you want to get stronger. maybe feel more comfortable in the gym. maybe look in the mirror a few months from now and notice a little more muscle than before. but every time you look for advice, you somehow end up with more questions than answers.
there are programs for every body part, machines with names you can barely pronounce, and fitness influencers who seem to disagree on just about everything. before you know it, starting strength training feels like a project that requires weeks of research, a perfectly planned routine, and a degree in exercise science.
so, here’s what i’d tell my best friend if she came to me wanting to start lifting. more or less in the same order i’d explain it over a coffee.
(actually, my best friend did come to me and ask me to give her a plan 🤭)
first, you don’t need to have everything figured out before your first workout. most of what you need to know will come with experience, not endless research. and trust me, you’ll be much further ahead in a few months if you start with a simple, imperfect plan today than if you spend that time comparing programs and waiting for the perfect one.
in this post, i’ll walk you through the basics to get started without overthinking it. next week, i’ll be sharing the complete plan: the 12-month fitness roadmap i created for my bestie, broken down step by step.
ps: there's a little announcement at the end of this post that might interest you 👀
every week, i break down research and complex concepts into clear, relatable insights to help you make sense of the wellness & fitness world, without all the noise. if you find my work helpful, consider supporting it by becoming a free or paid subscriber ♡
pick one program and stay with it for a while
the first thing i’d tell my friend is to follow a structured program, meaning a plan written in advance with the exercises, sets and reps already decided, instead of walking into the gym and choosing whatever feels right that day.
i created an 8-week gym program that might help you get started. it was originally designed for more experienced lifters, but beginners and those returning after a long break can use it too, with a few adjustments explained in the program. if you’re already a paid subscriber, you can find it on the member perks page.
when you improvise, you tend to repeat the exercises you already like, skip the ones that feel awkward, and have no way of knowing whether you’re doing more than you did last month. and progress depends on exactly that, doing a little more over time. a program takes the decisions off your shoulders, so your energy goes into the workout itself.
i say this as someone who spent a long time doing the opposite. i kept starting programs and dropping them as soon as another one looked better, always chasing the perfect one, and all those restarts piled up with nothing visible to show for them.
the program i’d give my best friend is a simple one that she can repeat for at least eight weeks. consistency and learning the basics (how to set up a machine, how to move with control, when to add a little weight because a set has started to feel easy) matter far more than having the most sophisticated plan.
start with two or three full-body sessions a week
for a beginner i’d keep it to two or three strength sessions a week, each one training the whole body. it suits beginners because you’re training each muscle group several times a week while still allowing enough time to recover between sessions. it’s also more flexible: if you miss a workout (and at some point, you probably will), you won’t have skipped training an entire muscle group for the week.
two sessions are enough to make progress at the beginning. three give you a little more practice with the movements and help you build confidence in the gym. anything beyond that can wait until you’ve built a solid foundation and your routine starts to feel more natural.
machines are completely valid tools at this stage. many women feel they have to jump straight to barbells and free weights because that’s what the people they follow use. then they find themselves standing in front of a squat rack, not quite sure what to do with it.
machines guide the movement for you, so you can concentrate on pushing hard and feeling the right muscle work. also, strength and muscle grow about the same with machines as with free weights, which makes a machine-based program a real program.
barbells and other free weights can come later, when you’re curious and have built some confidence. and you may find you never need them.
what to train, and how to build the x-frame look
the muscle groups to cover are legs, glutes, back, chest, shoulders and arms, and a good beginner program touches all of them every week. since i know many of you want results you can see in the mirror and not only numbers going up, i’ll focus on the look that comes up most often, the x-frame: broad shoulders, a narrow-looking waist, and full glutes, creating an x-shaped silhouette.
that said, one thing needs to be crystal clear: training doesn’t shrink your waist or change the shape of your bones, and how wide your shoulders and hips are to begin with is mostly genetics. what training does is build muscle around the structure you already have, and the x-frame works as an illusion of contrast.
when your upper back, your shoulders and your glutes grow, your waist looks smaller next to them without a single centimeter of it changing. everyone ends up with a slightly different version of the x-frame, depending on the skeleton they were born with.
the muscles that create this contrast are your lats (the large muscles on the sides of your upper back), the side delts (the outer part of your shoulders), and your glutes. these are the muscle groups worth giving a little extra attention to if you want to build an hourglass silhouette.
if you’re just getting started, a simple machine-based workout could look something like this:
2-3 sets of 8-12 reps per exercise | finish each set when you feel you could do only 1-2 more reps
legs and glutes. start with a leg press, followed by a hip thrust and a dumbbell romanian deadlift. together, these exercises target your quads, hamstrings, and glutes.
back. a lat pulldown and a seated row to build both the width and thickness of your back, two important elements of the x-frame.
chest and shoulders. a chest press machine and dumbbell lateral raises. the lateral raises are especially useful for building your side delts and adding width to your shoulders.
if you want to give your glutes a little extra attention, i’d add seated hip abductions at the end of each session. it’s an easy exercise to perform on a machine, even when you’re already tired, and you can gradually increase the weight as you get stronger.
eat at maintenance during the first year
this is the part i feel most strongly about, because i’ve been there myself. i spent years training without seeing results, and the reason was simple: i wasn’t eating enough. i had no energy for my workouts, my body wasn’t changing, and every time i felt frustrated, my answer was to eat even less, which of course made everything worse.
so my advice to my best friend, especially if she’s already at a healthy weight but has relatively little muscle, would be to spend her first year focused on training and on eating at maintenance. that simply means eating enough to keep her weight relatively stable while building muscle. no diet and no bulk, just enough food.
when you’re a beginner, your body can build muscle and lose some fat at the same time, simply because it's responding to a new training stimulus. your weight might stay the same, but your body composition will change, and that’s why you don’t need a calorie deficit right now.
an online calculator can give you a good starting estimate of your maintenance calories. from there, you can adjust based on how you feel and how your weight changes over a few weeks. the only other thing i’d recommend is including a source of protein in each meal. the rest of your plate can stay simple.
think in years instead of weeks
strength training is something you can keep doing in your fifties, sixties and beyond, and the first year is mostly the setup for all of that.
the people who are still lifting ten years from now tend to be the ones who stopped treating it as a short-term project. there will be weeks when you skip sessions, stretches where nothing seems to move, and months when life gets in the way. a year of imperfect training still leaves you far ahead of someone who started perfectly and quit after six weeks.
it’s a practice you build once and adjust for the rest of your life.
if this was useful, a like or a comment tells me you want more beginner-friendly articles like this one, and sending it to the friend who keeps asking where to start helps a lot 💖
before you go, i have a little announcement for you.
this newsletter is a project i genuinely love, but since substack isn't my full-time job, keeping it running takes extra hours of work every week. the readers who chose to become paid subscribers have made that work a little easier by supporting what i do, and i'm incredibly grateful for that. their support makes it easier to put those hours into making everything better for every reader, free or paid.
so i wanted to find a way to say thank you that goes beyond words. starting next week, paid subscribers will get a little more:
𖥔 a weekly meal plan. every friday, i’ll share my meal plan for the week ahead, organized just like i plan my own meals. you’ll get the recipes, a complete shopping list, and the calories and macros for each meal, so you can plan your food, get your groceries, and spend less time wondering what to eat. i’ll keep everything simple and realistic, with quick recipes and everyday ingredients. you’ll have the weekend to browse the meals, pick your favorites, and get organized before monday.
𖥔 a practical guide. every week, i’ll publish an in-depth, framework-driven article designed to help you put what you learn into practice. we’ll go beyond the theory and get into the details: the numbers, the methods, the decisions, and the small steps that make things work. whether it’s building a training routine, understanding your nutrition needs, or working towards a specific goal, you’ll get clear explanations and practical tools to help you figure out exactly what to do.
if you’d like to take your fitness and wellness routine one step further, you can get 20% off the annual plan until november 15. that’s just €4 a month, less than a little treat from your local french bakery. a paid subscription unlocks the full archive, all the practical tools, plus exclusive member perks.
thanks for reading,
—glicia ⋆˖🧚🏻♀️*⋆
in case you missed it
about the writer
i’m glicia, a certified personal trainer and dietitian in training based in paris. at never not hungry i translate research and complex concepts into clear, relatable insights you can actually use in your everyday life. when i’m not writing, i’m designing workout programs, trying overpriced cafés, reading romantasy, or lifting heavy things. welcome to my little corner of the internet. i hope you’ll stay.
let’s work together
i help women get stronger, feel more confident, and build a better relationship with training. if you’ve been thinking about coaching, tell me where you are, where you want to go, and what you feel stuck on right now. we’ll figure out together whether coaching could be the right next step for you.
the "start with a simple, imperfect plan today" point is the one most beginners need to hear twice - the research phase feels productive but it's usually the delay dressed up as work. looking forward to the 12-month roadmap post.