The “testosterzone” as some people refer to it can be a daunting area if you’re new to lifting weights.I’ll happily hold my hand up and say I used to do all the cardio machines and then end with some sit ups on the mat to finish as it was all I felt I knew.
I’d maybe even throw in a leg press and a stint on the adductor/abductor machines if I was feeling adventurous.
You’re probably reading this because you’re new to lifting weights.
This is a great time as you’ll see what’s often referred to as “newbie gains” where your body adapts quickly and easily to strength training if you’ve not lifted before.
First things first, full body training is the one when starting out as it means you hit all the muscle groups in one go.
So, where do you start with a full body workout?
What does this involve?
- Hinge. This is your hip dominant exercise. So this includes exercises like deadlifts, hip thrusts, glute bridges, good mornings, kettlebell swings
- Squat. these are your knee dominant exercises, basically where the move’s main joint moving is the knee. This is squats, lunges, split squats, step ups
(there are different ways of splitting it to train muscle anterior + posterior muscle groups but let’s stick with movements instead). - Horizontal Push exercises. In short, pushing a weight away from your chest. Think press ups, barbell bench press, incline dumbbell press, cable chest press, chest flyes.
- Vertical Push exercises. Pushing a weight in a vertical motion overhead. These include shoulder press, arnold press, strict/military press, push press, (potentially lat raises but some argue this movement is pulling).
- Pull exercises. If you’ve cottoned on by now, you’ll know that I’m going to say this is when you’re pulling a weight towards you. This motion works your back. Exercises include seated row, bent over row, prone flyes, lat pulldown, dumbbell lat pullover, cabe face pull.
That’s loosely it in a nutshell. Just make sure you’ve got 1 of each in a session, bar the Pull exercises where advice is to have 2 or 3 pull exercises for every push.
