1. Start today by doing literally anything active.
2. Do it again tomorrow.
3. Repeat.
There is no magic. Once you’ve got a habit of showing up, you can worry about exactly which fitness routine to use. Most programs get repetitive after 6-8 weeks anyway, so you need a foundation of a stable habit to fall back on when switching routines or burning out on one.
The secret is to show up. Every day. Just keep stacking those good days.
(This applies to a lot more than just fitness, btw)
(It’s also much easier said than done)
This is just not true. The most popular beginner weight lifting programs are comprised of ~3 workouts a week of ~30-60 minutes each. There's a reason for that. Exercising every day sure sounds nice, but it increases the chance of injury and often is too great a commitment for people with a sedentary lifestyle.
> Most programs get repetitive after 6-8 weeks anyway
You can easily follow a beginner program for many months before linear progression stops. Switching programs after 6-8 weeks as a newbie is absolutely pointless when you do compound exercises.
> (It’s also much easier said than done)
Yeah, it is when you force yourself to work out every day. 3 days a week though? Far more manageable.
You don’t need to do stressful exercise every day. But if you can get yourself to show up to the same location, and do anything – whether that’s stretching, or exercising, or going for a walk – you’re going to build a more sustainable habit than you would if you allowed yourself to skip it four days a week.
I've always thought body building is one of the hardest habits to start because your body punishes you when you do it the first few times. It's hard to feel motivated after it hurts to go up or down the the stairs. If you make it over that hurdle it's easy to keep up.
Then a couple months before the pandemic I joined the author's new subscription service called Mark Lauren On Demand. It's a library of workout videos and programs, organized by difficulty. It's like $8.99/month and I think it's the best thing I pay for. I'm definitely in the best shape I've ever been.
Workout videos are surely not a new idea, but I hadn't tried that format before this, and I like that the videos are literally him doing the exercises along with you, including warmup and cooldown. It means I can look at the timestamp and know exactly how long it'll take to do a workout that day. And I like that it's all scheduled out for me. I just have to show up (in my basement).
Book + workout program is at https://marklauren.com/
It doesn't teach you how to do any particular exercise, you'll need to geta that elsewhere. But what it does do is provide a number of templates for programming, with different endurance / strength / mass requirements in mind. And it tell you why the programming is the way it is, and expects you to start modifying it once you're more advanced. Kind of a "teach-a-man-to-fish" approach.
There's a reason why this is, by far, the most popular choice for beginner weight lifters.
I mean, it's OK if you want to start a career as a powerlifter, but not if you're just looking to slightly increase general fitness and not get injured.
For true beginners, classic light weight exercises with dumbells and cable machines, plus bodyweight exercises like pushups and unweighted squats are probably better choices.
I'm going to plug Renaissance Periodization again. If you want a safe, science-backed program with built-in progression and no overcomplicated exercises, spend $40 on their gym-free template:
However, I do agree that if you want to get just a bit more in shape, a simpler program without barbell compounds is a better choice. I was assuming that the grandparent wanted to get into weightlifting, as most people in my age group mean that when they talk about wanting to get fitter.
That's true, but so much time is spent on proper form for the prescribed movements precisely because they are so complicated.
> starting with relatively light weights, and only increasing weights when you can complete all sets
Which discounts progression via adding volume and keeping the weights relatively constant (which - unless the volume is extreme - is safer), and that's one of my main beefs with it - for people who want to get in shape casually and for whom significant strength increase isn't a primary concern.
But I agree that if you want to get into powerlifting as a sport, Starting Strength is probably not a bad idea for your beginner program. (actual powerlifters might want to chime in on that.)