The PERFECT Beginner Workout (Sets and Reps Included)
If you are new to training and looking for a beginner workout to build muscle then this is the step by step workout plan you need. In this video, I take you through a workout for beginners that is 3 months in length, or possibly even longer if you decide to stick with the third month longer, that is
What’s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx. com. Today we continue our perfect workout series and this one’s all about the beginners. I have a perfect full-body workout for you that’s going to take you through step-by-step. I’m going to give you exactly what you have to do.
Not actually just for a couple of weeks, but for three months, I want to make sure that you get this right. That being said guys, let’s start breaking down 10 essential movement patterns that every beginner must master. Okay, so it s not only important to understand that there’s these 10 movement patterns that you have to master, but within the movement patterns there’s some exercise variation that we’re going to build upon. We’re going to take them from level 1, to two, to three and the difference between these levels is either the complexity of the exercise or the amount of weight that you can use to load on the exercise because it’s going to be important to make sure you’re pushing yourself forward in both of those cases. So, what does it look like?
Well, the first movement pattern is something we call the Horizontal Push. This is where we use the shoulders, the chest and the triceps to do a movement like, let’s say, the push-up at the most basic level. And I like the push-up as a Level 1 variation because it demands that you build some scapular controls with your hands placed firmly on the ground. We move from there though to a Dumbbell Bench Press. We take away the ground as something that can assist us to building that stability and we now have to have that stability ourselves.
The good thing about using dumb bells is that because they can float freely, if you have any start imbalances between the right and left sides, you’re going to see it here. Because when we move to Level 3, when you perform the Barbell Bench Press if you have those imbalances there, they can kind of be hidden because both hands are placed on a fixed bar. We move on to the next movement pattern and this is the Vertical Push. And here we’re talking mostly about the shoulders and the triceps, overhead pushing activity. We start with a 1-Arm Dumbbell Press, it’s easier to move with one arm at a time because, again, you can look for those imbalances between the right and left side and there’s less core control that’s demanded of you by using just one dumbbell at a time.
But when we step it up to Level 2, we now have to push both of them together. Again, additional weight being moved over your head requires more core stability and control, but we’re going to get to that if we progress the right way. And we move to Level 3 here and that’s, once again, where we incorporate the Barbell Overhead Press. You have to now move your body around the bar as opposed to the Dumbbells around your body which increases the complexity, but you can also load this exercise even heavier. We then move to the next patter, the Horizontal Pull.
So, now we’re talking about biceps and back, we start with something called the Chest Supported Row. When we get in this position, we don’t have any demands on our low back strength to be able to do the row, we can focus on our ability to get stronger and develop those pulling muscles. We can take away that support though and move in Level 2 to a Tripod position. And here you still have a little bit of support, you’re not having to support your entire body and space with your low back, but you have minimized that level of support and increased the demand in the weight used here on your pulling muscles. And then of course, we can move freely at Level 3 to the Barbell Row where now you do have to have that support and strength of the low back to keep your body in the right posture and position to be able to pull, in this case, heavier weights.
We then move to the fourth position here and it’s the Vertical Pull. And we know that the base level here is we’re talking about something like a Pulldown and if you have access to a Pulldown machine, you can honestly weight this to a degree that’s able to be done by even a very rank beginner with light weights being used. Or, if you don t have access to that, you could simply use a band over a pullup bar and do a banded version of a Pulldown. When we take it to the next level, we’re obviously being able to get ourselves to be able to do Pullups. So now we use a band though in an Assisted Pullup situation.
This band is going to unweight your body from anywhere from 50 to up to 80 pounds depending upon the resistance of the band that you’re using. Of course, our goal is to ultimately get in Level 3 to your ability to do Pullups themselves without any assistance at all. Which brings us to our movement pattern and that is the Hinge. And it’s not about pulling with your upper body at this point but learning how to pull with your Posterior Chain and hips, because they’re some of the most powerful pullers in the entire body if you learn how to do it right. So, what we do is we start with something here called a Pullthrough at Level 1 where we’re simply focusing on hinging back at the hips and then using powerful hip extension to drive yourself back to a vertical position.
And we take it to Level 2 here with an RDL, not having to take if fully off the ground as you will in a Deadlift, but simply learning how to use those hips in an abbreviated range of motion to get through that powerful hip extension. Of course, as I mentioned all ready, Level 3 takes it to the floor to one of the best exercises we can do and it’s the Deadlift, the gold standard of Posterior Chain strength and development. Which brings us to the next movement pattern and it’s the squat. Here guys, we’re talking about your ability to move your body up and down in space. And of course we’re going to start with a variation of a squat, it’s the Dumbbell Drop Squat.
The thing I like about this more than any other, is that it will actually teach any beginner the exact place their body should be in space when they perform the squat because the dumbbell will drop right down through the center of gravity and take your body into the right position. But we simply can’t load that heavy enough to progress forever. So, we have to now learn how to bring that dumbbell up in Level 2 to a Goblet position. It’s a bit more challenging, but you have to be able to control that up there as well. Which is a perfect transition to Level 3 and it’s the classic Back Squat.
And here, of course, we’re going to be able to use the most amount of weight while still staying true to the mechanics we use on perfecting the squat with the lighter weights. Now the seventh and eighth movement patterns are actually related. They’re a variation on the Lunge. And as an Athletic Strength Coach guys, I can tell you right now, the Lunge is one of the most overlooked but beneficial movement patterns that you need to master. We start with a Static variation, we’re just going to move our body up and down in space, similar to a squat, but with one leg out in front of the other.
And we start with a simple body weight Split Squat. Unweighted, remember the complexity or the weighting of the exercise determines which level we’re at. To take it to Level 2, we actually now add weights in the same Dumbbell Split Squat position, working each side obviously, but going straight up and down and building the strength in our Quads. And then we take it one step further, to one of my favorite exercises of all time, it’s the Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat. Again, working one side, but certainly we can increase the load that w