Brand new to exercise? This is your corner. Workouts for beginners that assume nothing, explain every move, and never make you feel out of place. I break things down the way I needed them broken down when I started: what to do, how it should feel, and what to skip until you’re ready. No burpees on day one, no jargon, no pressure. Pair these with the complete beginner’s guide and a little help with habits and motivation to make it stick. New here? Start with our complete guide to home workouts for beginners, or head to the Start Here page while we add more guides to this section.
Cindy is three exercises, twenty minutes and no weights. It looks so simple on paper that most people badly underestimate it the first time. I certainly did. I had done plenty of push-ups and squats, so I set off at a pace I thought was sensible. By minute six my push-ups had gone from sets…
Plyometrics is jump training. It is how athletes build the spring that lets them leap, sprint and change direction, and it is one of the few kinds of exercise that trains your body to produce force quickly instead of just producing a lot of it. It also has a reputation for being hard on the…
Training your biceps and triceps together is one of the most satisfying sessions there is. The exercises are simple, the muscles are easy to feel, and because the two groups do opposite jobs, one rests while the other works. You can get a great deal done in half an hour. I used to think arm…
If you can train four days a week, the upper lower split is very hard to beat. Two days for your upper body, two days for your lower body, and three days off. Every muscle gets trained twice, no session drags on, and there is a rest day whenever you need one. It is the…
Push pull legs is probably the most popular way to organise a week of strength training, and the reason is that it makes sense the moment you hear it. One day you train the muscles that push. One day you train the muscles that pull. One day you train your legs. Then you repeat. I…
Calisthenics is strength training that uses your own body as the weight. Push-ups, squats, rows, hangs and planks are all calisthenics. So are pull-ups and handstands, which is why the word can sound more intimidating than it should. For women starting out, it is one of the most practical ways to get strong. It costs…
The barbell is the most intimidating piece of equipment in most gyms. It lives in the corner where the confident people train, it weighs 20 kg before you put anything on it, and nobody explains how any of it works. I avoided it for a long time for exactly those reasons. When I finally learned…
Every workout plan is written in the same shorthand: 3 x 10, 4 x 8, 5 x 5. If nobody has explained it, that shorthand is a wall between you and the programme. Once you can read it, it becomes the most useful tool you have, because sets and reps are how you measure what…
Three days a week is enough to build real strength and muscle. It is also the schedule most people can actually keep, which matters more than any detail of the programme. A plan you follow for a year beats a better plan you abandon in a month. The question is how to arrange those three…
A kettlebell is a cast-iron ball with a handle, and that odd shape is the whole point. Because the weight sits below your hand rather than on either side of it, a kettlebell can be swung, hugged to your chest, pressed and carried in ways a dumbbell cannot. One bell and a couple of square…