Expert Tips to Start a Strength Training Routine As a Beginner

Personal trainer Georgina Cox shares her tips for confidently pursuing fitness-related goals in 2025.

Georgina Cox / Courtesy of Georgina Cox

Kickstart your New Year alongside SI Swimsuit with 31 Days of Wellness! This January, SI Swimsuit will unlock exclusive offerings with SI Swimsuit models, wellness experts, fitness gurus and others, who will guide you through 31 days of rejuvenating workouts, recipes, self-care rituals and more.

No matter your reasoning for picking up a set of weights, there are many benefits to doing so. Not only can strength training boost your muscle mass, it has plenty of mental health benefits, too, from improving your mood and reducing stress to building self-esteem. Strength training offers several benefits for women in particular, including boosting bone density and metabolism, as well as lowering the risk of heart disease. So, if you’re looking to boost your overall well-being in 2025, strength training is a great place to start.

Personal trainer and online health coach Georgina Cox has created an empowering platform that prioritizes strength over aesthetics, and in 2025, she’s continuing her mission to help women feel confident in their fitness routines.

We recently caught up with Cox to chat all about strength training in the New Year. Below, she offers up her suggestions for creating healthy and realistic fitness-related goals in the months ahead.

How to build confidence strength training

For those who have resolved to start the New Year off with a consistent workout plan, the U.K.-based fitness instructor and content creator urges women to start strength training at home first if they feel intimidated by the gym.

“Working out at home is the perfect way to build your confidence before you join a gym,” Cox, who learned to respect and appreciate her own body through strength training, says. “When I first started, I was learning the movements at home, so when I started strength training in a gym, I’d built that confidence already.”

Georgina Cox and clients / Courtesy of Georgina Cox

Cox’s fitness app features both at-home and gym programs that guide subscribers through strength training with confidence. As far as getting comfortable in the gym if you’re used to working out at home, Cox suggests easing yourself in to the new environment. Try a 10-minute treadmill session to start, and when you’re ready to begin lifting weights, find a great program to follow, like her four-week “Strong Queen” program, which is designed for beginners.

How often to strength train and how to cater your goals

In order to establish an effective strength training routine, Cox recommends at least two to three times a week of 30- to 45-minute workouts. However, she notes that an average week will look different for everyone.

“If time is a barrier for you, it’s important to remind yourself that all movement counts,” she says. “A 10-minute workout out once a week is better than nothing at all. Results might take longer, but the more you adapt things around you and your life, the easier it is to stick to.”

Georgina Cox / Courtesy of Georgina Cox

And while many people kick off the New Year with aesthetic-related fitness goals in mind, Cox is a huge proponent of shifting the focus away from how you look and setting goals that have nothing to do with appearance—whether that’s moving more, building strength, learning a new skill or achieving a pull-up for the first time.

“We’ve been programmed to believe that health and fitness look a certain way, but fitness looks different on everybody. How we look is a beauty standard, [but] how fit and healthy we are is determined by so much more than aesthetics and always will.” Cox says. “I hope people are able to shift the focus of their goals away from how their bodies look to how they feel inside their bodies. When we’re 80 years old, our physical appearance won’t matter, only the physical abilities of our bodies. How our bodies move and function will always matter more than cellulite or stretch marks.”

Stay tuned to SI Swimsuit’s 31 Days of Wellness to continue to learn how to take charge in the year ahead!

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