Have you been training for less than 3 years? Yes, you are still a beginner lifter. IF your trying to learn how to become stronger, I would suggest that you learn proper form from a personal trainer or coach that can guide you through movement patterns. You have to build muscle if you ever hope to be strong and there is a best way to do that. You need to train for hypertrophy which is higher volume and more isolation to build a foundation for success for heavy compound movements.
Proper hypertrophy training will focus on:
-Barbell Movements
-Dumbbell Movements
-Cable Movements
-Machine Movements
-Isolation Movements
That order is important because it orders the movements from the most to least damaging to the muscle. Damaging? Yes, when you train you create “micro-tears” to your muscles which then repair and become stronger and bigger over time.
One advantage you have as a beginner is that you hopefully don’t have any bad habits you are new and its easy to be molded into good form. The sooner you can get yourself in front of experienced eyes, such as a personal trainer or coach, the better off you are. At the very beginning of your lifting career the most important thing you can do is train with high frequency as every day you don’t perform the lifts is a day you are forgetting how to do them. The worst thing you can do is be embarrassed to ask for help. Everyone started as a beginner and you should want to strive to excel at training if that is your goal.
Be patient, it takes time. Strength is a long game, not one that is conquered in a matter of weeks or months. The sooner that you can understand how to create a program for long term success and do the things that come along with that, such as proper nutrition, movement prep, and passive recovery, the more successful you will be.
Specificity
Overload
Fatigue Management
Stimulus Recovery Adaptation
Variation
Phase Potentiation
Individual Differences
Those are the priorities, in order, for creating successful and sustainable programming whether you are an athlete entering the gym for the first time. A good coach understands this and understands how to manipulate these principles for athletes of different experience and ability levels, you should seek out a coach like this and get on a system of training that will allow you to manipulate the above priorities as your abilities evolve.