I designed it that way on purpose, and I want to tell you why, because it goes against everything people expect when they decide to start training again.

When someone comes back after years away, the instinct, theirs and mine both if I’m not careful, is to prove the session was worth it. Make it hard. Make them feel it tomorrow. Send them home sure they did something real. It feels honest. It’s also the fastest way to lose them.

Because soreness isn’t the goal. Returning is the goal. And the thing that determines whether someone comes back on Thursday isn’t how hard Tuesday was, it’s how they felt walking out the door. If they left wrecked, Thursday becomes a thing to dread, and dread loses to a busy week every time. If they left thinking “I could’ve done more,” Thursday becomes easy. They show up almost curious. And once they’ve shown up three or four times without it costing them anything, the habit starts to hold on its own.

So I leave gas in the tank on purpose. First few weeks, every session should end with a little left over. It looks like I’m going too easy on people. What I’m actually doing is protecting the only thing that matters in month one, which is that they come back at all. The training effect takes care of itself later, once showing up is no longer a decision they have to make fresh each time.

If you’re the one restarting, try it on yourself. Do less than you think you should, and notice how much more willing you are to go again. That willingness is the whole thing.

I wrote the fuller version of this over on the site, if you want the rest of how I start people from zero: https://fawazsebai.com/starting-training-again-after-years-off/

So I’m putting it here instead.

This newsletter is where I’ll write about the stuff that actually comes up with real clients. How to start again after years off without wrecking yourself in week one. Why the scale lies to you. What a HIIT session and a yoga session are quietly doing for each other, even though they feel like opposites. The workouts I’d cut, the ones I’d never cut, and the difference between training that fits your life and training that becomes your whole personality until you quit in March.

I train in person around the city and online, so what I write here isn’t tied to one gym or one setup. Most of it works with a pair of dumbbells and a floor.

A bit about how I coach, so you know what you’re reading: I mix strength and HIIT for the work, and yoga for the recovery and mobility that keeps the hard days sustainable. Not because it’s trendy. Because the people who last are the ones whose bodies can still move well at 50, and mobility is the part everyone skips.

If you’re a current client, you already know most of this. If you’re not, welcome. Start wherever you are.

More soon.

—Fawaz