How to make a strength training routine stick

I have been strength training inconsistently for about ten years. That is a generous use of the word "training": there have been periods where I went to the gym regularly, periods where I went twice and apparently considered the project complete, and periods where I probably shouldn't have kept paying for my gym membership.

It has only really been in the last two or three years that I have developed anything resembling a routine. I still do not train for two hours, six days a week, and I have no desire to - strength training is simply not interesting enough to me for that to happen. Give me a 30-minute session and I am perfectly happy to turn up every time, but give me a two-hour programme and I will most definitely make other plans.

Why is it so hard to stick to a gym routine?

Strength training has an unfortunate design flaw: when you first start, it's really quite boring. You don't know what half the equipment does. You have no idea whether 20kg is impressive, embarrassing or completely irrelevant. You spend an alarming amount of time adjusting seats.

Strength training only gets interesting once you start progressing. Suddenly the 20kg you struggled with becomes 25kg. Six repetitions becomes eight. Your squat starts feeling like an actual squat rather than an elaborate attempt to sit down without a chair. That gives you something to chase, but you have to stick around long enough to get there.

Is getting a personal trainer worth it?

If you are completely new to strength training and can afford a personal trainer for a while, yes, I think it is one of the better things you can spend your money on. Just don't expect them to change your life and reveal a hidden six-pack within ten weeks.

A good PT can teach you how to squat without folding yourself in half. They can watch your deadlift and explain why it feels like you are trying to lift the floor rather than the bar. They can teach you how to bench, overhead press and row properly. Learning how to perform compound exercises is something I cannot recommend enough.

They can also teach you how to structure your own sessions and identify where you're strong, weak or need more work. The goal should be to eventually know what you're doing without someone standing next to you counting to ten.

Is one strength workout a week enough for beginners?

Sure, it absolutely can be, but maybe aim for more than that. Research suggests that one resistance-training session per week can improve strength, particularly when you are starting from very little. So if you can only train once a week, train once a week. It is infinitely better than the zero sessions you were apparently saving yourself for.

The reason you might want to make it more than once a week is simply because if you're anything like me, once a week is not enough for it to become routine, and the session will seem unreasonably long and boring because you're trying to fit in every single muscle group into one session. If your theoretically excellent one-hour workout sits untouched in your phone every week because you cannot face doing it, is it actually an excellent workout?

The best beginner strength training plan is the one you will repeat

A repeatable routine is one that creates as little resistance as possible between thinking about training and actually doing it. It should be short enough that you do not dread starting, flexible enough that one bad day does not destroy the entire week, and frequent enough that exercise starts feeling like something you normally do rather than an appointment you keep having to persuade yourself to attend.

For me, that means breaking longer workouts into smaller sessions, doing some kind of movement most days, keeping individual sessions deliberately short, and accepting that sometimes, maintaining the habit is more important than completing the workout exactly as planned.

Break long workouts into smaller sessions

If you genuinely enjoy a 60-minute full-body strength workout, excellent. Do that.

If the thought of it fills you with a level of dread usually reserved for dentist appointments, split it up. Whether it's 30 minutes twice a week, or twenty minutes three times a week, maybe even several 10 to 15-minute sessions if that is what gets you moving. There is nothing physiologically sacred about completing your entire week's training in one tedious lump. A 2024 systematic review comparing full-body and split routines found similar strength and muscle growth when the total amount of training was comparable.

Build a daily movement habit

That absolutely does not mean lifting weights hard seven days a week. Your muscles need recovery, and repeatedly hammering the same tissues without allowing them to adapt is not clever merely because it demonstrates commitment.

I mean making movement something you do every day. One day might be strength training, another might be a run, a walk, or a yoga session. Even just a stretching session shorter than your hamstring while watching TV.

When physical movement becomes part of every day and feels as natural as brushing your teeth, congratulations: you have yourself a routine.

Some days, showing up is enough

We all have bad days. I don't think I am the only one who has gone to the gym, got changed, looked at a dumbbell, and... Not today, Satan. Showing up counts towards the habit, and knowing you're allowed to turn back once you're in the gym makes it infinitely easier to go in the first place.

When should you start doing more strength training?

When your current routine feels easy to maintain and you want more progress. If you're still getting stronger and you're happy with what you're doing, you absolutely do not need to make your workouts longer or more frequent just for the sake of it.

If you do want more, add a little and see how you recover. If you're also running, more strength training isn't automatically better. The routine still has to be one you can actually maintain. 

Consistency does not mean never missing a session

You will miss sessions. The important bit is coming back before one missed session turns into six months of still technically having a gym membership.

I still fall off the wagon, but now that I have a more consistent routine I am noticing a huge shift in how I feel about my body, even if my gains are minimal. When I'm training regularly, I look in the mirror and see the Hulk. Miss a week and suddenly I'm Shrek. Physically, almost nothing has changed, but I feel different.

And that, for me, is the real reason to keep the routine going.