Description
The 12-week women’s beginner training program for women is designed to:
- Introduce your body to physical exercise
- Introduce you to a variety of exercises, training equipment, and training splits
- Train all of your major muscle groups
- Strengthen your core and primal movement patterns
- Encourage body-wide neuromuscular adaptation
- Promote the development of a strong foundation of muscular endurance upon which you can safely build in the subsequent programs. Without this strong foundation, you will be at risk of injury
By the end of the program, you should have:
- developed significant strength (mostly due to neuromuscular adaptation), muscular endurance, and muscular “tone”
- dramatically improved your overall fitness.
The beginner training program for women is divided into four sections (microcycles), each one lasting for three weeks. The first two microcycles focus on full-body circuit training, which means that you will be training your entire body in each workout. The last two microcycles focus on split training, which means that you will be dividing your body into sections and training them in separate workouts.
Please don’t be intimidated by the number of exercises in some of the workouts. You will be flying through them with minimal rest, so the workouts will be completed very quickly.
Please read the Overview of women’s training programs before starting this program.
Suitability
- Beginners
- Individuals who have less than three months of consistent weight training experience
- Experienced individuals who haven’t trained for more than three months
Instructions
- Always use a weight that’s heavy enough to make the reps challenging.
- Whenever you have to increase the weight, add a maximum of 5 lb (2.5 kg) to upper-body exercises and 10 lb (5 kg) to lower-body exercises.
- Complete the exercises in the order presented.
- Try to master the proper form of each exercise, including proper breathing technique.
- Try to develop a mental connection with your muscles and with the movement patterns.
- If you can’t perform one of the exercises for some reason, see the overview page for alternative exercises.
- Don’t forget to warm up before, and cool down after, each workout.
- Once you have completed the beginner training program for women, you must take a deload week (a week during which you either rest or train lightly). Only then should you move on to the next program.
Microcycle 1: Full-body circuit (3 weeks)
- For microcycle 1 you will perform a full-body circuit
- Complete 3 workouts per week, with at least 1 day of rest between each workout (e.g. AXAXAXX, where “A” is a workout day and “X” is a rest day)
- Complete 2 circuits per workout
- Rest for only 20–30 seconds between exercises
- Rest for 2–3 minutes before starting the second circuit
- Each workout should take less than 30 minutes
| Exercise | Reps |
| Dumbbell sumo squat* | 15–18 |
| Medium-grip lat pull-down | 15–18 |
| Hyperextension | 15–18 |
| Dumbbell bench press | 15–18 |
| Seated or lying leg curl | 15–18 |
| Straight-back seated cable row | 15–18 |
| Machine standing calf raise | 25–30 |
| Seated dumbbell overhead press | 15–18 |
| Bicycle crunch | 15–20 |
| *Bodyweight squat for first week | |
Microcycle 2: Full-body circuit (3 weeks)
- For microcycle 2 you will perform a more comprehensive full-body circuit
- Complete either 3 workouts a week (AXAXAXX) or a workout every other day (AX)
- Complete 2 circuits per workout
- Rest for only 20–30 seconds between exercises
- Rest for 2–3 minutes before starting the second circuit
- Each workout should take less than 40 minutes
| Exercise | Reps |
| Barbell squat (wear loop band around thighs if available) | 13–15 |
| Medium-grip lat pull-down | 13–15 |
| Dumbbell Romanian deadlift (YouTube link) | 13–15 |
| Push-up on knees or on stability ball | 13–15 |
| Weighted one-leg hip thrust | 13–15 |
| Bent-over dumbbell row | 13–15 |
| Seated or lying leg curl | 13–15 |
| Dumbbell one-arm overhead press | 13–15 |
| Lying alternating straight leg raise | 15–20 |
| Dumbbell curl | 13–15 |
| Standing dumbbell one-leg calf raise | 25–30 |
Microcycle 3: Upper–Lower split (3 weeks)
- For microcycle 3 you will perform an upper–lower split. This means that you will train all of your upper body in one workout and all of your lower body in another workout. Also, instead of circuit training, you will perform set training, which means that you will complete all of the sets for one exercise before moving on to the sets of the following exercise
- Recommended workout schedules: ABXABXX or ABX
- Rest for only 20–30 seconds between sets
- Rest for only 60–90 seconds between exercises
- Each workout should take less than 40 minutes
| Workout A (Upper Body) | |
| Exercise | Sets x Reps |
| Seated cable row | 2 x 13–15 |
| One-arm lat pull-down | 2 x 13–15 |
| Push-up on knees or on stability ball | 2 x 13–15 |
| Barbell overhead press | 2 x 13–15 |
| Cable face pull | 2 x 13–15 |
| Triceps rope push-down | 2 x 13–15 |
| EZ-bar curl | 2 x 13–15 |
| Cable twist | 2 x 13–15 |
| Front plank | 2 x 45–60 s |
| s = seconds | |
| Workout B (Lower Body) | |
| Exercise | Sets x Reps |
| Barbell front squat (wear loop band around thighs if available) | 2 x 13–15 |
| Dumbbell lunge | 2 x 13–15 |
| Barbell Romanian deadlift | 2 x 13–15 |
| Barbell hip thrust | 2 x 13–15 |
| Seated or lying leg curl | 2 x 13–15 |
| Lying leg and hip raise | 2 x 15–20 |
| Bicycle crunch | 2 x 20–25 |
| Lying alternating straight leg raise | 2 x 20–25 |
| Standing dumbbell one-leg calf raise | 2 x 20–25 |
Microcycle 4: 3-day split (3 weeks)
- For microcycle 4 you will perform a 3-day split in which you will train your back, biceps, and core in Workout A; your chest, shoulders, triceps, and core in Workout B; and your legs and glutes in Workout C
- Recommended workout schedules: ABCXABX (then start from C the next week) or ABCX (i.e. three days on, one day off)
- Rest for only 20–30 seconds between sets
- Rest for only 60–90 seconds between exercises
- Each workout should take less than 40 minutes
| Workout A (Back, biceps, core) | |
| Exercise | Sets x Reps |
| Barbell sumo deadlift | 2 x 12–14 |
| Assisted pull-up | 2 x 12–14 |
| Seated twisting cable row | 2 x 12–14 |
| Dumbbell curl | 2 x 12–14 |
| Dumbbell side bend | 2 x 15–20 |
| Lying side hip raise | 2 x 15–20 |
| Bicycle crunch | 2 x 25–30 |
| Wheel rollout | 2 x 10–15 |
| Workout B (Chest, shoulders, triceps, core) | |
| Exercise | Sets x Reps |
| Standing cable chest press | 2 x 12–14 |
| Dumbbell one-arm overhead press | 2 x 12–14 |
| Dumbbell bent-over lateral raise | 2 x 12–14 |
| Cable face pull | 2 x 12–14 |
| Diamond push-up on knees | 2 x 12–14 |
| Cable wood chop | 2 x 12–14 |
| Captain’s chair leg and hip raise (or hanging variation) | 2 x 12–14 |
| Lying alternating straight leg raise | 2 x 25–30 |
| Workout C (Legs, glutes) | |
| Exercise | Sets x Reps |
| Barbell sumo squat | 2 x 12–14 |
| Dumbbell Bulgarian split squat | 2 x 12–14 |
| Weighted one-leg hip thrust | 2 x 12–14 |
| Smith machine kneeling rear kick | 2 x 12–14 |
| Seated or lying leg curl | 2 x 12–14 |
| Cable hip abduction | 2 x 15–20 |
| Cable hip adduction | 2 x 15–20 |
| Machine standing calf raise | 2 x 20–25 |
