Starting Personal Training in January: How to Begin Well
January is a good month to start personal training, provided you treat it as the start of a twelve-month project rather than a four-week sprint. The people who are still training in June usually did three things: they booked their slots before Christmas, they started at a level that felt almost too easy, and they decided in advance what would happen when February got busy. This piece covers each of those, plus what to sort out in December, what the first six weeks should look like, and the mistakes that quietly end most New Year plans by the second week of February.
Why January works, and why it often doesn’t
The case for January is real. Diaries reset, the Christmas excess gives people a reason, and most of us find it easier to adopt a new habit at a natural turning point. Behavioural researchers call this the “fresh start” effect, and you don’t need a paper to recognise it.
The case against is just as real. January in London is dark at both ends of the working day, the office is catching up on everything that slid in December, and many people try to change five things at once: training, diet, alcohol, sleep and screen time. The plan collapses not because any single change was hard, but because the total load was. A good start in January is mostly about reducing that load.
What to sort out in December
The most useful work happens before the year turns. If you leave everything until the first Monday of January, you are competing with everyone else for the same early-morning and evening slots, and you lose the first week to admin.
- Book a consultation before Christmas. A short conversation in December means your first proper session can be in the first week of January, not the third.
- Fix two recurring slots. Look at your real diary for the last month, not your ideal week, and pick two times that were free in most weeks. Put them in as recurring appointments now.
- Tell your trainer about anything that hurts. Old injuries, a stiff back, a knee that complains on stairs. It shapes the first sessions.
- Check with your GP first if you have a heart condition, are pregnant, are recovering from an injury or operation, or haven’t exercised for a long time. It is a quick conversation and removes the guesswork.
- Get the kit sorted. Trainers with a flat, stable sole, something you can move in, a water bottle. Nothing more is needed.
If you want a sense of how a first appointment runs, we have written separately about what happens in a personal training consultation.
The first six weeks, roughly
Every plan should be built around the person, but the shape of a sensible start is fairly consistent. This is how I tend to structure it for someone starting from little or no regular training.
| Weeks | Main aim | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | Learn the main movements: squat, hinge, push, pull, carry. Find comfortable starting loads. | Easier than you expected. Some soreness after the first two sessions, then much less. |
| 3 to 4 | Add load or reps each session where technique holds. Introduce short conditioning work on the air bike. | Sessions start to feel like work. Weights are going up most weeks. |
| 5 to 6 | Consolidate. Repeat a body composition scan and review the training log. | Familiar. You know the routine and the warm-up runs itself. |
The point of those first two weeks being easy is not caution for its own sake. Starting light lets you practise the movements properly and keeps soreness manageable, so you turn up to session three without dreading it. Strength comes from gradual increases over months, which is the principle we explain in progressive overload explained. Nobody’s result was ever decided by how hard they trained in week one.
How often to train in January
Two sessions a week is the right starting point for most people. It meets the NHS guidance of muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week, it leaves room for recovery, and crucially it survives a bad week. Three sessions can work if your diary is reliably quiet, but I would rather someone did two sessions every week until Easter than three a week until mid-February.
Between sessions, walk. Daily walking does more for most people’s January than an extra hard workout, and it costs nothing in recovery.
Don’t change everything at once
This is where most January plans fail. Someone starts training, cuts alcohol entirely, begins a strict diet and sets a 6am alarm, all in the same week. By the third week they are tired, hungry and irritable, and the training is the easiest thing to drop.
A better sequence is to let training lead for the first month. Keep eating roughly as you do, perhaps with more protein and a little less of the obvious extras. Once the sessions are a fixed part of the week, then look at food in more detail. Changes made one at a time tend to stick; changes made together tend to fall together.
Planning for February
The second half of January is usually fine. The trouble starts in February, when the novelty has gone, work has picked up, and a cold or a business trip interrupts the run. Decide now what you will do when that happens:
- Away for work: a short routine you can do in a hotel room, agreed in advance.
- Ill: skip the session, rest, and come back at a slightly lower load. A week off costs very little.
- Busy week: keep the appointment but shorten it. Thirty focused minutes keeps the habit intact.
- Lost motivation: turn up anyway and let the session be ordinary. Motivation follows routine far more often than it precedes it.
The common thread is that the habit matters more than any individual session. Missing one session is nothing. Missing three in a row because you didn’t want to start again is how plans end.
What to measure, and when
Bathroom scales are a poor guide in January. Water and food after the holidays can move the number by a kilo or two in either direction for reasons that have nothing to do with fat. Better measures for the first six weeks:
- The weights and reps in your training log.
- How you feel climbing the stairs at Highgate station.
- A body composition scan at the start and again around week six. The studio has an InBody scanner, which estimates muscle and fat separately.
- Waist measurement, taken the same way each time.
Starting at The Highgate House
The training studio at The Highgate House is the lower ground floor of a corner building on Archway Road in Highgate, about five minutes’ walk from Highgate tube. It is about 1,000 sq ft and booked to you alone during your session, with a squat rack, barbell, dumbbells, a two-stack cable station, lat pulldown, seated row, an air bike and the InBody scanner. All sessions are coached by me; I have been coaching for more than ten years and mostly work with professionals over 30 from Highgate, Archway, Crouch End, Muswell Hill and Hampstead. The personal training page explains how it works.
Training runs early mornings and evenings, which suits January well: an early session is done before the day can interfere, and an evening session gives the dark commute home a purpose. Exact hours will be announced at opening.
Questions we get asked
Should I wait until after the first week of January?
No need, if you have booked ahead. If you haven’t, use the first week to arrange a consultation and start properly the following week. Either way, the start date matters far less than the next twelve weeks.
I’ve over-indulged in December. Should I diet hard first?
No. Start training at a sensible level and make modest changes to food. A hard diet on top of a new training habit is the combination most likely to stall.
How soon will I notice a difference?
Most people feel more capable within a few weeks, as they learn the movements and the weights rise. Visible changes take longer and depend on consistency and food.
Can I book now for January?
Yes. Email with the days and times that usually work for you and we will reply about 1-1 sessions with Artem.
Book with The Highgate House
Ready to start training properly? Email us at [email protected] with the service and the day that suits you, and we will come back to you with times.
Visit The Highgate House · Private personal training
The Highgate House, Archway Road, Highgate, London N6.
