Why These Fitness Tips Work
2026 has arrived, and perhaps you’re looking for a way to up your fitness game for the new year. You’ve definitely come to the right place. Every January, millions of people make fitness resolutions — and by February, most of them have quietly abandoned them. The difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is rarely willpower. It is almost always system.
We asked Glenn Ang, Fitness Director of RAW Active, for his best fitness tips and pulled together tried-and-true pointers gathered over the years. Together, he covers everything from warming up to pre-workout supplements, so no matter where you’re at in your fitness journey or what you’re looking to improve on, this list will help you achieve your goals.
These 24 tips are not ranked by importance — they are a full toolkit. Some will matter more to you right now than others, and that is fine. Read through them all, pick the two or three that address your biggest current challenge, and build from there. As those become habits, return to this list and add the next layer.
Fitness Tips 1. Start Small
This tip goes out to all the beginners. The idea here is that you want to build a fitness habit that you can sustain and eventually build upon. Look at your lifestyle, Glenn Ang says, and try not to overwhelm yourself when you’re starting your fitness journey — even if that means working out just once a week at first, or committing to 10 minutes of movement twice a week.
The biggest mistake new exercisers make is doing too much too soon. They sign up for five classes a week, and when life gets busy, they drop all five. The habit collapses because it was never sustainable. A modest routine you actually keep is worth infinitely more than an ambitious one you abandon. Start so small that success is automatic, then let the wins pull you forward.
Fitness Tips 2. Make Fitness a Way of Life
On a similar note, the fitness journey is all about creating consistency and finding a way to make movement fit into your lifestyle, says Glenn Ang. He suggests starting slow and building on your foundation every day.
And complete a self-inventory in the morning, he adds, during which you ask yourself what you can commit to that day — a walk? A run? A lift? Make it a habit to find movement and meet yourself where you currently stand. Some days the answer will be a full workout; other days it will be a 20-minute walk. Both count. What matters is that movement becomes part of how you live, not just something you do on special occasions.
Fitness Tips 3. Never Skip Your Warm-Up
Do your warm-up before every workout. Doing so can help to prevent injury. As for what to include in your warm-up, some of the movement preps include plank walkouts, cat cows, and lateral lunges. A warm-up is not wasted time — it is an investment in the quality of your session and the safety of your body.
Think of it this way: cold muscles are stiff, less responsive, and far more prone to strain. A proper warm-up raises your body temperature, increases blood flow to the working muscles, and switches on the nervous system so that your body is ready to move. Five to ten minutes of deliberate preparation can save you weeks of injury downtime.
Fitness Tips 4. And Make Those Warm-Ups Dynamic
You should not do static stretching before your workout. (It actually reduces muscle strength and impairs explosive muscle performance.) Instead, use popular dynamic stretches like t-spine rotations, the world’s greatest stretch, and forward fold to squat.
Dynamic stretching involves moving through ranges of motion rather than holding still. This prepares your joints and muscles for the actual demands of your workout — which are dynamic. Save your static stretching for later, when your muscles are warm and relaxed, and you will get the benefits of both without compromising your performance.
Fitness Tips 5. Don’t Cut Static Stretching Out Altogether
After your workout, static stretching is just fine. In fact, it can help prevent muscle stiffness. Just make sure you hold each stretch for at least 30 seconds, and don’t go beyond one minute. The post-workout window is when your muscles are warmest and most receptive to lengthening, which is why this is the ideal time for deeper, held stretches.
Static stretching after training supports recovery by helping your muscles relax, improving blood flow to the area, and gradually returning your body to a resting state. It is the perfect bookend to your session — dynamic stretching to start, static stretching to finish.
Fitness Tips 6. Add Mobility Exercises to Your Warm-Up, Too
Mobility work shouldn’t be a separate entity from your strength and conditioning work. It can give a lot to your workouts if you warm up your joints, moving through their full ranges of motion and controlling that range. Afterward, Glenn suggests incorporating that dynamic movement and some light plyometrics (a.k.a. jump training).
Mobility is the combination of flexibility and strength — the ability to move a joint through its full range while controlling it under load. When your hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine move well, every exercise becomes easier, safer, and more effective. A few minutes of mobility work before training pays off in every single rep that follows.
Fitness Tips 7. Strength Train at Least Twice a Week
Strength training is key. After all, the benefits of this type of exercise are plentiful. Strength training keeps us feeling strong and empowered. It also keeps your bones strong, reduces your risk of injury, and improves your cardiovascular health.
Two sessions a week is the minimum effective dose recommended by leading health organisations — and research consistently shows that even this modest commitment produces meaningful improvements in strength, body composition, and metabolic health. And unlike cardio, strength training keeps paying dividends after the session ends, since the muscle you build burns calories around the clock.
Fitness Tips 8. Keep Your Cardio Regimen Fresh
There are many ways to get your heart pumping that don’t involve a treadmill (or an elliptical, for that matter). For instance, you can do a HIIT workout or a circuit including exercises like high knees and butt kicks. Other great cardio exercises include jump rope and kettlebell swings.
Variety is not just about fighting boredom — it is about training your cardiovascular system from different angles. A steady-state jog builds aerobic endurance, while intervals challenge your heart with short, sharp demands. Mixing modalities also reduces the repetitive strain that overuse injuries thrive on, keeping you consistent week after week.
Fitness Tips 9. Combine Strength Training and Cardio Properly
The best way to do so depends on your goals. Basically, your priorities should help you decide on the order in which you do cardio and strength training. For instance, if you want to get stronger, you should do strength training first, but if you want to build endurance, it’s better to start with cardio, according to the American Council on Exercise.
There is no universally correct order — there is only the order that serves your goal. Prioritise the work that matters most when your energy is highest. If you are doing both in one session, give the first exercise slot to whatever you want to improve the most, and keep the second in reserve for a lighter effort.
Fitness Tips 10. Keep Challenging Yourself
The body adapts. So, when it comes to your strength training routine, he suggests continually progressing to force your body to change. For instance, if this week you’re doing three sets of 8 to 10 repetitions of a certain exercise, next week you might level up to four sets of 12. In essence, keep pushing yourself — whether you choose to increase the weight you’re using or add additional sets and reps.
This is the principle of progressive overload, and it is the single most important driver of all training progress. Your body does not change because you ask it to — it changes because you give it a reason to. Small, consistent increases in demand tell your body that the current level is no longer enough, and it builds the strength, muscle, and endurance to meet the new standard.
Fitness Tips 11. Focus on Form First
More isn’t always better. Better is better. In other words, make sure you master your form while doing basic movements before you add weight or complicate the exercises. Every advanced lifter you admire spent years perfecting the fundamentals before they added complexity.
Poor form does two kinds of damage: it fails to build the muscle you are aiming for, because the tension goes to the wrong places, and it loads your joints in ways they were not designed to handle. Master the movement pattern with light weight first. Add load only when the movement looks clean and feels controlled.
Fitness Tips 12. Devote Yourself to Recovery
Commit to your recovery as hard as you would commit to training. Your muscles need it to heal up and create strength. Too many people train with impressive intensity and then spend the other 23 hours of the day undoing their efforts with poor sleep, inadequate food, and constant stress.
Recovery is not the absence of training — it is an active part of training. When you lift or run, you create damage and fatigue. When you rest, sleep, and eat well, your body repairs that damage and comes back stronger. Treat your rest days with the same respect you give your workout days, and your progress will accelerate noticeably.
Fitness Tips 13. Maintain Good (Sleep) Hygiene
This is something that’s super underrated when it comes to fitness. Sleep is crucial time when muscle recovery happens, and it also (of course) helps you have the energy to actually perform and push during workouts. The evening routine Glenn uses to unwind includes dry brushing, a hot shower, and setting his thermostat to about 18 degrees Celsius (which is right in the ideal temperature range for sleeping, according to the National Sleep Foundation). And avoid having screen time prior to bed.
Sleep is when your body releases the hormones that drive muscle repair, when your brain consolidates learning, and when your appetite hormones reset. Skimp on sleep and you will train worse, recover slower, and feel hungrier the next day. Protect your sleep like you protect your workouts — it may be the most leveraged habit in your entire fitness toolkit.
Fitness Tips 14. Get in a Rhythm with Your Rest
Considering sleep is so key for recovery, Glenn agrees that it’s important to establish quality sleep habits and suggests trying to go to bed around the same time every day. (And the CDC also advises waking up at the same time every day — even on weekends — to improve your sleep health.)
Your body runs on a circadian rhythm, and a consistent sleep schedule keeps that internal clock aligned. Going to bed and waking at the same time daily — weekends included — regulates your hormones, improves sleep quality, and makes both falling asleep and waking up easier. Consistency beats perfection here.
Fitness Tips 15. Lean into Active Recovery Days
“On days you may not feel like doing anything super intense, I have good news for you — you don’t have to!” Glenn says. While our bodies are meant to move every day, they don’t have to be driven into the ground every day. But skipping that super-tough HIIT class doesn’t mean you should binge Netflix instead.
When your body tells you to chill out, just listen to it and find that happy medium — go for a walk, do the laundry you’ve been putting off, bake banana bread. Keep it light; stay in motion. Active recovery keeps blood flowing to recovering muscles, maintains your daily movement habit, and gives your nervous system a break — all without sacrificing progress.
Fitness Tips 16. Consider Yoga
Some of Glenn’s clients like to do yoga for recovery because it keeps them moving and allows them to stretch out. In fact, its combination of flexibility and low-intensity strength training makes yoga one of the best options for active recovery workouts.
Yoga delivers a surprising amount of strength work while your body recovers. Holding poses builds endurance in stabilising muscles, the deep breathing calms your nervous system and reduces stress hormones, and the stretching maintains the flexibility that heavy training tends to tighten. One or two yoga sessions a week can make your entire program feel easier.
Fitness Tips 17. Use a Fitness Journal to Track Your Goals
A notebook is a great way to stay on top of your physical and mental health. In fact, writing down and sharing your goals makes it more likely you’ll achieve them, according to a study out of the Dominican University of California. And there are tons of fitness journals out there to choose from that suit different objectives and regimens.
The act of writing forces clarity. You cannot write down a vague goal — you have to decide exactly what you are chasing, in how much time, and by what measure. Then, recording each session gives you an objective record of your progress that you can review when motivation dips. On the days you feel like you are going nowhere, the journal is the evidence that you are not.
Fitness Tips 18. Stay Hydrated
“I keep a 12-ounce glass of water next to my bed, and when I first wake up, I drink the whole thing,” Glenn says. Starting the day with that glass of water sets me up to hit my daily water intake for the day. Water keeps you hydrated during workouts, energizes you, and helps lubricate the joints.
He acknowledges that there are many different guidelines out there for how much water you should drink, and advises that you find an amount that works for you — then stick with it. Remember, things like your exercise regimen and where you live can affect how much water you should be drinking. Even mild dehydration can measurably reduce your performance, so drinking consistently through the day is one of the simplest performance upgrades available.
Fitness Tips 19. Try Habit Stacking to Stay on Track
If you read that last tip and started flashing back to all your past attempts at drinking more water, stay with us — this tip might make it easier. Habit stacking is basically just joining new habits with ones you’ve already got. For instance, you might keep yourself stretching every day by combining it with your morning coffee routine, or help yourself drink more water by linking it to checking emails.
The principle is deceptively simple: attach the new behaviour to an existing one so that the old habit triggers the new one automatically. You already brush your teeth every day — you don’t deliberate about it. Habit stacking gives your new habits the same automatic quality, removing the need for decision-making and willpower.
Fitness Tips 20. And Rely on Habits Rather Than Willpower
None of us are perfect. There will be days when pure willpower just isn’t enough to achieve your goals. The good news is that you can still set yourself up for success. For instance, if you want to rise early in the morning for your workout, lay out your clothes the night before. Instead of thinking about doing something, make it a tangible task.
Design your environment so the right choice is the easy choice. Pack your gym bag in advance, prep healthy food so it is the quickest option, and put your running shoes where you cannot miss them. Every decision you remove from your future self is one less chance for that future self to choose the easy, wrong option.
Fitness Tips 21. Feel Free to Skip the Pre-Workout Supp
You don’t need a pre-workout. Same goes for coffee before your workout. Just make sure your nutrition and your sleep hygiene are on point. The fitness supplement industry makes billions convincing people they need an extra product to train hard — but the fundamental fuels are food, water, and rest.
If you have eaten properly, slept well, and hydrated, your body has everything it needs to perform. The most effective “pre-workout” in the world is a consistent training history, and nothing in a tub can substitute for that. Spend your money on quality food and good sleep before you spend it on powders.
Fitness Tips 22. Eat Enough Protein
The standard rule for protein consumption is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. But if you’re very active, aim for 1.4 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. A few high-protein foods that might help you meet that goal: tempeh, Greek yogurt, and turkey.
Protein is the building block of muscle, and active people need more of it than the general population. Spreading your intake across meals — rather than eating it all in one sitting — gives your body a steady supply of amino acids through the day and supports recovery around the clock.
Fitness Tips 23. But Don’t Stress About the Anabolic Window
Good news: you don’t need to sprint for the protein powder as soon as you finish your last rep. It’s a wider window. So if you don’t get your protein intake an hour and a half after your workout, you’re fine. Your muscles are not going to atrophy.
The idea of a tiny “anabolic window” that closes moments after training is one of the most persistent myths in fitness. What actually matters is your total protein intake across the day, consistently, training day in and day out. Get that right and the exact timing of each meal becomes a minor detail.
Fitness Tips 24. Remember There’s More Than One Right Way to Eat
Think of eating like you would think of training — your training is dependent on your lifestyle and progress, not anyone else’s. In other words, don’t fall into the trap of a one-size-fits-all diet. Of course, the trainer adds, there are general guidelines to follow (like avoiding added sugars and highly processed foods). But rather than thinking of foods as good or bad, consider what will fuel your individual lifestyle.
He notes that there’s no one ideal diet, and says that the best diet is one you can sustain. The perfect eating plan is worthless if you abandon it after three weeks. The very good plan that you can follow for years will transform your body. Fit your nutrition to your life — not the other way around.
Put These Fitness Tips into Practice with RAW
These 24 tips cover the fundamentals of sustainable fitness — from warming up properly and training smart, to recovering well and fuelling your body. The common thread running through all of them is simple: consistency beats intensity, and the best plan is the one you can actually sustain.
You do not need to implement all 24 at once. Pick two or three that speak to your current situation and make them non-negotiable. As they become automatic, return to this list and layer in the next ones. That is how lasting change is built — one habit at a time, repeated until it sticks.
If you would like a coach to help you put these principles into practice, our personal training program is flexible and built around your lifestyle. Feel free to contact us for details.
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