Random Workouts Kill Confidence

If you’re working out consistently but still don’t feel fully confident in the gym or your workouts, there’s a good chance that the problem isn’t you - it’s probably your programming.

There is a huge appeal to random workouts; first and foremost, they’re free. You can open an app, find a new workout that looks fun and/or challenging, and go for it. You never have to worry about being bored because the workout you choose tomorrow will likely be completely different from the one you did today. And while this approach to fitness can feel exciting and novel, it can also make it surprisingly difficult to build confidence.

When you’re constantly doing something different, you’re constantly putting yourself in the position of being a beginner. You don’t get enough repetition to feel comfortable with the movements, and you don't have a clear way to measure your progress. So what happens is that you start questioning whether or not you’re actually getting stronger.

This is when something that should be building your confidence can start doing the opposite.

Why Random Workouts Are So Appealing

Let's be honest: sometimes a random workout is exactly what you want. Especially when it’s one of those days where you have only 20 minutes, you don’t know what you feel like doing, and you just want to pull up something quick to get some movement in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! The problem comes when random workouts become your entire training strategy.

The fitness industry has spent years telling us that a good workout is one that’s always changing and “confusing your muscles.” We’ve been told that we need new exercises, new challenges, new formats, and new trainers to keep results up. The general idea is that repeating workouts is boring and that your body somehow needs constant surprises to make any changes.

Fortunately, strength training doesn’t work that way. If your goal is to become stronger, you’ll need opportunities to practice movements and progressively challenge your muscles. The main requirement for this is consistency.

What Happens When Every Workout Is Different?

Think about it this way: imagine doing a goblet squat today and then a different variation of a squat next week, and then skipping squats the next week, and then coming back to a goblet squat the week after that. When you come back to the goblet squat after a few weeks off from doing it, it may still feel awkward, and you’re probably going to be using the same weight. This doesn’t mean that you’re bad at goblet squats; it means that you haven’t practiced them with enough consistency to get better at them.

This same concept applies to almost every exercise in a strength training program. When exercises are always different week to week, workout to workout, you miss out on the opportunity to make meaningful comparisons.

You might perform 10 reps of one lower body exercise one week and 12 reps of a completely different lower body exercise the next week, but that doesn’t tell you anything about whether or not you’re getting stronger because you’re essentially starting over every week.

When you lack clear evidence that you’re making improvement, it’s easy to assume that you’re not. But that’s the whole goal of strength training - to get stronger! And we can’t manage what we’re not tracking.

Random Workouts Can Make You Think You're Bad at Strength Training

This is the part I think we don’t talk about enough. So many women come into strength training feeling insecure in the first place, but when they’re following random workouts, it only adds fuel to the fire. They think their lack of confidence in their strength training routine is due to their lack of ability. They think they’re not coordinated enough, strong enough, or that they just don’t understand how to do the exercises that everyone else seemingly knows how to do.

But often, the problem is that they haven’t been given a consistent enough training program to actually develop these skills. Confidence in strength training comes from familiarity with the exercises and experience with them.

The more you consistently practice an exercise, the more comfortable and confident you become with it. The confidence you develop, the more attention you can put toward improving it and getting stronger with it.

Confidence Comes From Evidence

One of the biggest benefits of structured strength training is that it gives you evidence that you're improving. A structured program that focuses on progressive overload will have you repeating the same exercises/workouts for weeks at a time so that you can track and measure your progress. Each week, you have an opportunity to improve, whether that be via better form, heavier weights, or more reps.

And when you’re tracking all of this, you can actually see when progress is happening. If you started doing an exercise with 15 lbs for 8 reps, then moved to 15 lbs for 10 reps, then 20 lbs for 8 reps, you will see and know that you’ve gotten stronger.

With this method of following a structured program that repeats, instead of thinking “I’m not good at this” or “I don’t know if this is working,” you’ll start thinking, “Wow, I’m getting stronger,” because you’ll be able to see the evidence.

This is how you build confidence - by giving yourself opportunities to succeed, improve, and actually see your growth.

Repeating Workouts Isn't a Sign That Your Program Is Boring

This is one of the biggest misconceptions I see, and I totally get it because I used to feel the same way! Women often worry that if they're repeating workouts or exercises, they're not doing enough or that they’ll be bored. But repetition is one of the most useful tools you have when you’re working on getting stronger.

When you repeat a movement, you get better at it. When you get better at it, you become more efficient, and you learn how the exercise should feel. Once you have your form down, you work on making gradual increases to the demand you’re placing on your muscle. It’s from that increased demand that your muscles will grow, adapt, and get stronger.

This is exactly why athletes practice the same skills over and over - it’s vital to actually improving and getting better. And I promise you, you will not be bored with your workouts when you start seeing consistent results.

Increase Your Strength Training Confidence By Following a Structured Program

If you’ve been doing random workouts and are feeling like things just aren’t clicking for you, I highly recommend following a structured strength training program that focuses on progressive overload. It may require a bit of a mindset change to go from workouts that feel fun, novel, and new every week to ones that repeat, but it’s truly the best way to measure your progress and build real strength.

This is exactly what we do in the Simply Strong App. We repeat the same set of workouts with a focus on getting stronger within each exercise over the course of a month. Every month, we deliver new programs in the app so you don’t get bored, but also continue making progress.

If you're tired of guessing what workout to do next, Simply Strong gives you a structured strength training plan designed specifically for women 35+.

Choose from 3-, 4-, or 5-day training schedules with 30- or 45-minute workouts, track your weights and reps, use exercise swaps when you need them, and follow monthly programming designed to help you build strength without making fitness your entire life.

Take our quick quiz to see if training in the Simply Strong App is a good fit for you!