If the world of nutrition can be confusing and complicated, the realm of exercises is equally or perhaps more puzzling. Fortunately the principles that define the results over time are similarly simple and easy to follow.

If you’re a beginner, feel lucky to be in the position that you are, because you’re going to see the greatest progress in your life in the shortest time and with little effort relative to someone more advanced.

Although a beginner can see good results with virtually any routine that’s not retarded, the potential can double or triple when the routine follows the basic principles of programming.

First of all I want to set the notion that a beginner doesn’t need a complicated routine like the ones they sell on magazines and bodybuilding sites, super sets, drop sets, burnouts, and other strategies of muscle stimulation. 

The basics is all that you need at the beginning. In no other field a rookie is put through advanced training strategies, it’s simply overwhelming and the person is not even conditioned for it in the first place. Same thing here.

Motivation for training

The reason to train is to be stronger. I know that most beginners don’t find this idea very sexy, and this is mainly due to the dissociation between being stronger and body composition. But the development of muscular strength is associated with more muscles, and this is a desired outcome in whatever your goal is.

In my mind training with the goal of losing weight is a mistake. While exercising is definitely a must for your goals of changing to a leaner physique, is not and shouldn’t be considered as the sole vehicle that will take us to where we we want to be, this will give us a clouded view of what we seek to accomplish with this tool.

Losing weight is mainly a nutrition factor, no program or exercise plan is going to cause weight loss if your nutrition is not adequate.

With this reasoning let’s dive into the methods we have to develop a stronger body that consequently will provide the drive for the recomposition we are looking for.

Resistance exercises

The mechanism by which the body creates adaptations of strength is through movements that stimulate muscle fibers to work against an element that provides resistance. In short, any exercise that demands strength to overcome the applied resistance: free weights, machines, bands, calisthenics, and others exist that create a challenge to our muscles.

For reasons not relevant to this article, my preference in resistance equipment is in free weights, and we will focus on that as the method to generate an overload and achieve the desired benefit of muscular adaptation.

Training with free weights

Specifically barbells and dumbbells. Free weights gives us the flexibility to monitor and adjust the resistance in our exercises in a practical way, using increases in weight we can systematically check our progress with the structure of even a basic program.

Additionally most of the exercises allow for a natural and normal movement of the human body, especially compound exercises (using 2 or more joints like squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, and others) which should constitute the majority of your movements in a program.

Exercises

Remember when I said that the basics is what’s required? This is perhaps the place where we can can mostly emphasize the need to keep things simple. While there are many exercises (sometimes too many) to train different muscle groups, only a few make the core of a solid program and the rest is optional, in some cases even unnecessary.

At the center of all, the squat, bench press, deadlift, pull-ups reign supreme. A decent program should include these in some of its variations. The substance lies in the quality of the movement that generates a full stimulation of muscle groups.

The reason why you don’t read about them in flashy articles is simply because they don’t sell, they’re old exercises that everyone knows. And that’s where is the essence, they have been in the world of weights for decades developing extraordinary physiques, and they’ll continue to do so for years to come.

If you are interested in how to perform these exercises properly, Greg Nuckols has perhaps the best guides that will show you every single detail on how to execute them in the most efficient way.

Now, this doesn’t mean that other exercises can’t be used to complement a routine, in fact it can be productive to include some isolation movements, only that one of these exercises is no substitute for the fundamental ones.

One of the reasons why these compound exercises are essential for fast and notable results, is because they allow us to lift the most weight with the main muscle groups of the exercise. 

This in return provides the necessary adaptation in strength and muscle tissue, allowing us to add more weight to the bar and effectively creating a progress in our routine, which leads me to the next point.

Progressive overload

Evidently when the goal is to be stronger, it will be necessary to lift more weight over time, but doing it arbitrarily is not the best way. For that, at the most basic level, we have to create a goal, achieve it, and then advance: progress.

This can be a simple system of progress of Reps and Sets with a defined weight, that once achieved will allow to increase the weight on the bar. A popular beginner program is 5 x 5: 5 sets of 5 reps. Not only is it a good program for muscle stimulation, but it also allows the necessary practice to gain the experience in learning the exercise.

A beginner who wants to progress on squats could begin with this system, with a light weight that allows her to practice without much risk of injury and that creates a stimulus.

The numbers here are in an ideal progress case, it’s likely that in one of the sessions you fail to get all reps in a given set, in this case the weight must be kept the same for the next session, where you may be able to complete it and advance to the next weight.

Another occurrence is that in 2 consecutive sessions you fail to achieve your reps, in this case it’s a good idea that for the next session you lower the weight to what you lifted before, if everything is fine and you complete it, increase it back on the next session and you should do it with no issues. It may look like this:

Eventually you will reach a point where the resistance is very high and you will fail for several consecutive sessions, and the strategy of lowering the weight will not help you to continue to make progress. Considering that your recovery is adequate (sleep, nutrition, stress reduction) perhaps it’s time to consider other models of progress and planning of your exercise program.

Training safely

As a beginner, your first job is the make sure you practice your exercises with the best possible safety to avoid injury or worse. The weights are nothing to fear, but definitely respect. So your task is to familiarize yourself with the exercise, focus on doing the movements correctly and without breaking form.

For this you always want to start your routine with a light weight and gradually increase as you start feeling comfortable. The first months you must train the movements and not your ego, it does you no good trying to lift the most weight that will lead to an early injury, which will keep you out of the gym for a while and potentially set you back.

This is yet another point by which training with few exercises is perhaps the best to begin with, although it may not sound sexy, it’s the best thing to create a solid foundation on your training career in a safe manner and applying the best techniques for form.

The best thing you can do is to hire a personal trainer who can teach you how to perform the movements. Alternatively be your own instructor and search online various guides and/or books that explain how to do the exercises.

Training frequency

Another problem faced by many beginners is wanting to do a lot in a short time, this is usually exacerbated by the myriad programs that try to seduce you into a variety of exercises distributed throughout the entire week. Not only is it fatiguing and discouraging to commit to such a routine, but sometimes it’s counterproductive and I even dare say unnecessary.

Keeping with the simplicity required for a beginner, and recalling that it’s not required to train that frequently to properly progress, the first consideration is the individual’s availability. 

Consistency is the one tool that guarantees results, and this won’t be achieved unless it’s adapted to the needs of the trainee. Therefore it’s imperative to determine how many times a week realistically you can go the gym for 1 hour on average.

The rest is distributing your exercises in an organized way so that they cover the amount of volume you must do to reach your weekly objectives. 3 days a week in my experience seem to offer initially the best balance between training and consistency, providing the stimulus needed, appropriate rest, and keeping the trainee returning to the weight room.

Summary

• As a beginner you have the biggest potential for progress, with the least amount of time invested, and with relatively low effort compared to that of an advanced trainee.

• Train with the objective of getting stronger, the rest will just fit naturally in that road.

• Your should ideally use compound exercises with bars and free weights, this will teach you a more natural movement and by using bigger muscle groups it will help you lift more weight.

• At the base of any program to get stronger and more muscular is progressive overload, which means that over time you must lift more weight, increasing your total volume.

• Your priority should be to initially work in learning the movements in a safe way, with low weights and sufficient practice. Consider hiring a trainer and/or study the exercises with books and guides.

Finally always keep in mind that doing too much to begin with is not necessarily the best way, although certainly doing too little (like training once a week) is not the best either, and that’s why your lifestyle should determine the pace and frequency in which you go to the gym. Consistency trumps above all else.

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