Want to know the best workout tips for beginners to ensure that you will get results? These are 9 easy to follow workout tips for beginners that will get you results and also keep you from quitting and ensure that you are set up for long term success with your health and fitness. There are a lot of plans and programs out there you can follow, but if just Googling a workout plan and following it was that easy, you probably wouldn’t be reading this and you wouldn’t need the tips that I am giving you in this article. I have spent over 25 years as a fitness professional teaching normal people how to get results without quitting and while still being able to live a normal life, and these tips will get you set up for that same success. Once you read through these, you will be armed with the knowledge to implement as you move forward with your diet and exercise. (Also, don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to our mailing list to get FREE tips weekly delivered to your inbox)
1. Have the Right Mindset
The most important of the workout tips for beginners that I can give you is to start with the right mindset. You want to set yourself up for success, not failure. Most of the time, people approach their diet and exercise the wrong way and they set themselves up for failure. So what is the right mindset? Think big-picture, and think GOOD, not great. Most people think that they have to get all of their desired results NOW, and then when they don’t see them, they quit and then go backwards and even further away from their goals. You have to think big-picture.
You have to think long term. Remember, diet and exercise have to be a part of your life forever, so you might as well think of it in the long term. Our bodies are designed to be taken care of and if you don’t exercise and you don’t eat right, then you will go backwards. So, yes it is a life-sentence, but it doesn’t have to be a bad one. Your goal is to do good, not great, and do it for a long time. Most people try to do everything perfect. They go from doing no exercise and eating terrible to going crazy with their exercise and going on some super-strict diet. It’s too far from what you were doing and it’s too much to sustain, so you quit and then you are back to not exercising, not eating good, and you start going backwards. (this is the roller-coaster of losing 10lbs, then quitting and gaining 20lbs, then starting back and losing 10lbs, then quitting and gaining another 20lbs, etc., on and off for years and years). It’s all mindset! Think progressive changes. Think GOOD instead of great. Start exercising regularly and start making easy changes in your diet that will help you improve without total deprivation, which causes you to quit.
I can’t express how important this mindset thing is. I have spent 25 years teaching people how to be a normal person and still get results and how to avoid the pitfalls that cause people to quit. I have created a system that allows you to enjoy life while getting results. This is a system for the person who wants results and still wants to enjoy life. I could write several more pages explaining this, and I have… For a quick and easy read showing you exactly how you can get real results while still enjoying life, check out my eBook, Calorie Budgeting 101.
2. Set Your Weekly Goals
It is important to set realistic and achievable workout goals. With your health and fitness you will have results-type goals, such as losing a certain amount of weight, strength goals, health goals, etc, but you cannot reach those goals if you do not have weekly implementation goals. Develop what I call your “workout week” and set your goals for what you want to do daily each week.
How many days per week should you workout? There really is no wrong answer if you are going from doing nothing previously. But ultimately you will want to get to working out on average 3-5 times per week. The key here is to set a weekly goal, but know that you will not always hit it. Since you will not always hit it, you will hopefully make up for it by exceeding this goal some weeks. The goal should be to average a weekly amount. An example would be that your goal is 4 workouts per week, and some weeks life gets in the way and you only get 2 or 3 in and some weeks you get in a 5th or 6th workout, but over time you average 4 workouts per week. The key here is to not quit if you don’t hit your goal.
Develop your workout week and commit to doing it every week when life is normal. When life gets in the way and you have to miss, just miss that day or two then get back on to your normal schedule and continue.
3. Schedule Your Workouts on Your Calendar
Working out is not a spur of the moment kind of thing. It should be a part of your life just like work and other non-negotiables are. If you keep a calendar or planner, schedule your workouts in it. Treat them like an appointment. Often times, people put no value on workouts and base them on convenience.
Hopefully you use a calendar to organize your life. If you don’t, then you should start (free life tip!). Calendar-setting 101 – fill in your calendar for the week with everything that you have to do and then schedule everything else around those things. Include your workouts in this! Schedule in at least 3 workouts for the week (4 or 5 if possible). Probably the number one reason people miss workouts is because they make them optional and they base it on if it’s convenient or not each day.
4. Get a Workout Plan and Follow it
You are busy and you need something efficient and effective. You can’t afford to waste your own time. If you wonder around aimlessly and get nothing out of your workout, not only will it take too much time, you will not get results. If you are taking too much time and/or you are not getting results, then you will likely quit, and the ultimate goal here is not to quit!
There are lots of good workout plans to use. Their are training programs at your local gyms and there are several online options as well. If you are going to a gym, try one of their training programs, just make sure it is safe and suitable for beginners and make sure it doesn’t take too long. I like programs that are 45 minutes or less. That way you can do the workout and 15 minutes of cardio and be in and out in an hour. If you can’t afford a training program, then I recommend finding a plan online to follow at the gym. The one I recommend the most (of course) is my Virtual Personal Trainer. It is emailed workouts that explain what to do and have video demonstrations showing you exactly what to do. It is like having a personal trainer in your pocket. You can do them at any gym or at home with or without any equipment. You can learn more about our Virtual Personal Trainer or even try it out for free by clicking HERE.
Regardless of what workout plan you choose to follow, just make sure and follow a plan. You will set yourself up for success and you will have a layer of accountability.
5. Workout Tips for Beginners at Home
Can’t go to a gym? Or just don’t want to go to a gym? I have some workout tips for beginners at home. Working out at home can be challenging. There are lots of distractions and there is also the challenge of what to do if you have little or no equipment. If you implement the 9 easy but effective workout tips for beginners listed in this article you will be set up for success, even working out at home. Schedule your workouts and have a plan for them, the same as if you were going to a gym.
You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and build an extensive home gym to be able to workout at home. At the most you would only really need some dumbbells to get in an effective workout. If you have tons of equipment that is fine, and you can use it, but even when I go to the gym, I mostly use dumbbells. And even if you are a very strong person, if you are doing the right workouts, you won’t need super-heavy dumbbells. You can even get in a good workout without any weights at home (or on the road, at the park, etc). You can use household items.
Find an at home workout plan that requires little or no equipment. My Virtual Personal Trainer is a complete workout plan that uses dumbbells, mats, and steps for the most part. It also has an option with every workout for doing the workouts without any equipment at all.
You can also do your cardio at home, even if you don’t have a treadmill or other cardio machine. You can go outside and run/jog/walk, you can go up and down steps, etc.
The key point is to eliminate barriers (excuses) that keep you from working out. So if you can’t get to the gym, you can workout at home and you don’t need a home gym. Very little space and very little equipment is needed.
6. Gym Tips for Beginners
The first step for most people when they decide it’s finally time to get in shape is to join a gym. Unfortunately, more times than not, that gym membership ends in a cancellation and not in results. So to turn your gym membership into a results membership instead of a financial waste, I have some gym tips for beginners to give you.
The first gym tip for beginners is to actually use your gym membership. In the past, the membership wasn’t the problem, the fact that you didn’t use it was the problem. As noted before, commit to working out and schedule it on your calendar and you will be on your way to utilizing that membership.
You can get great results at the gym. One reason is because of the variety of options of equipment and things to do. But the main reason you can get results working out at a gym is that by going there you have a built in layer of accountability. You are there to workout, as opposed to at home, where you have to compete against everything else going on at home.
What to do when you get to the gym? Like we mentioned earlier in this article, the second gym tip for beginners is have a plan! Don’t just wander around aimlessly. Know what you are going to do before you get there. Have a workout on paper or on your phone (like our Virtual Trainer hint, hint…) and follow it. Make the most of your time. Be efficient. The people who don’t get results at the gym and eventually quit are always the ones who don’t have a plan. At first you may feel like you are doing something just by going to the gym and piddling around, and you may get something out of it because it is better than before when you were doing nothing, but that will run out soon.
Another great reason to have a plan at the gym is so you will look like you know what you are doing. People often wonder around the gym and then get intimidated because they don’t really know what they are doing and they avoid trying things or working hard because of this uncertainty. If you have a plan to follow, your plan should tell you exactly what to do.
The third gym tip for beginners is to try out a free personal training session or class. When you do this, there are 3 possible things that can happen. One is that you will stay with the trainer or the program and get premium results. The other two things that can happen, even if you only use it for the free session, are that you will get ideas to use on your own, and you will get help on your form and how to do things correctly.
The last quick gym tip for beginners in this article is to work hard while you are there. To get results, you have to put in the work. If you are not at least somewhat miserable and working at an uncomfortable level, and if you leave the gym not tired or having broken a sweat, you probably didn’t get much out of it. Again, don’t waste your time. Make the gym membership something valuable!
7. Do Cardio
The 3 main components in your health and fitness are to workout, eat better, and do cardio. If you haven’t gotten results in the past, there is a good chance it is because you left out one of these three, and usually it is cardio.
Cardio not only will help you with your heart health, stamina, and health in general, it will also help you burn fat and tone up. In addition to those benefits, cardio will help you have better endurance for your strength training workouts, thus enabling you to get more out of those workouts.
And most importantly, working out regularly and doing cardio regularly take the pressure off of the diet. Your diet will never be perfect, so the more you can be consistent with your workouts and cardio, the less your diet failures will effect you.
My advice is always to work hard for 15-20 minutes. If you are working hard enough, 15 minutes on a regular basis is plenty. Often times people walk or do something easy for 45 minutes or an hour and get nothing really from it. Their mind tells them that they are working hard because they went so long, but the reality is that there is a reason they were able to go so long – it was easy. My best advice that I can give for cardio is that it is not how far you go or how long you go, it’s how hard you work.
As for what to do for your cardio, pretty much anything that causes your heart rate to increase and stay increased for 15-20 minutes will suffice. If you are at home, this could be a jog or run outside, up and down stairs, riding a bicycle, etc. At a gym, you can use the treadmill, an elliptical machine, a stairstepper, an exercise bike, or any other equipment in the cardio area.
Get out of your comfort zone and be miserable, but only for a short amount of time, like 15 minutes. Not only will you get better results, it will be better for your joints and keep you from racking up chronic injuries that accrue over time when you just keep rolling up that odometer.
8. Simple Diet Changes
So by now, hopefully you are well prepared to start working out and ready to get started. I have a few simple diet changes that you can make that will help you as you begin this journey. With the diet, start simple and with small changes. People fail on their diets because they change too much too fast and deprive themselves of everything and then they quit. And when they quit, they quit everything, including their exercise.
Commit to exercising, then the pressure should be off the diet. Your diet will come and go, but your exercise can be consistent.
Find ways to cut calories without being miserable. One way to do this is to take something that you normally eat and replace it with something that you like that has less calories. Then it becomes relative to what you normally eat, not relative to what the actual food item is.
Skip a meal. Yes, skip a meal. This is by far the easiest way to cut calories. The bottom line is your calories in vs. calories out. You have already increased the calories out by your exercise, so find ways to reduce the calories in. The bigger the deficit is each day, the faster you get results. You don’t have to eat 5 times per day, and you don’t have to eat breakfast. Never eat because you think you have to.
Avoid snacking. Grab a cup of coffee or a piece of gum. Cut out those snacks and you have cut out those calories.
Drink lots of water. Water will make you feel more full and also help your body operate better with your exercise. Shoot for 64-100 ounces per day.
I could go on and on about the diet and what to do and what not to do to keep you from quitting, but for the sake of simplicity in getting started, just implement these few diet tips for beginners. For a lot more easy diet tips and help with the mental side of all this, read my latest eBook, Calorie Budgeting 101. It is a quick read and the ultimate diet guide for the person who wants results and still wants to eat the foods they love and enjoy life.
9. Don’t Quit
The only way that you will fail with your health and fitness is if you quit. Our bodies were designed to be taken care of. We have to do preventive maintenance. If you eat terrible and you don’t exercise (like most people) then your body will go the wrong way. Weight gain and health problems are inevitable. And you will feel bad and lack energy. It’s just not optional if you want to get the most out of life physically.
These 9 Easy But Effective Workout Tips for Beginners are designed to get you results at a sustainable level to where you won’t quit. If you don’t quit you will get results. Consistency is the most important thing you can do. Being consistent and never quitting is much more important than what you do or how perfect your routine or diet is.
Treat this like it is a part of your life moving forward forever and not as an optional or as-needed part of you life and you will look better, feel better, sleep better, and be healthier.
Final Thoughts – Set Yourself Up for Success
This post was about setting yourself up for success by using these 9 Easy But Effective Workout Tips for Beginners. Have the right mindset, set weekly goals, get a workout plan and follow it, maximize your workouts at home or the gym, do cardio, make simple diet changes, and don’t quit and you will be on your way to laying the groundwork for a lifetime of sustainable results! Subscribe to our mailing list to receive more beneficial information to help you achieve your health and fitness goals!