Your First Workout Plan: The Best Starter Weight Training Program For Men And Women

Finally... You just convinced yourself and decided to commit and get yourself into shape.

You literally went to town on your gym outfit. New sweatpants, gym shirts and the all important new pair of training shoes are all laid out on the bed. You even remembered to get training gloves, a good training belt, a water bottle and a very cool looking gym bag to complete your go to accessories list for your gym workouts.

Your first month's membership? All paid up. All set then. Very well, but now what? Did you plan what exactly you are going to do once you walk through those gym doors?

Maybe you read an article in a fitness magazine or watched a Youtube video that inspired you. Is the athlete in the article an advanced weight trainer and following an exercise program suitable for a beginners? Worse case scenario, your friend, who has been a gym fanatic for years and already competed on stage, hands you his best and most intense workout schedule.

But most probably, once you walk through those doors, your general floor instructor will do what almost 99% of gyms do when joining for the first time...  Introduce you to circuit training, which you are suppose to follow for the first few weeks.

(A circuit is a combination of exercise machines, roughly placed in the shape of a circle. Each machine trains a different muscle group. You train for a set period of time, an alarm goes off and you move on to the next machine and start exercising as soon as the next alarm sounds. The idea behind circuit training is to exercise each muscle in you body and get you body as a whole conditioned and used to weight training.)

In general, I agree with the principles and goals of starting out with circuit training. I agree with the goal to get your whole body ready and prepared, by exercising and training every muscle in your body to allow it to get used to weight training. I disagree with the practice of starting out with circuit training for 2 reasons:

1. I don't agree with the idea of using a group of exercise machines to prepare your body for weight training. Obviously certain muscle groups can be trained very effectively by exercise machines, but I prefer using the actual exercises you will be using later on during your more advanced weight training programs. There is just no real substitute for doing exercises you will end up doing anyway at a later stage, especially the use of free weights (barbells & dumbbells).

2. More often than not, you are left to your own devices doing circuit training week after week. Inevitably you end up getting bored out of your mind or getting despondent after seeing no results after months of doing the same thing over and over again. The big unfortunate outcome is that you give up. The point is, no matter what your definition of getting in shape is (building muscle, getting a well-toned body or losing fat), at some point you must move on to a more specific workout program targeted towards reaching your goal. Circuit training was just supposed to be a starting point. Don't blame yourself though.

Here I lay the blame with big gym franchises and authoritative fitness magazines and online authorities who, I feel, should pay more attention to educating their members/readers. Teaching exercise basics, following up on your progress and goals, and adjusting a trainee's program accordingly (or at least point them in the right direction), should form the foundation and number one priority of any fitness authority or institution. 

With that out of the way, I am going to take you through a full body workout program, using exercises you will probably be using throughout your training "career". Remember, this is a starter program. It is not for anyone who has already been training for a while and are already on an intermediate to advanced level and accustomed to weight training.

So, I am going to assume the following: You are over 30 and/or starting to train for the first time, or haven't trained for more than a year and are starting all over again. Before starting the exercise plan, please heed the following warning:

I am going to lay out the program first, then explain how it should be performed, before moving on to each exercise and explain it in more detail.

The Program

The table above shows the total number of exercises and sets that makes up one training session

In the following session I will describe how you should proceed through the program and how each exercise should be performed.

How To Follow The Program

The program consists of a full body workout followed 3 times a week for the first 3 to 5 weeks. Before starting the program, please take note of the following.

1. Take it easy on yourself, you are just starting out. If you find it hard to cope with 3 full sessions per week, don't hesitate to restrict it to 2 sessions per week. Where you would have trained on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, simply reduce it to a Monday and Thursday. Try and stay active during non-workout days though, by going for brief walks or even doing some cycling. Staying active helps to keep your metabolism active and "up to speed".
2. Ideally, completing one exercise program should take 40 - 45 minutes maximum. (Read my article about optimal time spend in the gym here). At first, you may have some difficulty finishing the session within this time, especially if you haven't done any exercise for some months or even years. That is completely fine and understandable.  You can drastically reduce the time and stress on your body by doing just one set of each exercise. Remember you are just starting out so your body is adjusting to sudden change. Just don't get too complacent, so try and increase your sets back up to 2 per exercise during your second or third week.
3. You WILL feel sore and stiff a day or more after each training section in the beginning. I can almost guarantee it. This is very normal. Don't worry, it get's better as your body adjusts and you get used to the exercises. (To be honest, I still look forward to being a bit sore the day after training a muscle group. For me it is a sign that I trained properly and exhausted my muscles sufficiently. No, I am not a masochist, it is just a "happy pain" many a seasoned fitness enthusiast enjoy, knowing the results that stems from the "pain". ) If you find the soreness to be intolerable, you can lessen its effects by deploying any of the 2 previous points. Just hang in there and don't quit. It will get better.
4. One last point before moving on. As already mentioned, please take the time to go see your physician for a quick checkup before commencing with the program. Especially  you heart and lung function is important and must be functioning properly. You will be putting your body on a lot more stress than it was probably used to for years, so just play it safe and make sure everything is in order.

Time to move on to the performing actual exercises. Follow it as closely as possible, and try and keep good form throughout each exercise. Here are the steps:

And that is how one workout session is done,  performed 3 times a week. The goal is to make you body used to weight training while starting to transform at the same time. If you are a quick starter and your body adapts rapidly to the exercises, here are a few ways to move to the next level. (This forms part of the slightly more advanced or "intermediate level" workout plan,  before training regimes become more specific and start splitting programs into differently sections as well as using multiple exercises per muscle group.)

1. Once you reach a point of finishing your workout well within half an hour and you still feel energetic and "fresh", it is time to step up your training. Add a 3rd set to all of your exercises, but stick to the same amount of repetitions and time resting between sets. You will be surprised just how much of an impact adding just one set to all your exercises have.
2. The second step to advance, should be used whenever you reach the end of your 2nd or 3rd set (whichever is your last set of an exercise). Once you are able to finish 10 full repetitions of any exercise on your last set, you should increase the weight in order to keep your muscle under sufficient tension. In other words, you must always battle to finish 10 repetitions of the last set of an exercise.

I don't want to get ahead of myself and stick to the topic of your "first or starter program". At least now you know how to keep advancing once you reach a goal in your training. 

Next up, the exercises themselves. What major muscle groups the exercise target and how it should be performed. 

The Exercises

Here are the exercises in no specific order of importance, but just following the list. I will just point out that, if you look at the list, you may have noticed that your bigger muscle groups are targeted first and smaller ones last. The reason for this is simple. When you start your workout you have more energy and since your bigger muscle groups require more energy, it just makes sense to do them first. As your energy diminish, you move on to the smaller muscle groups that require less energy.