Beginner Workout Plan: 4-Week Strength Training, Cardio Program

Remember to stay consistent, and don’t hesitate to modify exercises to suit resident.com/resource-guide/2025/03/18/mad-muscles-review-transparent-pricing-real-fitness-results-in-20255 your fitness level. These workouts require no special equipment, making them accessible to everyone. Mountain climbers are a full-body exercise that improves your strength and endurance. Get into a plank position and bring one knee towards your chest, then switch legs in a running motion.

Week Strength Building Workout Program for Beginners

To keep your body running smoothly and do all the things you want it to do, including lifting weights, you need the right kind of fuel (food) and the right amount of fuel (calories). Weight training offers many benefits for your health, body, and fitness. However, to reap those benefits, the best way is to have a clear direction and a consistent action plan. That’s why goal setting is the difference between shooting in the dark and having a clear roadmap to success.

• 🧓💪 Looking to build strength, mobility, and long-term resilience—whether you’re 30 or 70?
• To prevent injuries, avoid lifting too much weight initially.
• During this week, you’ll train your lower and upper body separately.
• If you want to mix up your beginner workout plan with a few more targeted  exercises, take a look below for some inspiration.
• It also diverts additional calories to “Burn as Fuel” to handle this increased “muscle rebuilding” activity.
• If your body isn’t ready for three strength-training days yet, wait another two weeks.

Can You Do Cardio While Strength Training?

You can find some good tips on how to get started with strength training here. The rep range for strength training is 4–6 reps and the idea behind this plan is to exert more energy for less reps (which will mean lifting heavier). If it’s your first time lifting for strength, don’t go too heavy, use a manageable weight for the first few weeks and then increase the load as the weeks go on. Once you think you could lift for 8–10 reps on the same weight, it’s time to increase the weight.

Advantages of Home Workouts

Same as before, pull the dumbbell back, leading with the elbows. Pause when the upper arm is parallel with the ground before slowly returning to the starting position. Starting with dumbbells at shoulder level, follow the same movement instruction as above but do so with a pair of dumbbells. Holding a single dumbbell at one side, you will walk a set distance before switching the dumbbell to the other side of the body.

Optional Cardio/Steps Day

The goal is to move your body up and down in space, similar to a squat, but with one leg out in front of the other. Start with the left knee out in front then switch sides after you get through your reps. Hold both ends of a rope attached to a cable madmuscles review machine with both hands. From here, you’re simply focusing on hinging back at the hips and then using powerful hip extension to drive yourself back to a vertical position. I know you’re excited to get started, but there are important points for each level that you need to be aware of before picking up a dumbbell. Let’s start breaking down the 10 essential movement patterns that every beginner must master.

Beginner’s Upper Body Workout

It also diverts additional calories to “Burn as Fuel” to handle this increased “muscle rebuilding” activity. When attempting all of these above-listed exercises, aim to master the movement and perform the exercise through its entire range of motion (ROM). I even bought little half-pound weights and increased many of my lifts by just 1 pound per week. It’s a big part of how I transformed (jokingly) from Steve Rogers to Captain America. Our Beginner Bodyweight Workout has a variety of rep ranges to promote endurance, strength, and cardiovascular health.

Why you sweat so much when you exercise

Ignoring proper nutrition, especially protein and hydration, is one of the most common mistakes beginners make. The best strength building program isn’t about copying what bodybuilders do on Instagram or finding the most complex-sounding routine. A great strength training routine should help you become stronger, more resilient, and more confident, not just in the gym, but in everyday life.

Push Exercises

Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small, and be proud of yourself for taking care of your health. When you expose your muscles to loads they aren’t used to – by lifting weights – they respond by growing stronger to handle the unaccustomed stress. It’s not wrong to go all-out in a set now and then, but you don’t need to, as some hardcore gym bros sometimes suggest. Once you have some more training experience under your belt, you can start flirting with training to failure.

Body Composition Testing

For Month Two, the resistance training structure is going to stay the same with Workouts D, E, and F. The C workout will fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the entire month. While it might be tempting to perform this as Barbell Reverse Lunges, I’d recommend sticking with the dumbbells for now. Again, no surprise here, but https://www.physio-pedia.com/Physical_Fitness_and_Its_Components you’ll finally be moving over to the traditional Barbell Deadlift.

Why it’s important to start slow when you’re a beginner

It’s essentially a front squat combined immediately with a push press, and, like burpees at the beginning of the list, it’s an exercise everyone likes to hate. You can do them with kettlebells, dumbbells, a barbell, or no weight at all, depending on what you have at hand. Mallory Creveling is an ACE-certified personal trainer and RRCA-certified run coach, who also holds certifications in kettlebell training, sports performance, and more. She has more than a decade of experience covering fitness, health, and nutrition for a wide range of publications, and nearly 10 years of experience as a trainer and fitness instructor. Mallory stays on top of her continuing education in fitness, as well as the latest science in wellness.