How to start lifting weights for beginners I How to begin training at the gym

YouTube, what is going on? In this video, we're going to cover my— I didn't write 5 here— my 5 best beginner weightlifting tips. If you are new to lifting weights, if you are— if you want to get into lifting weights, if you might be a bit intimidated or a bit afraid or not knowing what to do or afraid of looking stupid or any of those things, this video is going to be for you. All right, so there's gonna be 5 things that we cover here. Stick with me for all 5 because I think all All 5 are equally as important. I don't think one's more important than the other. Maybe so, but stick with me for all 5. We're gonna learn a ton today. All right, so number 1, the first thing that we're gonna talk about is, and I really— this might be the most important one, funny enough. You're not gonna be perfect. You're not gonna learn everything all at once, and that's okay, and that's normal. I can assure you, I've been working out and lifting weights for 9 years now. I'm 25 right now. I started at 16. 9 years now. The first like year or 2, man, I had no clue what I was doing. I was just like winging it. I was like, I'm going to learn this here. I'm going to try that there. You're going to make mistakes. It isn't going to always be 100% perfect. And that's okay. Now, like for example, you can scroll through my YouTube channel here and you can learn a ton. You can get like, if you watch my YouTube videos on anything related to working out or how many sets to do or how many reps to do or all that kind of stuff, You will be light years ahead of what I did in the first 1 to 2 years of me working out. I can assure you, like, you will be light years ahead if you— there's so much more information out now, you know, across all social medias and the internet and all that kind of stuff. Now, you know, what information is good information, bad information, that's sometimes hard to, you know, understand and decide. But if it's anything from me, you know it's good information. So you can feel free to look across my YouTube channel or look at my website, ericrobertsfitness.com, or look across any of my social medias. There's tons of information so you can learn a ton, but even then you're not gonna get it perfect and that's okay. And I really want you to understand that because I think a lot of times people's worries and anxiety comes from like, well, am I doing this right? Am I not doing this right? Is this the right way to do it? Wrong way to do it? And there's one thing talking about form, which we'll talk about form here in a second, like actually performing the exercises, but like you might not have like the best workout program right away or you might not have like the best setup or the best, whatever the case may be. It might not be perfect, and that's okay because you're going to learn throughout the process what is right, what works for you, what doesn't work for you. You're going to learn, oh wow, I was doing that wrong. Like, even to this day, 9 years later, I still have things where I'm like, oh wow, I could have been doing that differently for the past 9 years. And it's like, you're always going to be learning things. And even myself, I'm the coach, I'm the expert, and I'm still learning things to this day. So please don't feel like you have to know it all or be perfect before you head into lifting weights. You don't have to be. I just want you to get started. Remember, what most people do is they get so crippled because they don't know everything perfectly and then they never start at all. Well then, if you don't ever start at all, you don't take action, how are you going to see any progress? Just number 1, you are not going to be perfect. You're not going to know it all. You won't be 100 million percent confident. Guess what, man? That's okay because you know what? Even myself to this day, I'm still like, oh, am I doing that right? Am I doing that right? It's normal. Please don't feel like you have to be 100% spot on. Again, this isn't like— this is not your job like it is mine. It's not your profession like it is mine. Please just know that and don't let that stop you from taking action and going to do it because I think that's the biggest thing is people let that stop them from taking action. Well, if you don't take the action, you're not going to see any results, man. That's number 1. Now, number 2, the second most important thing, and actually Might be in order. I don't know. Second, let's just say the second thing. Form over weight. And again, let me say it again. Your form, especially early on, is more important than the amount of weight that you lift. And I wish I knew that in the first 1, 2, 3 years of me lifting weight. I probably would have had way less injuries. I probably would have had way less troubles and all that kind of— and again, this is where like, I'm trying to help you not make the mistakes I made Excuse me, early on in my career. Because again, I can assure you the first like year or two of me lifting, just all ego lifting, just trying to lift as much weight as I possibly could. Had I had some recollection of form and like some, you know, I was trying to have good form, but I'm just going to be honest. Like I was trying to lift the most weight. Listen, if you can truly nail down your form at the beginning of your journey, and if you're watching this, you're probably at the beginning of your journey. If you can truly nail down your form at the beginning of your journey, It's going to, number one, obviously save you from a ton of injuries. And number two, you're going to get the most benefits long-term because now, you know, come full circle 9 years later for me, it's really, really, really apparent how important using the right form, having the right, you know, having the right technique, using the right muscles, all that stuff leads to so much better results in the long run. And it's really hard sometimes because we all, all of us, including myself, we want to lift heavier, we want to do more weight, we want to push ourselves. And that's totally fine and you should be doing that, but I wanna make sure you understand I would not sacrifice your form just to add 5 more pounds or just to do, you know, 2 or 3 or 4 more reps. And listen, like, your form won't be 100% perfect the entire time. There's a range of acceptable form, but I, you know, for most people you probably know somewhat of what that range is. Like, if you're, you know, if you're doing a shoulder press, for example, And you're going here and then all of a sudden you're just throwing your hips into it and going back. That's not acceptable. But it's like, if you're doing shoulder press, you gotta give a little bit of a little pump up. All right, that's acceptable, right? But it's making sure you keep the actual movement what the movement is. If you're doing a row, it's one thing to do a row and it's one thing to just kinda pull the weight back and not actually do a row. You're just overcoming inertia and it's like pulling the thing back and using all momentum, right? And talking about form over weight, Think about, let's just say you're doing a row, right? Any row variation. Think about the results you are going to see if you have a nice, slow, controlled row, controlled back, your muscles working the entire time, your muscles under tension, you know, that load is working against your muscle, you're doing all the right things. And then think about the rep if it's just like— like, again, think about this right here, how much pressure, how much tension you're putting on your muscle, and then think about this. What are you doing? You're just like overcoming inertia and then using momentum to pull it back. You're not actually using any muscles. You're just like using that weight as a thing to overcome. And then the momentum is then carrying you back. So your muscles are kind of like, oh, well, I don't really got to do much because all of it's, it's all just momentum. Your muscles have to do less work. Something I say often is like, make your muscles do the work, not momentum. All right. So realizing form is more important than weight and over time, You will get more and more and more confident in your form and make sure you nail your form down. And again, this goes for all exercises. So you'll get more confident the more you do it and the more confident you get, then you can start adding weight and all that kind of stuff. And I don't wanna deter you from like trying to lift heavier weights. I want you to lift heavier weights, but just make sure that you know in the back of your head, form is the most important thing. So if you feel like you're starting to slack on form or something happens, This is where you can take videos of yourself, for example, and look at your form and say, wow, I thought that was really good, but looking back at it, it's not that good. And you can do all those kind of things, right? So form over weight. Alright, that's number 2. Number 3, have a plan. Have a plan. It's just so important. It's just— it seems so simple, right? And I always use the analogy of like, if you gotta go across the country, you're driving across the country, you probably have a plan of how to get there, right? You probably are taking this exit, going on this highway, making this right turn. You gotta plan for how to get there. The same thing goes with workouts. Again, a lot of people's anxiety or a lot of people's worries and confusion comes from just not having a plan. You gotta have a plan. And okay, how do you have a plan, right? Now you know you have to have a plan. How do you make a plan? Well, there's so many ways you could do this. Number one, again, I have a ton of free content on this channel. I'll put a video here above of one of the videos I did on how to create a workout program. You can check that out. I've also written a pretty in-depth article on this as well. I'll link that here below as well. Again, multiple videos on my channel about all that kind of stuff. If you want to go that route, absolutely go that route. If not, in the same way, like for example, I don't know how to change the oil in my car. You know what? Some people think that's right, wrong, indifferent. I don't really care. I don't want to learn how to change the oil in my car. I'll just take it to somebody who knows how and I'll pay them to do it. This is where if you, if you're not somebody who number one enjoys learning about program design, or number two, like has the time to learn how to make your own workouts, like I would strongly suggest hiring a coach or hiring a trainer or joining some sort of group or joining some sort of program or doing something to take the guesswork out of it for you and make sure you have a solid proper plan. And then again, you won't have to spend all this time learning how to create a workout program because It's already gonna be done for you. And again, this goes back to, like, you know, what's a good workout program, what's not. You know, it's very dependent on what's going on in the workout program. Again, I have a ton of information here on this channel of, like, what makes up a good workout program. So feel free to dive into those videos if you want a bit more in-depth. But I can just tell you right now, if you want really good solid workout programming, again, tons of free videos on this channel, tons of free articles on my website. But also I have something called the Clubhouse, which is basically where I kind of put all my training programs. We have training programs, a new training program every single month. We have new workouts, we have new training programs. We have a training program for your glutes, we have a training program for your chin-ups, we have a training program for if you're a beginner. Like when you join the Clubhouse, we have a 3-month like beginner program that you kind of run through to get yourself kind of up to par and, you know, get through that beginner stage. You know, exact videos on how to do the exercises, all that kind of stuff. So if you wanna check that out, it's in the description here of this video below, so check it out. But again, having some sort of plan. And also, again, I'll say this, I have free workouts here in the description of this video below. There's like 52 free workouts. You wanna grab those? Grab those, man. Just do something to make sure you have a solid plan. It takes out the guesswork and it takes out the anxiety of like, well, if I go into the gym, what do I do? Like, what machines do I use and how do I do them? What order? How many sets? How many reps? If you wanna learn all that, you absolutely can, but if you wanna take the guesswork out of it for you, just find a way to get on a plan and get on a real program, and then from there you'll have a lot of that anxiety kind of taken away from you. And again, it'll start you off on the right track, especially earlier on. Like, if you can, if you can really make sure you follow a good program from the beginning, your results are going to skyrocket. Again, myself, I didn't really follow the best workout program 'cause I had no real clue. So I just kind of did what I thought I should do and like all this kind of stuff. And again, if I Would've been smarter back then. I probably would've done more research and that kind of stuff, but hey, we all learn, right? So, that's number 3. Number 4, and this one's specifically for if you are going into a gym or even not if you're going into a gym, even if you're just like working out at home, nobody cares what you're doing in the gym. Nobody cares if you're a beginner, nobody cares if you know exactly what you're doing, nobody cares if you don't know exactly what you're doing. I can assure you of this, 97% of people who started watching this video probably have not gotten this far. Which if you have gotten this far, drop a comment below and let me know. But I can assure you, most people just— our attention spans are next to nothing. We have attention spans of gnats. Do you understand this? Like, I make 15-second TikTok videos, right? 15 seconds. I can't get people to watch 15 seconds, let alone this 10, 20, 30-minute video, whatever this is gonna be. So how the hell do you think somebody in the gym is like, oh, that person right there, I can tell she doesn't know what she's doing. I'm gonna sit there and watch her. No, they don't even— they can't even look at the wall for 8/10 of a second, let alone worry about what the hell you're doing. So that's number one. And number two, if you are going to a gym, or even if you're not, but either way, if you're going to a gym, you do realize like everybody in the gym is— they don't want to be judged. So you think this person is judging you when they don't want you to judge them. So it's just one big circle of like Everybody thinks that everybody's judging each other, but nobody's actually judging each other because like we're all just there to get better. Like the same reason that person's there is the same reason you're there, which is to get better. That's why the gym is such a great place. Nobody cares about what you are doing. I promise you, as somebody who has gone to the gym for 9 years, at least 5 days a week, every single, every single week for 9 years, I'm not in there like, oh, this person has no clue what they're doing. Oh my God. Like, let's go. Make fun of like what? Like what? No. And again, like I don't know. Does that happen? Of course, there's some shitty people in the world. And you know what? Like it is what it is. But why would you? Why would you let that person stop you from doing what you want to do? Why would you let someone who if they are even judging you, which they're fucking not, but if they are judging you, why would you let that individual stop you from getting more confident, getting stronger, losing body fat, building muscle? Why would you let that person stop you? That person you don't even know or care about is now dictating your life. It just doesn't make sense to me. And so nobody cares if you're— again, and I'm telling you straight up, like the first 1 to 3 years of me lifting, I didn't know what I was doing. Nobody cares though. Nobody cares if you don't know exactly what you're doing or you're lost or you're not 100% sure. We have all been there. Like when you first start riding a bike, you don't know how to ride a bike yet. When you first learn how to cook, you don't know how to cook. When you first got in the car, you don't know how to drive. But what do you do? You do it over and over and over and over again, and then eventually you're just like sitting back texting and driving, or you're like cooking while you're watching a show, while you're doing this, and like, you get better at it. It's the same thing here. You're going to get better at it the more you do it, but if you don't end up ever doing it, you can't get better. And if you stop after 2 times because you don't know what you're doing, how are you gonna get any better? So please make sure— nobody cares that you're not perfect. Nobody cares you don't know what you're doing. We all started there. Okay? So please know that. And last but not least, this is kind of like more of like a specific workout advice. Spend time learning exercises. One of the biggest things I see, and this goes back to following a real program, so many people just do like a bunch of random exercises each week. So like week 1, they'll do like a goblet squat. And then week 2, they'll do like a barbell back squat. And then week 3, they'll do like a— it's like they're just doing a bunch of random stuff. One of the biggest things about beginning to lift weights, it's a neurological response and it's a skill acquisition, right? Like, again, the same way driving a car or throwing a football or throwing a baseball or whatever, you have to learn the skill of doing that. The same thing with your body and with working out. Your body has to learn the movement pattern. Your body has to learn how to squat correctly. Your body has to learn how to push up correctly. Your body has to learn how to do shoulder press correctly. It's a lot of neurological adaptations going on. So you have to make sure— excuse me— you spend time learning and doing the exercises over and over and over and over again. I would say at the very least you should be spending anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks following a specific program. So let's just say, for example, you're working out 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, those 3 workouts can be different workouts and they should be different workouts, but then those 3 workouts stay the same for 4 to 8 weeks at a time. And again, why is this? Your body needs to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. It's a skill acquisition. And once you learn how to squat correctly, once you learn how to bench press correctly, once you learn how to do whatever movement correctly, your body's going to become pretty efficient at doing that exercise. And so you're going to learn from that. The next time you do that exercise or a variation of that exercise, your body's going to be a bit better at it. So you'll know exactly what you're doing more and you'll feel more comfortable. Like if you're doing a split squat and then you're doing a lunge and you're doing a forward lunge, then the backward lunge and the Bulgarian split squat, like it's, you know, there are different variations, but it's single leg movements. It's, it's learning how to control your body in space. Like your body gets better at doing it. So now when you go to do these things, it's like, all right, like I've kind of done this before. I kind of know what's going on. Your nervous system's like, all right, We've had this before. If you do a row like this, and a row like this, and a pulldown, your body knows, all right, we've seen this before. We've had this before. So you can make sure you understand how to do the movement. Then when you go to new movements you'll feel more confident. You'll feel better at them because your nervous system is training to do those movements. If you don't stick with them you're never going to actually learn it. If you can't learn it then number one, you're probably going to get injured, but number two, You can't progress it, which is like one of the most important things when it comes to seeing change in your body. You can't have— it's something called progressive overload. If you wanna learn more of what progressive overload means, I wrote an entire article. I'll put it here in the description below. But essentially what it means is like you have to do more. So that's how you get stronger, it's how you build muscle, it's how you lift more weight, is you have this progressive overload. If you're changing everything nonstop, you can't have this progressive overload. So then you're not gonna see your body change. Spend time learning the movements. And again, especially earlier on, yes, weight is important, but like a beginner, like you're going to see change in your body with less than what I would need to do. So for example, I've been lifting for 9 years, right? I need more intensity with my workouts to see change than you do because I'm at a more advanced stage and my body's used to it a lot more. Your body's not used to it right now. So you can get away with doing a bit less intensity, while you're learning these movements and yet still see phenomenal progress. You will still see great progress if you have a bit less intensity so you can actually learn the exercises, learn the execution, learn the form, learn the movement pattern, all that kind of stuff, right? So guys, that is the 5 beginner weightlifting tips. I hope you enjoyed it. Again, any questions, any concerns, please feel free to let me know. Again, if you want to check out some of the other free content on this channel, please feel free to do that. But again, I think that one of the biggest things is You're not gonna be perfect and have a plan. I think those 2 things are probably my biggest things. Please stop looking for perfection. You're not ever gonna start, or you're not gonna stay consistent with it. And if you stand— if you can't stay consistent, you're not gonna see any change. You're not gonna get more confident. You're not gonna feel stronger because you can't be consistent because you're trying to be perfect. So stop trying to be perfect and have a plan, some sort of plan. I don't care what that plan is. Have any plan. If you have a plan, that will take away a lot of the confusion and the anxiety. Shocker, right? It'll take away a lot of the confusion And anxiety, right? Any questions, guys, drop below. Thank you for watching, and we'll chat soon.