A workout plan for beginners
Most beginner plans don't fail because they're wrong. They fail because they have too many sessions, too many exercises and too little patience.
Start with fewer days than you think
Three sessions a week is plenty to get noticeably stronger in the first year. Two is enough to get going. The difference between three and five is small early on; the difference between zero and three is enormous.
Pick the number of days you can hold on a bad week, not a good one. A plan you keep in February is worth more than one you keep in January.
Two to three sessions a week. Better three sessions for twenty weeks than five for four.
Full body first
As a beginner you gain from training each muscle more often. Three full-body sessions give every muscle group three chances to practise the movement and three chances to grow. A split gives one or two.
Splits become interesting once you need more volume per muscle than fits in a single session. That usually takes one to two years.
Five movements cover the body
You don't need fifteen exercises. You need one per movement pattern, and then the patience to get good at them.
| Pattern | Example | Trains |
|---|---|---|
| Squat | Back squat, leg press, goblet squat | Quads, glutes |
| Hinge | Deadlift, Romanian deadlift, hip thrust | Hamstrings, glutes, back |
| Push | Bench press, push-up, overhead press | Chest, shoulders, triceps |
| Pull | Barbell row, lat pulldown, chin-up | Back, biceps |
| Core | Plank, hanging leg raise, Pallof press | Abs, lower back |
A full-body session is one exercise from each row. That's the whole session. Three of those a week, with varied movements, is a complete program.
Sets and reps
Start at three sets of eight to twelve per exercise. Broad enough to work for both strength and size, simple enough to keep track of.
Set the weight so the last two reps of the final set are hard but still clean. Don't go to failure on every set as a beginner — you learn the movement worse and need longer to recover.
Volume per muscle
Count hard sets per muscle group per week. Ten to twenty is the range most recommendations land in for hypertrophy. Below ten things still happen for a beginner, but the margin is thin. Above twenty, recovery demands rise faster than the return.
Three full-body sessions with one push and one pull each gives nine to twelve sets for chest and back per week. That sits mid-range.
How you know you're progressing
The only reliable sign is numbers moving up across weeks. Not across sessions — individual sessions swing with sleep, food and stress.
Use double progression: hold the weight until you hit the top of the rep range in every set, then add weight and start again at the bottom.
Target three sets of eight to twelve. You hit 12, 11, 9 with 40 kg. Keep 40 until it's 12, 12, 12. Then move to 42.5 and expect roughly 9, 8, 8. Repeat.
A plan to start with
| Session | Exercises |
|---|---|
| A | Squat · Bench press · Barbell row · Plank |
| B | Romanian deadlift · Overhead press · Lat pulldown · Hanging leg raise |
| C | Leg press · Incline bench press · Chin-up · Pallof press |
Run A, B, C with at least one rest day between each. Three sets of eight to twelve on everything. Same exercises for at least eight weeks before changing anything.
Four mistakes that cost the most
- Changing program too often. You can't tell whether something works in two weeks. Give it eight.
- Adding weight too fast. Five kilos on the bench every week lasts a month and then never again. Two and a half when every set is clean lasts a year.
- Skipping the boring work. Back and hamstrings don't show in the mirror and get trained too little. They're what carries you.
- Not logging. Without numbers you can't tell whether you're progressing, and without that you're guessing.
When to change
Change something only when the same exercise stalls for three to four weeks with sleep and food in order. Then change one thing — usually the rep range or the variation — not the whole plan.
Try the plan in the app
Every program and every exercise is free. No time limit, no card.