7 Common Gym Mistakes For Beginners

There isn’t anything worse than paying for a gym membership and not looking any better for it. It takes most people a while to really start using the gym efficiently enough to see great results. It is unrealistic to expect a new gym-goer to know exactly what they are supposed to do in and outside of the gym. And not everyone wants to or can afford a personal trainer that will just do it for them. For that reason, I hope to lay out some of the most common gym mistakes for beginners that if fixed from the beginning, will help you start your fitness journey strong.

1. No Workout Plan

This is probably the most common error that occurs both with beginners as well as experienced lifters and it can be the most detrimental. One of the first things you want to do is have an exercise plan. Don’t just go to the gym and feel good about yourself for “getting there”. You will feel much better about yourself for getting there AND having an effective workout. 

If you are new, you shouldn’t design your own workout plan. But, there are plenty of free workout apps or YouTube channels that can give you at least a basic exercise plan and show you how to perform those exercises. You could also pay for a more advanced or personalized plan. I personally use workouts designed by Dr. Jim Stoppani at jimstoppani.com. There you can find tons of workout programs designed for beginners to advanced lifters and catered to your goals. Whatever you choose to do, the important thing is knowing what you will do each day of the week before you get to the gym.

Having a plan allows you to create a balanced routine that works every muscle group. It also will push you by having a predetermined number of reps and sets to complete so you don’t quit early. Workout plans are especially important for those who are new because it will push you to learn new exercises and generally show you how to perform them as well. It will also make it more likely that you will get to the gym because you know you have a scheduled workout. If you miss it, it throws off the rest of your routines for the week. 

I have certainly been guilty at times of going to the gym and just doing a general and lazy workout. This however, cannot be the norm if you plan on achieving serious results. So find a plan, and stick to it.

2. No Goals or Tracking

Goals go hand-in-hand with having a plan. You actually should set your goals before you have a plan. Then you pick a plan which will help you achieve your goal. Do you want to lose fat? Gain muscle? Strength? You don’t just get in the car and start driving and hope it arrives somewhere you’d like to be. Goals should be challenging yet plausible. You want to be pushed but not demotivated by a goal you could never reach. 

Once you have the goals and the plans to achieve them, keep track of your progress. You can use a notepad or even your phone. There are apps that help you track your sets and reps as well. Most good programs will have their own tracking software built in already. You can track your weight or body measurements too such as waist size or muscle mass. Your tracking will depend on your goals. And don’t get down on yourself if you don’t consistently progress each day because you simply won’t. Try to step back and look at weekly or monthly changes rather than daily ones. This will help you see your progress more clearly. Knowing where you want to be and keeping track of it will make what you want come a lot quicker.

3. Expecting Results Too Quickly

Another big gym mistake is being simply impatient. Fitness is a very long-term game and it’s easy to not notice your progress. First of all, progress will be different for everybody and will generally be quicker if your goal is fat-loss and you are a novice lifter. However, it will take a minimum of 3-4 weeks to notice some changes and more like 3-6 months to make a real difference in your body.

What makes it hard to see results is that you see yourself every day in the mirror. The change is so gradual it can easily go unnoticed if not recorded or measured. One way to help is to take progress photos so that you can freeze a moment in time and compare them later. Also, don’t weigh yourself too frequently. Instead of every day, try once a week so you can see more noticeable changes.

Just stick with it and be consistent. Obviously, results will come quicker if you work harder and more disciplined. And the results will never come if you quit. So just trust that if you do the work, the results will come.

4. Focusing Too Much on Your Bodyweight

Typically you hear that someone’s New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. However, you rarely hear that they want to lower their body fat. No one cares about how much you weigh. They care about how you look. And you look good when you have lower body fat and more muscle. This is also a much healthier goal because it’s the excess body fat that increases risk of disease and death. Body weight is fat, muscle, water, organs, bone, etc. Basing your progress based on body weight just isn’t a useful method.

Learn how to use some body calipers or get yourself measured regularly to determine body fat and use that to measure your progress. Also use progress photos so that you can see how you actually look, not just what the scale says. The deceiving thing about the scale is that you can stay the same weight or even gain weight but look better. This is expected especially if you are new to weight-lifting. You are going to gain muscle which will increase your weight. You will also burn fat which will reduce your weight. So it balances out causing your weight to remain the same or even increase if you gain lots of muscle. However, in the long run, that increased muscle mass will improve your overall metabolism and lead to more and more fat loss. 

So stop looking only at the scale, focus on how you look, and make your goal lower body fat and more muscle.

5. Only Doing Cardio

This is another very common gym mistake for beginners. I’ve never understood how someone can drive 15 min to the gym to walk or run on the treadmill for an hour and then drive back home. If all you want to do is run then don’t waste your money paying for a gym membership. You can do cardio anywhere. Now it is fine to do cardio in the gym, and you can learn more about cardio here, but if you have a whole gym available, then use it. This will get you way better results than cardio alone. And if you weight-train and control your calorie intake, cardio becomes less and less necessary anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, building muscle will increase your overall calories burned throughout the day. Your body uses food to build muscle and to maintain that muscle later. This is why bodybuilders can consume very high calories and not get fat. They have so much muscle that the food is all utilized efficiently by the body. Cardio, especially slow cardio, will only burn calories in the moment. A mix of cardio and weight training will burn in the moment and the rest of the day too.

Many people stick to the cardio machines as well because they have no workout plan. No decent gym program will have you on a cardio machine for the whole workout. Along with this, there is a fear of using unfamiliar equipment. And that goes along with my next common gym mistake.

6. Avoiding Free Weights

If you go to the gym, you will notice that the most fit individuals are generally the ones using free weights such as barbells and dumbbells. This is not just a coincidence. It is because they work. There is a common misconception that free weights are more dangerous to use so new lifters should stick to fixed machines. 

This may be true if you perform free weight exercises poorly. However, you can just as easily injure yourself on machine exercises because they are not one-size-fits all. If you don’t adjust them correctly to your arm or leg length before performing the exercise you can put yourself into a vulnerable position. In order to not injure yourself with free weights, study how to do each exercise. If you don’t use a trainer or a friend, you can learn it all on YouTube. Invest just a little bit of time and get way better results in the gym. 

Free weights are more natural movements that transfer better into real life situations. They stimulate your muscles more by activating your smaller stabilizer muscles as well which also will help you to prevent injury. Only doing machine exercises trains the larger muscles but creates imbalances by ignoring the stabilizer muscles.. You should have the bulk of your workout come from free weight exercises and only utilize machines as accessory movements maybe at the end of your workout to further exhaust the muscle. Personally, the only machines I really use are adjustable cable machines because they simulate free weight exercises yet provide constant tension on the muscle.

So get over your fear of free weights and see better results.

7. Lifting Too Light

It is fine to lift light when you are first learning an exercise. Practice the movement until it feels natural. However, don’t stay at this stage for too long. Especially when you first start, you should be increasing weights pretty much every week in your lifts. You will only build muscle if your body feels the need to. When a workout is too easy, there is no reason to adapt. Muscle is built by tearing your muscle fibers through repetitions and having them build back stronger to handle it better next time.

If you are doing 15-25 reps in a set, it’s time to increase the weight. You can sometimes throw in low weight and high reps into your routine but it shouldn’t be the norm. A typical muscle building rep range is 8-12 repetitions. And this means that you literally fail at 8-12 repetitions. And between sets, you rest for about 45-60 seconds. That is ideal for muscle hypertrophy. If you want to focus on increasing strength, you perform less repetitions and rest for longer between your sets. Strength training is usually 1-5 reps per set and 2-5 minutes rest between sets.

And for all of the women that are afraid you will become a muscular man from lifting heavy, you won’t. If it were that easy, we all would like to know the secret. Men will have more potential to get bigger due to higher testosterone levels and overall physical differences. The women that some women may be afraid of looking like are professionals that put in hours each day, have a very strict diet, usually do some sort of hormonal supplementation, and may be genetically gifted. You are not going to look like a man from lifting heavy weights. You will look toned and strong. The women that look great in the gym you will probably see lifting heavy weights.

You need to stimulate hypertrophy in your muscles. In order to do that, your muscles have to be pushed to failure. Progress is only made through pushing your body to the point at which it needs to adapt. Otherwise, you are mostly wasting your time.

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Overall, if you are new to the gym, the important thing is to not be afraid to try new things and to not care about anyone else around you. Avoid these common gym mistakes and you’ll see quick progress. And remember, no one really cares about what you’re doing to be completely honest. Everyone is there to work on themselves and anyone that looks great was once in your position. So study and learn what you need to do, make a plan, and follow through.

There are some more tips to start your fitness journey here too!