So, you're going it alone.

First of all, you need to pick the right goal. It needs to be a realistic goal, and it needs to be attainable and make sense. Telling someone that you'd like to lose weight, or that you'd like to be strong is more of an idea than a goal. This isn't to say having this idea isn't useful; it is! From this idea, goals can be derived, but you must be specific about what you aim to achieve.

To begin with, choose a S.M.A.R.T. goal. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound).

Something that is attainable and will help give you confidence. This could be anything from "I'd like to lose 0.5lbs each for 6 weeks" to "I'd like to add 10kg to a specific movement (squat/bench/deadlift) within 3 months".

Choosing this short term goal will illuminate the road to bigger, longer term goals. The exactness of the goal you set helps you clearly define what you need to do to succeed, and helps you to specify your training to actualise the results you desire.

Secondly, you need to strategise. The variables involved in your training are volume, frequency and intensity. You need to pick two that you can manipulate to meet your own requirements.

FREQUENCY: How often in a day or a week you plan on training.

INTENSITY: Intensity can be the load (weight) used during the exercise, or how difficult the set is (RPE).

VOLUME: Total workload per session. The simplest way to measure total workload is sets/reps.

Every person has a varying degree of reserves to draw from, which is why you'll find there are so many training styles; different people benefit from different styles, and if you aren't optimising your training and recovery, you've got a high chance of burning out and bringing your own progression to a standstill. The options are; INCREASING FREQUENCY: Including training more often during the week; such as increasing from 2 to 4 days.

INCREASING INTENSITY: Using heavier weights for your exercise, or working at a higher RPE, close to failure.

INCREASING VOLUME: Using more sets/reps for each exercise, as well as increasing the number of exercises you're doing.

Pick two of the above that are achievable for you and that you enjoy the most. If you enjoy being in the gym often and lifting heavy, keep the volume lower. If you enjoy doing high volume exercise, keep the weight (intensity) lower, etc.

You need to decide whether you want to train at a high RPE, or with a lot of volume, or with heavier weights, you can't do all three. If you overstimulate the muscles without adequate rest and recovery, you'll see your progress grind to a halt.

You need to choose your body goals, and tailor your program to meet those goals. If you're losing to burn fat and tone up, you're going to find high intensity interval training (HIIT) and high volume resistance/conditioning exercises very beneficial. This means bursts of high energy movements, complemented by short rests in between (Increasing volume and intensity). If you're looking to build strength, you'd benefit from lower volume, more explosive/heavy movements (increasing frequency and intensity).

No matter what training style you prefer, you need to learn to eat for the exercise you're doing. Food is fuel for your body, and if you eat too much, or too little, you won't see the progress you desire.

Planning around adaptation is important; everyone adapts to training at different rates, and if you reach full adaptation you'll find that you're achieving fatigue, but not progression. You need to make small changes to keep creating new stimuli for improvement.

If you're training often and go several sessions without seeing improvement in your performance on a specific exercise, change it for something else relative to the same muscle group. This could be changing conventional deadlift for sumo deadlift, or low block pulls, deficit deadlift. It's a small change, but can make a huge difference in encouraging new progress.

This doesn't mean changing up your entire program if you find that you're plateauing in a few movements; try changing your technique and seeing where that takes you (such as choosing thumbless grip for squats, or a lower bar position). Keep progressing the exercises that are working for you, and make small tweaks to the ones that aren't. You'll find your groove.

After every block of training (which you should be tracking, suggested block length 4-6 weeks) look back and assess your progress, see what has worked for you consistently, what has had no benefit, and make changes that need to be made. This can be adjusting your volume, frequency or intensity of your exercises, rather than changing the exercises themselves.

There will be bad training days, but these are anomalies. Sometimes outside factors can affect your training in ways you haven't expected. One or two bad training sessions isn't a trend, but if you find your whole program has stopped working, take a deload (rest). Following this rest period (up to 1 week), reevaluate your program, work out what went wrong, what went right, and what you can apply to the next block.

Regardless of what you're training for, you need to include conditioning in your training plan. There are 3 reasons for conditioning; body composition, heart health and work capacity. Work capacity (or stamina) is often overlooked by those who choose to train with free weights (such as bodybuilders or powerlifters), but is essential to improving your physical fitness and allowing you to do more within the gym, as well as improving recovery time.

Choose conditioning that suits you. Taking long walks because you enjoy it, or engaging in HIIT because it's less time consuming, whatever the choice is make sure you enjoy it and that it will help you reach your goals. If losing fat is one of your primary goals, increase your conditioning frequency; more cardio exercise with semi-regular interval sessions.

To finish, make sure that each exercise you choose has relevance to your goal, and know why. Why will this exercise help? Why is this rep range the most beneficial? What can it help me achieve in the long run? Keep things controlled and keep your form tight. Ignore the instagram fad exercises and keep it simple but effective.