News & Tips · Starting Out

Scared of injuring yourself lifting weights?

By Katerina Jakubcova · personal trainer and certified menopause specialist, Surbiton

General guidance only. Always check with your doctor before starting a new exercise programme, especially if you have an injury or existing health condition.

"Jane" had been coming to the gym twice a week for years, but she never touched a weight.

She used the bike, sometimes the cross-trainer, and then she went home.

She was in her late forties and she wasn't there to lose weight. She was already quite petite. She simply wanted to feel stronger and stop running out of energy every afternoon.

But she was scared of lifting weights.

She didn't know the correct technique, so every dumbbell, barbell and machine looked like an injury waiting to happen.

And honestly, I understood her fear.

The fear isn't silly, but waiting for it to disappear won't help

Of course you can injure yourself if you use a weight that is too heavy or perform an exercise with poor technique.

But the problem is that many women wait until they feel confident before they start.

Unfortunately, confidence doesn't normally come first. It comes after you have practised the movements, learned the correct technique and proved to yourself that you can do it safely.

You cannot think yourself into feeling confident on the weights floor. You need to start small and repeat the movements until they no longer feel frightening.

Why cardio feels like the safer option

You don't know how to use the weights, so you avoid that part of the gym.

Instead, you use the equipment you already understand, usually the bike, treadmill or cross-trainer.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with cardio. But if your goal is to build muscle, become stronger and make everyday life feel easier, cardio alone won't give you everything you need.

So you continue going to the gym, but you don't see the change you wanted.

Eventually, you start thinking: "Maybe this is just my body now."

But you haven't failed. You simply haven't been shown what to do.

That was the loop Jane had been stuck in for years.

We started with one kilogram

And yes, one kilogram was difficult for her at the beginning.

I saw her once a week. We repeated the same exercises we had done the week before and, when she was ready, we added a little more.

That was it.

No completely new training plan every two weeks. No complicated exercises just to make the programme look impressive. We repeated the basic movements until she understood them and they stopped feeling scary.

It took around ten weeks.

And I didn't push her too hard. That was actually one of the most important parts of coaching her. I understood that she was frightened, so we went at a pace she could manage.

Small steps create great achievements.

Sometimes my job isn't to shout, "One more rep!" Sometimes it is to explain, reassure and show someone that they are already doing far better than they think.

Jane's biggest fear was doing something wrong. Being shown that she was doing it correctly made all the difference.

The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend that adults do muscle-strengthening activity at least twice a week. That isn't an enormous amount, but it can feel completely unreachable when you don't know where to begin.

The question that changed everything

After a few sessions, instead of immediately showing Jane what to do, I started asking her: "How would you do this exercise if I wasn't here?"

Then I let her show me.

I didn't jump in and correct every tiny thing. I gave her extra tips. What she should feel, what the movement should look like and what she needed to watch out for.

I often explain exercises visually, because if you can create a picture in your head, you are much more likely to remember it when I'm not standing next to you.

Because the goal isn't for you to be able to exercise only when your trainer is there. The goal is for you to understand what you are doing and feel confident enough to do it on your own.

Where is she now?

Jane now comes to the gym regularly.

She also joined my online coaching, so alongside our weekly session, she completes two weight-training sessions by herself using the exercises and instructions in the app.

She is much stronger, and her energy has improved, which was the reason she came to me in the first place.

She is one of my quieter clients, but she has probably surprised me the most.

Does she still worry about her technique sometimes?

Yes.

And honestly, I don't think that is a bad thing. The people who never question whether they are doing an exercise correctly are normally the ones I need to watch most closely.