Beginner-friendly fitness and movement guides, all in one place. Browse simple home workouts, stretching and mobility routines, habit and motivation tips, and honest equipment advice, with every guide written for total beginners and no gym required. New here? Start with our complete guide to home workouts for beginners or the Start Here page.
Five days a week is the point where training stops fitting around your life and starts being part of it. It is a real commitment, and for the right person it is a very satisfying one. Sessions are shorter and more focused than on three or four days, and there is room to give every…
When people flex their arm and look at the bump on top, they are mostly looking at the long head of the biceps. It is the outer of the two heads, and it is the one that gives the muscle its peak. For a long time I did not know there were two heads at…
There is a short period at the start of strength training when everything works. You add weight to the bar nearly every session. Exercises that left you shaking in week one feel routine by week four. People who have trained for years look on with something close to envy. That period is known as newbie…
A personal trainer is the most expensive piece of fitness equipment you can buy, and for the right person at the right time, the best value. For the wrong person, it is a hundred pounds or dollars a week spent on someone counting to ten. I put off hiring one for a long time because…
Cellulite is one of the most searched and least honestly answered topics in fitness. Half the internet promises that a certain workout will erase it in thirty days. The other half says nothing can be done. Neither is true. I want to be straight with you from the first paragraph, because this site is written…
There is a running joke that people who train with bodyweight have big arms and small legs. It has some truth in it, and the reason is simple. Your legs are already strong. They carry you around all day, so thirty bodyweight squats is a warm-up for them, not a workout. I fell into that…
The back is the hardest part of the body to train with bodyweight alone. You can push the floor away for your chest, and you can squat for your legs, but there is nothing on the floor to pull. That is why so many home routines quietly skip it. Mine did. For most of a…
The rowing machine is usually the emptiest piece of cardio equipment in a gym, and it is one of the best. It works your legs, back and arms together, it is easy on your joints, and you can get a serious session done in twenty minutes. It sits empty because most people have never been…
Hitting a heavy bag is one of the few workouts that people actually look forward to. It is absorbing in a way that a treadmill is not. You have to think about your feet, your hands and your breathing all at once, and three minutes disappears. It also humbles you quickly. The first time I…
Most people who train their arms have never heard of the brachialis. It sits underneath the biceps where you cannot see it, it has no impressive peak, and it rarely gets a mention. Yet it is the strongest muscle you have for bending your elbow. I came across it by accident. My biceps curls had…