10 Common Mistakes People Make At The Beginning Of Their Fitness Journey

Starting a new fitness regime? Shortcut your way to success by learning from these ten common mistakes.

1. No plan

Training without a plan is like trying to drive from London to Barcelona with no map. You might get there eventually, but you’ll take many wrong turns, and it’ll take 3 X longer than it needs to. 

So every day, have a plan that has your exercise, reps, and rest periods set out. Stick to it!

2. No rest days

Understandably, you commit to train every day when you feel like shit and want to feel less like shit quickly. It makes you feel better about your immediate situation. The problem is that you’re very likely to burn out after a few weeks or even get injured. 

Rest days allow you to recharge and train better for longer. Move every day, but you don’t need to train every day.

3. Unrealistic with your time

This happens a hell of a lot with new people we train. We ask them how much time they have available:

“At least 5-6 X 90 min sessions a week.”

They’re not lying, they believe it, and as with point 2 above, it makes them feel better about the immediate situation. So we set 4-5 X 60-minute sessions, and they’ll struggle to make more than a couple.

Two sessions of 45-60 minutes a week is good work, and if that’s all you can do, don’t worry; you will still make progress. But if you overestimate what you can do, you’ll set yourself up for a quick failure, and you’ll feel shit about it.

4. No tolerance for discomfort

Getting into great shape is hard. If it weren’t, everyone would look like a fitness magazine cover model. So embrace the grind and get comfortable being uncomfortable. Hard days are much easier when you’re ready for them.

5. Following bad advice

You’re excused for this one as I genuinely believe it’s easier to find bad advice over good advice. Online information is conflicted, confusing and often totally wrong, engineered for clicks and sales. Don’t automatically trust PTs either, it's not difficult to get qualified, and many don't exercise good practice.

The solution? Find advice from trusted information providers (The Joe Rogan Experience does not count). Use reputable online sources (anotherround.co.uk being the obvious choice). Also, things that have actually worked for your friends and family. 

Just take a minute to think whether you can trust the source, and ask questions if you can.

6. No accountability

Many of our members work in busy office jobs or have hectic home lives, so accountability to stay on track is essential. Even our most dedicated members need a kick up the arse from time to time. They love training, but it gets pushed back if they’re unrealistic with their schedules. They need accountability—someone to remind them to make time for them and get the work done.

7. Obsessing over supplements

There are entire businesses that revolve around selling you a dream lifestyle through supplements (a popular one rhymes with Jerbalife). The supplement industry is a massively unregulated Wild West with aggressively poor standards regarding what they can say they do vs what they do. Watch Bigger, Faster, Stronger to understand a bit more about the craziness of the industry and the false advertising.

Supplements sell the quick fix, the dream. Unfortunately, it’s most likely total bs. I recommend pre-workout (or a strong coffee) if you need it and protein powder if you need to get your protein up. You probably don’t need anything else, and anything promising fast fat loss or muscle gain won’t work (unless it’s anabolic steroids).

8. No consistency in workouts

This one mainly applies to strength and muscle gain goals, as you can drop fat and get fitter through a pretty varied routine, and it will often make it more enjoyable, especially when the training is hard. Doing the same HIIT workout again and again can be absolutely miserable.

If you want strength gains, though, consistency is critical. ‘Muscle confusion’ is not a thing. Vary your workouts from time to time but keep consistent with movement patterns. We generally change up programmes every two weeks for people with cardio and fat loss goals and for size and strength goals every three weeks. 

Even when we change, we still keep a lot of movement patterns the same; you should never change everything unless you want to feel like a beginner every few weeks.

9. Smashing every session 100%

Not every session should be a PB. There’s a time and a place to smash yourself (spoiler alert: it’s not every session). You risk trashing your central nervous system when you put yourself through super-hard workouts too frequently. You’ll lose motivation, feel really, really tired, and reverse the results you’re going for. Take it easy!

10. Not tracking progress

We try to figure out a way of tracking progress with almost everyone, even if your goal is just to move a bit more (a totally fine goal, by the way). There’s always a way to track progress. Assuming members follow their plans, tracking progress tells us the program is working. If progress stalls, we need to figure out what’s not working and adjust. 

How will you know if you’re going in the right direction if you’re not tracking progress?