Workout for beginners

 

 

With all of the vast information available it can be hard to figure out the workout for beginners.

 

 

The most important thing is STARTING.

 

 

The second most important thing is doing the RIGHT workout for beginners.

 

 

 

How to get started on your workout for beginners

 

 

It cannot be emphasized more that his is the most crucial step. Getting started, and doing it properly sets you up for the success you want.

 

 

On our path, we will face many challenges but we will get to our fitness goals, if we have the fundamentals done correctly.

 

 

Fundamental workout for beginners

 

 

Fundamental is just a fancy word for basic and simple. The perfect workout for beginners are the ones which are the simple and stay to the fundamentals.

 

 

Now, many of us may be looking for different things from our workouts, whether it may be cardio, weight loss, or building muscle, the rule stays the same.

 

 

What are the fundamentals to each of these categories then? We must first understand what is happening in our bodies during these exercises.

 

 

Fundamentals of cardio

 

 

When we hear the word cardio, we often think of two things. One, its to do with your heart. Two, the one I think about usually, it’s a little dreadful.

 

 

Cardio or cardiovascular training or aerobic training, is where you are exercising to make your heart, lungs and blood vessels work. This is done by moving your body.

 

 

 

Simply put, when we move our body for a long time (walking, jogging, biking etc.) our muscles work, which makes us breathe more. We breathe more to get oxygen to our lungs which then transports the oxygen in our blood through our heart. Then the oxygen goes in to our muscles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cardio workout for beginners

 

 

Working out in the beginning, we must keep it simple.

 

 

Now that we know what makes a cardio workout, we can construct a workout for beginners using basically anything that moves our body.

 

 

This is why most people use a repetitive movement, such as running, or biking. This way we can consistently workout our muscles at a pace and create the cardio workout.

 

 

 

So, we must ask, how long should we work out for and how hard?

 

 

Well depending on your specific goals, a general guideline of any physical activity, is best around 50-60 minutes of good difficulty.

 

 

Of course, this changes if you’re doing cardio exercises for specifically endurance.

 

 

How hard?

 

 

This is an interesting thing to measure when you’re first starting out. What’s important is that in the beginning, you take it easy so you can get through your first few workouts comfortably.

 

 

Again, the most important thing is consistency! We have to make sure we do not burn ourselves out when trying too hard in the beginning.

 

 

Two ways we can go about this difficulty judging. One is just based on how you feel, you want a 6-8 out of 10 on a scale of difficulty. Of course this isn’t the most precise way of knowing, but that’s okay, this is the beginning. Get moving. Most important thing.

 

 

Another, more accurate way is measuring your heart rate. Luckily, we live in a time where this isn’t impossibly done by touching your wrist and looking at a clock. That may present some challenges if you’re jogging outside for example.

 

 

Though, not everyone has access to, heart rate monitors are your friend. Either the one on your wrist or in almost every cardio machine. This is a fantastic way of making sure you’re working at the right difficulty for yourself.

 

 

With one small calculation (HR MAX: 220- age) and referring to this zone graphic, you can find the right difficulty for yourself depending on your goals when it comes to cardio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fundamentals of weight loss

 

 

When we say weight loss, most of the time we mean fat loss. Workouts for beginners are a great way to lose weight.

 

 

 

What is losing fat?

 

 

 

Bodies are primarily made of fat and muscle.

 

Muscles (specifically skeletal muscles, the ones on our bones) help us move

 

Fat (again the one all over your body, like to be especially on our bellies) are an energy reserve.

 

 

 

Basically, the fat is extra fuel for our bodies. Every day our bodies need energy/fuel (this is from food) to just exist and also to do any physical activity, even just moving.

 

Any extra leftover food is stored in/on our bodies as fat.

 

 

 

Now that we know what the fat is and how it accumulates on our body, we can do the opposite to our bodies and lose the fat.

 

 

Because our bodies already use a certain amount of fuel every day, the two ways to lose fat are to not have any leftover energy from eating food (also known as dieting) and/or spending MORE energy than you consume a day.

 

 

 

Though, I must mention, the first way, which is basically eating less energy a day than you use, is generally an easier way of losing fat.

 

 

 

 

Regardless, we are here to focus on the workouts for beginners, in this case ones that help fat loss, also because it is even more effective if you both diet and workout.

 

 

 

Weight loss workouts for beginners

 

 

In a sense this is very much related to our cardio workouts, since those burn a lot of calories. Any extended time of exercise that is continuous and vigorous (cardio for 60 minutes) will burn anywhere from 200-600 calories.

 

 

 

To put that into perspective, the average man at 70kg in weight need about 2,400 calories while the average aged woman at 55kg in weight need about 1,800 calories. (1)

 

 

 

So let’s do a little bit of math. If you are a woman that is needing around 1,800 calories, and you eat your regular amount of calories (in this example 1,800 to maintain weight), those 60 minutes of vigorous exercise (burning up to 600 calories), will put you in a caloric deficit and make you LOSE FAT.

 

 

 

In many ways, it is that simple.

 

 

To lose fat you must be in a caloric deficit (more calories spent than consumed a day). This can be done either increasing the spending (workout) and/or decreasing the consuming (diet)

 

 

A lot of people are not fans of cardio. That is completely understandable, I personally cannot stand it. Though it is very effective for endurance, heart health and WEIGHT LOSS, there are other ways we can do weight loss workouts for beginners.

 

 

Lifting weights to lose fat

 

 

Again, to repeat, you can lose fat by spending energy. This can be done by lifting weights. When you lift weights or put your muscles through any resistance, you burn calories.

 

 

 

The more muscles used in one exercise, the more calories burned. This is because there is more work for your body to perform. This can be compared using a squat vs a bicep curl. In a squat you are using a few large sections of your legs (quadriceps, glutes, adductors) as well as your core (inner abs). In a bicep curl, you are only using you bicep and forearm, essentially.

 

 

 

You can easily burn up anywhere from 100-250 calories doing 25 minutes of squats depending on how vigorous your exercises are, while doing bicep curls may only burn up to 100.

 

 

While this may seem obvious, we must take in to consideration when constructing our workouts if our goal is to LOSE FAT.

 

 

 

Another highly important point about how workouts can burn fat, is that having more muscle, burns more calories daily.

 

 

This is due to our basal metabolic rate (BMR). What this means is that when we have more muscle, the amount of energy/calories burned, just naturally, during a day is increased. (2)

 

So, lets say you’re used to eating 1800 calories a day and because your body needs 1800 calories you maintain your weight. But put on some muscle and your 1800 caloric requirement for the day goes up, but you still eat 1800 calories (because that’s what you’re used to). Now you’re in a caloric deficit, and will lose fat.

 

 

 

Fundamentals of building muscle

 

 

 

Our muscles allow us to move. More specifically they help us move through resistance. This can be simply just the gravity around us or more depending on what we demand of our body.

 

 

 

The two fundamentals of building muscle are that we must break our muscle tissues through resistance and help them repair through adequate protein.

 

 

There is a lot more detail to get into to truly understand these fundamentals, you can find out How to BUILD MUSCLE here, and Top 10 foods that BUILD MUSCLE, to get a better understanding of building muscle.

 

 

But for now, these two key points, resistance and protein are enough for us to create a workout for beginners.

 

 

 

Building muscle workout for beginners

 

 

To create resistance to our muscles, the most common methods are weights or resistance bands. Just to keep things simple we will discuss weights/body weight since people are most familiar with those.

 

 

To design our building muscle workout for beginners, we must, again focus on the basics. There are fundamental movements that our bodies do.

 

 

That is; squat, lift (hinge), push, pull, twist, and lunge. Using these fundamental movements and making our workouts containing all of them, will create a balanced workout to build muscle.

 

 

To get into more details of these fundamentals check out How to gain muscle and lose fat FAST (same time)

 

 

 

 

Workout for beginners

 

 

 

With the fundamentals understood, or at least beginning to, we can easily construct our workout for beginners. Most important points being, at this stage at least, keep it simple, keep it right, and that way we will stay CONSISTENT.

 

 

We don’t need a fancy workout.

 

 

One important thing to keep in mind. The simpler our workouts, the more they stick to the fundamentals and are productive.

 

 

Here are some simple constructs that you can use to guide yourself to a simple workout for beginners depending on your goals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

There aren’t many things when it comes to your workout for beginners if you keep it simple and keep it right. Nowadays with the amount of information and accessibility we have, it’s harder to find the correct information than it is to find the incorrect information.

It takes a bit of work going through that. I want you to know that, I want to do that for you. I’ve gone through many trials and errors to find out that if you stick to the basics, you get the job done.

 

 

Timur Yigit