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.
A medicine ball workout uses a weighted ball, usually 2 to 6 kg for beginners, to add resistance to movements like squats, lunges, twists and presses, and to train power with throws and slams. It’s one of the most versatile pieces of home equipment you can own, because one ball covers strength, core and cardio….
A farmer’s carry is exactly what it sounds like: you pick up a heavy weight in each hand, stand tall, and walk. It strengthens your grip, shoulders, upper back, core and legs all at once, and it trains the kind of strength you use every time you carry shopping bags, luggage or a toddler. For…
For most healthy adults, a cup or two of coffee about 30 to 60 minutes before a workout is a safe, cheap and genuinely effective pre-workout. Caffeine is one of the best-researched performance aids in sport, and it can help you feel more alert, work a little harder and find exercise slightly easier. You don’t…
For most people, it barely matters whether you drink a protein shake before or after a workout. What matters far more is how much protein you eat across the whole day. If you’re hitting your daily target, a shake either side of training works. If you’re not, the timing of one shake won’t rescue it….
After a workout, the best thing to eat is a normal meal or snack with a good source of protein, some carbohydrate and plenty of fluid, ideally within a couple of hours. Think eggs on toast, chicken with rice, Greek yogurt with fruit, or a tuna sandwich. You don’t need special foods, you don’t need…
For most healthy adults, working out on an empty stomach is fine, especially for short or moderate sessions like a walk, an easy jog or a 30-minute home workout. It isn’t dangerous, but it isn’t magic either. Training fasted doesn’t lead to more fat loss over time than training after eating, and for long or…
You can do light core work every day, but most people get better results training their abs properly two to four times a week, with rest days in between. Your abs are muscles like any other. They get stronger when you challenge them and then let them recover, and doing hundreds of crunches daily usually…
A beginner sprint workout is short and simple: a thorough warm-up, then six to eight fast efforts of 10 to 20 seconds at around 80 to 90 percent effort, with a full walking recovery between each one. Not flat-out racing speed, not dozens of repeats, and definitely not without warming up. Start on a gentle…
A good beginner StairMaster workout is 15 to 20 minutes at a steady level 4 to 6, with your hands off the rails and your body upright. That sounds almost too simple, but the machine punishes anything fancier until you have built up some base fitness, and the way you hold the rails changes the…
You can build a strong chest with dumbbells and no bench at all, because the floor press, the floor fly and a few push-up variations cover nearly everything a bench would give you. The floor takes away the bottom few centimetres of the movement, which sounds like a loss but is actually easier on beginner…