciding what to train when. Doing just upper body and lower body training splits does not make sense if you are only training twice a week, but can make sense if you are training 4-5 times per week. 

Whether it matters if you can feel a muscle working or not

It does not matter if you can’t feel the muscles working that you are supposed to be targeting. Being able to feel it I think comes with practice, but it is not necessary to see benefits. For compound exercises, that is, exercises that use lots of muscles at once (e.g. squat, deadlift) you will almost certainly not feel any particular muscle working. For isolated exercises, such as the knee extension machine, you almost definitely will feel your muscles working. Neither is better than the other, it is just that one uses so many muscles at once it is unlikely to cause a real ‘burn’ in any. 

If you are feeling confident with how to do a particular exercise and are interested in feeling where it is working, you can think about the muscle it is intended to target, and intentionally try to picture the feeling of that muscle working (will feel like warmth). Over time you are likely to get better at noticing, though again this isnt necessary especially in the rehab sphere (more important for performance e.g. bodybuilding). 

What shoes are best to wear

If you are lifting weights, wearing very flat almost barefoot shoes (or training barefoot) is probably ideal. This is becuase you are not losing energy pushing into the squashy soles of your running shoes, and you are likely to be more stable in flat shoes that you can feel the floor in. It may also help to strengthen the muscles in the underneath of your feet.  

If you are running or doing something with lots of jumping, it is ultimately your preference of what shoes to wear. Cushioned shoes are not necessarily better, but bear in mind the less cushioning the longer it may take to adapt to a new activity. 

Film yourself to check your technique (if your gym allows it) 

Some exercises are pretty technique heavy, like barbell back squats. Filming your lifts helps you to really see what you are doing with them. You can also use it to check if the lift seemed to move well - as you get better, you will notice that easier lifts move more quickly and harder lifts slow you down. Watching them back on video can provide more insight into how hard the move really was for you. Sometimes something FEELS heavy, but moves fast. 

If you’re lucky you’ll capture fun moments between yourself and your coach as well as awkward trips most likely from not wearing your glasses to train 😂😂 



How to get heavy dumbbells up to press them

Often you will be able to press much more than you can lift with your arm, so you need to use a bit of technique to get the weights safely into position. Hard to explain in words - check out the video!

Hope these tips were helpful!

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any specific things you'd like me to cover.

Frances