Did you know that if you start weight training with little prior experience, you are capable of significantly more hypertrophy and strength gains than an intermediate or advanced lifter? This rapid increase in strength and muscle experienced by beginners during the first year of lifting is what we call ‘newbie gains’. 

Unfortunately, trainees have limited knowledge about lifting and nutrition during this phase of their fitness journey, which leads them to commit easily avoidable mistakes at the expense of their newbie gains.  

Below are five common mistakes that are inhibiting your newbie gains (and how to overcome them):

1. Not Following a Structured Program

An unstructured and random training style is undesirable for serious trainees for several reasons, but most importantly, because it does not support effective progressive overload. 

The principle of progressive overload demands that athletes continually increase the training difficulty to make consistent hypertrophy and strength gains. This is usually achieved by increasing one or multiple of the following variables: weight (resistance), number of reps, number of sets, or by decreasing the rest time between sets for a particular exercise. A structured program that exposes athletes to consistent, manageable stress, allows optimal time for recovery, and keeps track of athletes’ progress is an ideal setup for the athlete to progressively overload the training over time (Read appendix A to learn about the systems that I use to facilitate progressive overload in my clients’ programs).  

A structured training program also increases accountability. Because all the training sessions are planned in advance, the athletes know when they slack off or neglect their workouts. 

Acquiring an effective science-based program is now easier than ever. Many of your favorite influencers have free program templates that you can use. Moreover, there are many free fitness apps that can help you get started. We at Oceanic provide personalized programs for all types of lifters at astonishingly affordable prices. Our programs have guided countless beginners toward their fitness goals and empowered many intermediate and advanced lifters in overcoming plateaus and achieving new fitness milestones. Learn more!

2. Training with Too Much Volume and Frequency

If you are a beginner looking to build muscle and gain strength, you DO NOT need to lift heavy every single day! A 3-day whole body or a 4-day Upper Lower Split will facilitate equal, if not better, gains. 

To understand why this is true, we must first understand the science behind building muscles and gaining strength using the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. When you lift heavy weights at the gym, you apply stress to your body. After hitting the workout, your personal trainer encourages you to sleep well and eat your macros. These variables constitute your recovery process. Following this recovery process, your body adapts to the specific stress applied, and you become stronger and more muscular. This is a very simple explanation of what actually happens, but the key takeaway is that the stress applied needs to be specific to the desired adaptation and should neither be too low nor too high. As a beginner, if you lift heavy weights every day, you are probably not training very hard. This is because you haven’t built the tolerance that an experienced lifter has. And in case you are, this routine probably won’t sustain for long. Even if you are an exception who can sustain very frequent, high volume, and moderate-intensity workouts as a beginner, another argument for a lower frequency program is that of progressively overloading over time for more sustained progress rather than showing all your cards at once. Remember, you are going to be lifting for the rest of your life. Start with the minimum effective dosage, build your work capacity over time, and then advance to higher frequency splits such as push-pull-legs. 

A 3-day whole body split focused on key compound exercises makes perfect sense for a beginner because:

1. You are training the entire body three times a week
2. You are able to train hard each session because you allow optimal time for recovery. Fun Fact: beginners are able to recover more quickly, so there is no point waiting for longer than a couple of days to hit the muscles again
3. The overall weekly volume is just enough to stimulate impressive newbie gains
4. Last but not least, the split is time-effective. The right selection of exercises (prioritizing big compound movements) will ensure that you are not spending a crazy amount of time in the gym each session but still apply adequate stress to your body for optimal and sustained growth. 

This training style yields significantly higher strength and hypertrophy gains in the first three to six months of an athlete’s lifting journey, granted the sessions get (progressively) intense and recovery is prioritized. 

As for volume, accumulating a total of 9-12 sets (about 3-4 exercises) per muscle per week is recommended for beginners. Focusing on compound exercises will ensure that you are able to hit the required volume without having to do too many exercises. 6-8 exercises per session are more than enough. Overall volume can be increased as the lifter approaches the end of the novice phase by switching from a 3-day to a 4-day split, such as an Upper-Lower workout structure. 

3. Not Eating Enough Protein

It’s quite common for beginners to over-prioritize their workouts and under-prioritize their nutrition. Nutrition is a key component of your recovery, which as we know from our understanding of the muscle building process is essential to driving desired results. In recent years, the scientific community has reached the consensus that athletes have higher protein requirements than the general sedentary population. A daily protein intake of 1.6 – 2.4 grams per body weight in kilograms is recommended for healthy athletes to maximize muscle hypertrophy. A non-vegetarian diet is generally rich in protein, making it easier for nonvegetarians to complete their daily protein requirements. However, this does not mean that you cannot fulfill your protein intake by following a vegetarian or vegan diet plan. Here are some high-protein meal options for vegetarians and vegans. You can always supplement with whey protein if your regular diet does not meet your protein requirements. (Read Appendix B for higher-level considerations regarding protein consumption for hypertrophy.

4. Inability to Manage Lifestyle Outside the Gym

A properly designed resistance training program and a balanced diet that is rich in protein will unlock tremendous gains. However, if you wish to take your newbie gains to the next level, consider the impact of other key lifestyle variables that most beginners would overlook. These include psychological stress, alcohol consumption, and excessive smoking. When you are an intermediate or advanced lifter, you are relatively closer to your genetic potential, which means the room for errors is significantly less. Hence, you tend to take these lifestyle variables more seriously. As a beginner, however, you can get away with a lot simply because of all that untapped potential, but imagine the gains you leave begging due to mere ignorance.

It is not a new revelation that excessive alcohol consumption and smoking are bad for your health and well-being. You can find countless articles that educate audiences about their harmful effects and make recommendations to manage and control consumption. However, what most lifters may benefit from is learning the impact of psychological stress on their performance and overall progress. High levels of daily stress decrease the production of natural anabolic hormones, such as testosterone, insulin-like growth factor, and growth hormone, and boost the release of catabolic hormones, such as cortisol. While resistance training itself is a great stress buster, Jake Boly recommends a variety of strategies to effectively manage daily stress in his Barbend article that you can incorporate. Meditation and high-quality sleep are my favorite picks on the list. Journaling is another excellent way to organize your thoughts and find peace in the chaos that life sometimes can become.

5. Being Impatient with Results

It’s easier to stay consistent when you experience great progress but what happens when newbie gains inevitably slow down? As a beginner, you can expect linear progression in muscular and strength gains. In other words, you are able to lift heavier each session and start noticing physical changes within a few weeks. Such is the power of newbie gains. However, as mentioned earlier, these newbie gains eventually slow down. This happens as you progress from being a novice lifter to an intermediate lifter and require slightly more complex programming than before. These plateaus can be extremely discouraging and it’s not uncommon for lifters to abandon training in the face of this transition. 

This transition is undoubtedly challenging, but you must keep training. The progress has slowed, but you are still a long way from your genetic potential. Discontinuation, however, is a sure-shot way to confirm that not only will new gains cease but you will also start losing all the progress you have made so far. This is a period of time in your lifting career where you must stay resilient and embrace the change. Invest time in learning intermediate programming or hire a personal trainer to help you stay on track. Remember – lifting (and fitness, in general) is a lifelong activity, the advantages of which are beyond mere aesthetics. It’s not a race but a marathon!

Modifying goal orientation is another great way to stay motivated. For example – if you have initially prioritized improvement in muscle size and shape, you may benefit from changing your training style to the one focused on building more strength, that is, switching from a bodybuilding type of training to powerlifting. This doesn’t need to be a long-term commitment but just a short-term setting for you to objectively measure your progress (now through an increase in weights lifted) and more importantly, to keep you in the gym. 

Remember, you don’t have to be perfect from day one. A healthy and sustainable lifestyle is built over time. The purpose of this blog is not to make you feel guilty, but to raise awareness. Figure out where you are in your journey and decide the next steps in moving forward. We all start somewhere, but I hope this blog provides you with an advantage that many, including myself, didn’t have in our novice phase.

Appendix A

Progressive Overload Recommendations for Novices

 

For novice lifters, I like to use the following progressive overload systems:

• Rep Across System 

I often program compound exercises like squats and bench presses for 3 sets of 5 reps across, one to three times a week for beginners, at a starting weight that is sufficiently challenging, excluding any warm-up or back-off sets. Athletes are advised to keep adding 5 lbs or 2.5 kgs to the lift each session as long as they are able to complete 3 sets of 5 reps across on the previous weight with an acceptable form. This is the ‘Reps Across’ system.

• Rep Range System 

I usually program isolation or accessory work for a specific rep range. For example – I might add 3 sets of 12-15 reps on bicep curls. To progressively overload in this system, I advise the athletes to start with a weight with which they can do around 12 reps (the lower end of the rep range) and aim to complete as many reps as possible within the 12-15 range, that is, the prescribed rep range. When they can complete 15 reps (the higher end of the range) with an acceptable form, they must increase the weight by the next smallest increment and aim for at least 12 reps (the lower end of the range) again, and so on. In this system, the athletes progressively train either by doing more reps of the same weight or by attempting heavier weights. This is the ‘Rep Range’ system.

 

Remember, none of the progressive overload systems work if sets, reps, and weights are not recorded properly each session. 

 

Appendix B

Higher-level Nutrition Considerations

 

Besides the daily protein intake required for optimal muscle growth, here are some higher-level considerations to keep in mind:

• Quality of Protein Source: Animal-based sources of protein have higher leucine content than plant-based protein. Leucine is an important amino acid in stimulating muscle protein synthesis and hence, contributes to muscle growth. Supplementing with whey protein can address this issue for vegetarian and vegan athletes.

• Protein Dosage per Meal: Athletes and active adults should aim for 20-40 grams of protein per meal.

• Protein Intake while on Caloric Deficit: Athletes and active adults following a calorie-deficit diet to reduce body fat must aim for a higher protein intake to maintain lean muscle mass.