A personal trainer shares the five things your gym teacher probably forgot to tell you about how to work out

The other day, I was horrified to discover that my 65-year-old mother wasn’t taking any rest between exercises at the gym.

She would power through, going straight from squats to lunges, then straight over to the dumbbell rack for her upper-body exercises. She wasn’t taking any breaks between her sets either.

How did I find this out? She complained about how tired she felt after her gym session the previous day. After eliminating the obvious (to me) culprits like a lack of stretching or poor sleep, I asked her how long her rest periods were.

“What rest periods?”

This wasn’t a case of playing with rest periods to increase the challenge, it was not knowing that you typically rest between sets.

It made me wonder if there are other things that I consider basic fitness knowledge that aren’t universally known?

To find out, I spoke to Matt Bandelier, of Eden Health Clubs, is an ACE-certified personal trainer who specializes in helping beginners and adults returning to exercise later in life build strength safely.

I asked him to share some of the most common things you can’t expect beginners to automatically know.

1. Rest between sets

Now you know, Mom. Rest is extremely important. In fact, Bandelier describes it as crucial.

“Most beginners think working harder means moving nonstop from exercise to exercise,” he says. “Strength and muscle are built when you can produce quality reps. Rest lets your nervous system and energy systems recover so you can keep your form tight and the load appropriate.”

How long that rest should last will depend on your abilities, your fitness goals and how you’re training.

If you’re circuit training, your rest periods are going to be shorter, to keep your heart rate high to elicit a cardio benefit. But if you’re doing low-rep, heavy sets, you want to take a long rest, long enough to make sure you’re completely recovered before going again.

A standard, middle-of-the-road starting point for beginners is sets of 10 to 12 reps with between 60 and 90 seconds of rest between sets, but speak to your trainer to make sure your rest periods are in line with your goals.

2. Don’t lift to failure

You may have heard that you build strength by pushing your muscles to the point of failure. While this is true, it isn’t a suitable way for everyone to train and isn’t necessary; you can challenge your muscles without taking them all the way to failure—the point where you can no longer lift the weight.

“Beginners often chase failure every set, which creates excessive soreness, fatigue and inconsistency,” says Bandelier.

“It is better to start with a rep range that has you stopping when you could still do two or three more reps with good form. This builds momentum over time and helps you build consistency by not overdoing it.”

3. Do a dynamic warm-up

Fast Full Body Dynamic Warm-up [Steal This!] || Full NASM-CPT Warm Up Example - YouTube

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This is one of the lessons my gym teacher didn’t miss, but never properly explained.

“A warm-up isn’t only to raise your heart rate,” says Bandelier. “It’s to prep joints, practice the movement in a low-impact way, and gradually load the muscles you’re going to be using. This improves performance and reduces the odds of injuries.”

You should be warming up before every activity, even a walk.

4. Control your breathing

“Most beginner pain is avoidable,” says Bandelier. “Bracing your core and breathing properly fixes a lot.”

“People strain their neck or lower back or feel unstable because they aren’t bracing their trunk or controlling breathing when they move.”

Our explanation of how to engage your core will help you perfect that skill, and Bandelier has advice on how to breathe effectively.

“You want to exhale during the effort—the perceived hard part of the lift—and inhale while deloading—the perceived easy part of the lift,” he says.

For instance, when doing a push-up, you would inhale while lowering your body toward the floor and exhale as you push yourself up again.

5. Give yourself time to recover

For the same reasons that you need to take rests between sets, you need to make sure that you are taking sufficient breaks between each gym session to recover properly.

“Recovery is vital to training and soreness should not be your measure of a successful workout,” says Bandelier.

“Muscle soreness can happen, but it’s not the goal and it’s often worse when someone is a beginner and does too much too soon, or doesn’t rest properly.”

“Consistency comes from repeatable workouts plus recovery.”