Beginner Workout

I had a request to create a workout plan for someone. They pointed out that the other workout I had listed wasn't very nice to someone just starting out. My bad!  Here's something that will help you move your way into a more advanced workout.

This plan is designed for 2 things: muscle preparation (strengthening and conditioning) as well as fat loss. I'll jump right to the workout for all the eager beavers, if you're more interested in the why this works, it will be at the bottom of the post.

Day 1

Weights

Series 1 - Squats, Push ups, rows
Rest 2 minutes
Series 2 - Hamstring raises (you don't need the ball. A chair will do fine), Glute bridge, crunches

Do series 1 once over. This means do your squats until failure then do your push ups until failure then do your rows until failure. No rest between exercises. Once completed take a 2 minute break and move on to Series 2. Do the same thing with hamstring raises, glute bridges and crunches.

Cardio - walk/run for 30 minutes

Day 2

Cardio - walk/run/swim/box/skip rope/ etc etc 30 min


Day 3

Cardio - walk/run/swim/box/skip rope/ etc etc 30 min

Day 4

Rest or Cardio. If you're really eager and disciplined do the cardio. It's great for you! If you're feeling burnt out though you can take a rest day.

For the first week it's fine to keep the routine stable. After that really work on progression; Build on the amount of reps you're doing and the amount of weight. After a good 3 weeks you'll want to do 2 sets of each series. By this I mean  do series 1, rest for 2 minutes, do series 1 again, rest for 2 minutes. Once that is completed, do series 2, rest for 2 minutes, then do series 2 again before doing your cardio. Also, we're starting at 30 minutes of cardio but after about a month and a half you should be pushing yourself to do an hour of whatever you were doing before. So if you originally started off skipping rope for 30 minutes, then by month 1.5 you want to be doing it for an hour. Once you've hit the hour mark increase the intensity. If you would walk for an hour, start increasing to a power walk, then a jog and then perhaps to a bike ride or a run. The absolute most important is that you continually increase the intensity and time of your cardio.

Once you've done this for about 4 months you should be ready for a more intense workout. Then again, if you're coming back from a long break from activity, rather than just starting out, you could be ready much sooner. It's best to listen to your body and how confident you are.


How it works

We're taking two approaches here. First is that we want to prepare the body for some intense performance! We do that by building the neurons between the brain and the muscle. Doing weights is a great way of achieving that because we make sure to hit almost every muscle in the body when we workout. By having these neurons your muscles will become more responsive and actually become stronger without having to again any size (after a few weeks/months your muscles will start to grow, but that is good in the long run).

The other neat thing we're doing is showing our results to help us keep motivated. By doing a lot of cardio with the weight training we should start shedding off some fat and actually seeing our progress rather than just feeling it.  When you look in the mirror and you can actually see the changes it can really help us keep motivated!