First gather information regarding your past as it relates to health and fitness. Write everything down and create a small file. Did you participate in high school and/or college sports? What is your knowledge of exercise and fitness? What is your recent experience with exercise? Have you been injured to the point where it required surgery? Did you frequently injury yourself when exercising? What were your favorite sports? What is your overall medical history?

Second, determine your present lifestyle. Do you exercise? Do you have a goal? Are you making progress toward your goal? What exercise(s) are you doing? How often? What is your level of work stress and personal stress? Is your job physically demanding? What are your personal and professional responsibilities? Do you sleep well and awake rested? What do you eat and how is your eating schedule? What is your overall health? How is your attitude?

Last, determine your future goals related to fitness. What do you want from exercise? Is it to improve your ability in other sports activity? Improve your overall appearance? Do you want to reach your genetic potential for building muscle? Do you have a short term goal to look good for an event? Can you commit to changing overall lifestyle to become healthy and fit? Are you confident with your knowledge of exercise, or how you exercise?

Answers to the above questions and others like them will help you carve out a clearer picture to determine your path to improved fitness. Whether or not you need a trainer to explain basic exercise concepts, devise a routine, help with eating habits, supervise workouts, or motivate you will be determined through your answers. These are the same types of questions I use when meeting a client. Regardless, I always start new clients with basic fundamental exercises during the first workout. Even if a client is experienced, I need to see their ability to perform the fundamental exercises properly before we consider any advanced training concepts. Frequently, I discover problems that need to be corrected. Far too often, people abandon basic exercises for isolation type exercises thinking they are advancing in their training, only to lose progress and develop chronic injuries. There are instances; however, when a client is unable to perform some basic exercises due to medical issues with the lower back and/or knee, elbow or shoulder joints. In such cases, alternate safe exercises have to be substituted for safe yet limited progress. This is where the experience and professionalism of a trainer becomes important.

For example, the following is a basic program for a healthy 25 year old male looking for increased strength and some increased muscle mass without any particular sporting influence. Suitable similar exercises can be substituted over time. The order of the upper body exercises can be changed periodically as required for emphasis. The upper arms receive plenty of work with this routine therefore no biceps curls or isolation triceps exercises are included. For maximum progress, this routine should be performed 2 times per week with a minimum of 2 days rest between workouts. Such a routine should be followed for 6-8 weeks before making any changes. The day after each workout should be a rest day. Other days can be used for light to moderate aerobic activity and sports activity. Stretching of all major muscle groups should be done 4-5 times per week. A common problem is that when a client starts to see progress with such a basic routine, they start to train more frequently and add more exercises, which causes their progress to come to a halt. The better alternative would be to change exercises, and the sets/rep scheme keeping with brief workouts and an infrequent training schedule so the body can recover and adapt/grow. Keep working towards progressive increases in strength. Every work set should involve very hard work.

Crunch type abdominal exercise for 3 sets of 20 reps
Squats (3 warm-ups sets for 8, 5, 3 reps, then 1 maximum weight work set for 20 reps)
Semi-Stiff Leg Deadlift (2 warm-ups set for 5 reps, then 1 maximum weight work set for 15 reps)
Standing Calf Raise (2 warm-up sets, then 2 maximum weight work sets for 15 reps)
Standing Shoulder Press (2 warm-ups sets for 5 reps, then 2 maximum weight work sets for 8 reps)
Supinated Grip Cable Pulldown (2 warm-up sets for 5 reps, then 2 maximum weight work sets for 8 reps)
Parallel Bar Dips (2 warm-up sets for 5 reps, then 2 maximum weight work sets for 8 reps)