Hey gym newbies! Welcome to what I am calling..

The Freshman Fitness blog.

A blog *specifically* for beginners where everything is broken down step by step.

This blog is for fitness tips, motivation, reviews on products & my personal journey from lazy girl to personal trainer/gym fanatic.

If you are new to my page or this blog overall… let me introduce myself! My name is Emily Robinson. I am the CEO of Emily Robinson Fitness LLC and have been a personal trainer for over 3 years, specializing in helping newbies getting started in the gym.

At this point you may be asking yourself, why in the world would you want to help the newbies?

My answer is simple.. I WAS ONCE YOU. In fact, everyone was. I know how hard it is first hand to get started with no assistance from anybody. The amount of conflicting information on the internet and social media is insane.

It is hard to know what advice is good and what advice is bad.

I want to kick off this blog by taking a deep dive into my personal journey getting started in the gym and how I got to where I am today.

I grew up an athlete playing soccer, softball and basketball since I can remember. In high school, I lost interest in playing sports but I still played both soccer and softball mainly. I’ll be the first to admit – I was extremely lazy then. I hated the routine, showing up everyday and forcing myself to play. It was simply not enjoyable but for some reason I didn’t have it in me to quit. It didn’t feel right to quit, so I pushed through until graduation.

*Flash forward to my freshman year of college*

I found myself extremely bored and feeling out of shape in my college dorm. I was so used to being active and always having a practice or game to go to.

At the time though, I didn’t really care for the gym nor did I have any idea how to lift a weight. The idea didn’t appeal to me but I thought “what about going for a walk?”. It was simple enough and it didn’t seem like I would have to put in much effort to go for a walk.

From there I found myself spending a lot of time in the gym, walking on the treadmill. Paying absolutely no attention to any of the weight equipment in the gym. Which, by the way, seems to be a theme for many beginners.

At this point, you may or may not be thinking… this sounds a lot like me!

So how did I actually get into lifting weights?

The answer is simple. I spent so much time walking, thinking I was going to get this lean, toned body and after a year or so I realized… this is not working. I am skinny(ish), but where is the “tone” at?

And the answer to that is also simple… the tone was waiting for me in the weight section, where I spent no time at all.

As pretty much every beginner does, I walked around the gym staring at each machine thinking, “what the heck does this do?”

I would walk around and do random machines, never touch a free weight, and had absolutely no structure or purpose to my workouts other than to feel like I was lifting weights.

And at the time, I thought that was amazing! A step in the right direction..

Which, to be fair, was a step in the right direction just not on the direct path to success.

I did this for about a year and took a long, hard look in the mirror again.

I still had NO tone.

I was beyond confused. What am I doing wrong? I’ve been lifting weights for a whole year now.

My curiosity brewed & I turned to Google as every reasonable human does.

What I found was well…useless.

“Eat more food, eat less food, eat more protein, don’t eat too much protein, do cardio, don’t do cardio, do more weight less reps, do less weight more reps, carbs are essential, do Keto.”

Needless to say.. below is an accurate representation of my face at the time.

After realizing pretty much every other site was contradicting, I did what any good student would do.

I turned to specific resources I knew would be more reliable.

Case studies from academia, people and sources that used scientific research to back up their claims.

For a while I followed people like Mike Matthews, a science based author, who has awesome books. I read all of his books and found myself wanting to learn even more.

By this time it was 2020 (3 years had passed over this period of time).

The next logical step, in my opinion, was to study to be a certified personal trainer. At the time, I wasn’t doing it to help others but mainly to help myself. This is where I learned a lot of basics on how to make an effective program & the importance of calories and macros.

To be honest though, I didn’t LOVE some of what was taught. I wanted to take this knowledge I had acquired and combine it with the tremendous amount of research I had done over the years to figure what works best for me (and potentially others as well).

It took me *literally* years of experimentation to figure out what I enjoy, what works best for my body & how to be successful with my fitness journey so please put that into prospective when reflecting on your own fitness journey.

It was around 2021 that I first started physically seeing progress with my body. I was making my own routines, I never had a trainer and I was proud of myself for the first time in a long time. From then to now, in 2 years time, the progress I made has been well.. you can see for yourself below. I went from skinny(ish) girl to muscle mommy?? I mean, that’s what the kids are calling it these days anyways 😂

I’d like to mention that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me in the photo on the left. In fact, that is what a lot of people would LOVE to look like but that wasn’t what I personally wanted to look like. I was shooting for the look I have now on the right.

Although I was certified as a trainer in 2020, I was never super comfortable helping others with their fitness so I had a client here and there but never promoted anything especially on social media.

It wasn’t until late 2021/early 2022 that I finally felt comfortable with putting myself out there on social media -posting my face, my body, my videos, my knowledge outside of the basic selfie you see above. I was SO scared to be judged at first. For those who don’t know me personally from growing up, which is probably the majority of people reading this, I grew up extremely reserved, low key, and wanting no attention on me at all times. And to be honest, I still am that way sometimes but social media has helped bring me out of my comfort zone and grow as a person tremendously so for that, I am thankful!

As you can imagine, putting yourself out on social media frequently is scary. It is eyes on you at all times, waiting for millions of people to place judgement on you from a short clip, criticize you and the information you put out. I used to not post any videos thinking “my form isn’t perfect”. I didn’t want another fitness account to comment on it or tell me I was putting out bad or wrong information. I hated being wrong. I was super insecure about it.

Eventually though, I starting posting outside my “safe” content comfort zone.

And that’s when things TOOK OFF. And i don’t mean they took off. I mean they TOOK OFF like a rocket going into space 🚀

I started getting traction on my videos. I started getting comments about how useful my content was and floods of followers. I realized that people believed in me. They actually took value from what I was putting out there.

Because people started to believe in me, I started to believe in myself!

I went on to post tons of informational content regularly (as you see on my Instagram page now) and eventually figured out my niche.. yes I’m talking about you guys. My newbs!

Through my journey, I found a passion for helping others who need it the most. Which happens to be people who are just starting and have no idea what is going on (no offense lol).

To be honest, I don’t love social media so it is truly you guys who inspire me to keep going and putting out content regularly. You’ve personally helped me grow my own confidence in and outside of the gym and feel like a BAD B…you know what. I want to return the favor by helping other gym newbies build their confidence in the gym.

This was why I originally put out my beginner’s eBook which details everything that I could have possibly used when I was first starting to help me fast forward and get results years sooner.

I’ve also put out various free guides, a high protein recipe guide, and programs for people but if I’m being honest, something still doesn’t feel right. It’s not what I had in mind.

So I’m happy to announce…

I’ve just released my own CUSTOM app, Freshman Fitness. This is everything I’ve always envisioned.

I know for a fact you’ll find amazing value and community in it. It has full month workout routines, body part specific workout routines, an entire library of exercises broken out by muscle group, recipes, and a ton of learning content for beginners!

You can click here on your mobile device to redirect to the app.

If you’re still reading this…

This is your sign to get out of your comfort zone and do things that make you uncomfortable to see growth in your life (within reason of course, you still have to stick to who you are at your core at the end of the day).

Until next time,

Coach Emily