Top 4 Training Tips For Beginners

General rule: when it comes to the gym, someone with less than 1 year of training, has not gained the initial 10lbs of muscle and can’t do 1x bodyweight bench press or 1.5x bodyweight squat or deadlift is generally considered a beginner.

Training Principles

Training principles and linear progression. A lot of people will get caught up on more advanced methods and techniques that are not necessary for them. Beginners should aim to keep increasing the weight they lift almost every single week because they are not even tapping into their whole nervous system potential. It may not always happen but on average, they should be focusing on lifting about 5lbs more every week to every two weeks.

Fundamentals

People who are just getting started should keep to the simple fundamental movements instead of doing the next cool exercise variation targeting specific areas of the body. Everybody who is a beginner should be squatting, deadlifting and bench pressing. Now is not the time to be doing some funky new crazy variations of the bench press, substituting a bench press for a chain floor press for example. NO, stick to the fundamentals, the big compound movement is what's going to get you results.

Training Less Frequently?

Beginners usually can't handle as much volume as compared to their experienced counterparts. As such, they can do full body workouts, but with regards to training frequency, beginners should train less frequently in general because the body can't handle that high threshold and it is not used to being recruited that often therefore training 5-6 times a week is not wise, most beginners should train 3-4 times a week instead.

Compound v.s. Isolation

Isolation exercises (for aesthetic areas) should be reserved for the END of the workout (not the focus). There is only so much time to workout, only so many sets you can do and that is where some people get tripped up when it comes to isolation movements because they become obsessed with biceps for example and they overtrain certain muscles while neglecting others. A good rule of thumb is that once you have done your compound movements, overhead press, bench press, squats, deadlifts, you can allocate approximately 10 minutes to do isolation movements for areas that you want to improve. For example, if you feel your biceps are a little small, go ahead and do some curls. Remember, big compound movements then the isolation movements.

A lot of these might seem like simple tips and it is because they are but they need to be repeated. With time, you will notice that you will get more gains and you will ascend past the beginner level.