Workout Plan for Beginners

New to strength training and don’t know where to start? There are so many ways to structure workout routines, depending on your goals, schedule, equipment available to you, and what you’re comfortable doing! 

Beginner Workout Plans – What to Consider When Choosing a Plan

Beginner workout plans can vary depending on many factors: 

• Your fitness goals
• Your schedule and how much time you can commit to workouts per week
• Equipment availability and comfort level – whether at the gym, at home with dumbbells, or no equipment at all

What is your fitness goal? Is it to lose weight, gain muscle, or simply to stay active? How many days a week, and how much time per day can you commit to working out? This can help to differentiate between doing full body workouts versus dedicated muscle group splits. Equipment or gym availability; are you comfortable with or have the time to go to the gym to workout, or do you want to work out at home with dumbbells or with bodyweight?

Good Workout Routines to Start With

There are many good workout routines to choose from, and after considering the factors listed earlier, we can start to narrow down what routine suits you best. Workout plans often are structured in 3 month blocks, which can be a lot to take on from the start, without really knowing what style of strength training you enjoy and can be consistent with. This 4-week program is a good workout routine to start with, since it not only is a shorter, more tangible length, but also introduces the different workout splits that people often run.

The first week starts with a full body split, meaning you workout 3 times a week, with a rest day between each workout to allow your body to recover properly. Instead of separating muscle groups, this first week is all about getting active and working out your entire body.

The second week is a two-day split between upper and lower body, 4 days a week, with a rest day between the first upper-lower and the second upper-lower days in the week. This allows for proper recovery between working out the two muscle groups.

The third week is when we get into the classic push/pull/legs (PPL) routine, meaning all pushing muscle groups (chest, triceps, and shoulders), pulling muscle groups (back and biceps) on the second day, and then lower body (glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves) on the third day. This is the most common split that people follow, and is done twice in a week to hit 6 days of workouts per week.

In the fourth week, we get into a 4 day split that targets each muscle group once a week, other than abs and calves which are trained twice a week. The combinations for each day are Chest and Triceps, Back and Biceps, Quads and Hamstrings, and Shoulders. 

This program is a good workout routine to start with, since it introduces the 3 most common and easiest ways to split your workouts, and figure out which one is the best for you to start with. You can also take a look at our previous article that discusses how you can structure your workouts in depth.

Home Workouts for Beginners

Home workouts can vary from, bodyweight, banded, dumbbells, and even full home gym setups, depending on what equipment you have available. There are many options you can choose from for home workouts for beginners, such as apartment-friendly (little to no equipment) high intensity interval training (HIIT), dumbbell and resistance band workouts, and more. Starting with bodyweight movements, you can gradually start incorporating banded exercises and dumbbells in place of progressive overload. Home workouts for beginners are also a great way to familiarize yourself with mind–to-muscle connection,

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