Workout Plan for Beginners

A well-rounded workout plan for beginners can help exercise novices lose weight, build muscle and maintain a healthy lifestyle. If you do not know too much about fitness and have little experience working out, setting up your exercise routine can seem a bit overwhelming. However, planning your workout schedule is not as hard as most beginners perceive it to be.

Workout Plan for Beginners Basics

Fortunately, all workout plans need only to contain three basic components: cardio, strength training and flexibility. You can choose from a myriad of exercises to fulfill these three requirements. However, when you're beginning, pick just a few exercises that you're comfortable performing and start from there.

The exact exercises you choose will also depend on your fitness goals and time frame for achieving them. There are many ways to modify, vary or extend exercise routines to meet certain goals and many personal trainers and fitness gurus have their favorite methods. As a beginner, you should not worry about all this; rather set up a simple workout plan that incorporates the three basic components and focus on sticking to your plan.

If at some later point you feel you have outgrown your workout plan, you can always change it up as you'll surely have learned more about exercise and your own body by then.

Cardio

Cardio exercise is essential to heart health and weight loss. Beginners should start performing cardio three times a week for a duration of at least 30 minutes. It is very important for your heart that you do a form of cardio for the entire 30 minutes. You want your heart consistently working to receive the full benefits of a cardio workout.

Because of this, you'll want to exercise at a pace you can handle for at least 30 minutes. You do not want to start off with an intense workout that you cannot continue after ten minutes. If you are a complete beginner, then one of your best options for cardio is simply walking; by starting off with walking, you ensure that you'll get in a good full cardio workout. Other more taxing forms of cardio training include:

• Jogging
• Sprinting
• Using a rowing machine
• Using a stationary bike
• Using a stepper machine

It's very important to remember that as soon as your body becomes used to the workout, you should work out harder. Over time, if walking for 30 minutes becomes easy for you, you should move on to jogging or another form of more strenuous cardio. This is how you advance your fitness goals and see results.

Strength Training

Strength training involves lifting weights and is essential to building muscle and burning fat. As a beginner, you should only strength train twice a week. You will likely experience some muscle soreness if you're not used to exercising and by training only twice a week, you'll give your muscles a chance to recuperate and heal.

You should start out performing one set of ten to 12 reps at a weight level that starts to fatigue your muscles by the end of the set. Just as in cardio training, remember to increase the amount of weight you're lifting once it becomes easy for you.

You should work each of your major muscle groups at each session. Here are some exercises suitable for beginning strength training, categorized by muscle group:

Chest

• Dumbbell Bench Press
• Dumbbell Flys

Back

• Wide Grip (Lat) Pulldown
• Seated Rows

Triceps

• Triceps PushDown

Biceps

• Seated curls

Legs

• Leg Press
• Leg Extension
• Leg Curl

You may notice that most of these exercises can be performed on machines. Machines are typically better for beginners since they hold a body in place and thereby encourage correct execution of the exercise.

Flexibility

Flexibility is one element of exercise that is often overlooked. However, maintaining and increasing your flexibility is crucial to preventing injuries. You should stretch every muscle you intend to exercise both before and after each workout. This is especially important for beginners who are sometimes more prone to injuries.

Creating a workout plan for beginners is not hard at all and is a great way to jump-start your resolution to get fit. If you can stick to your workout plan, you'll see results and achieve your goals in no time at all..

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