3 Beginner Workouts for Women

If you’re starting out in the world of fitness, finding the right beginner workout routine for women is essential.

Whether you’re looking to lose weight or plan on building up strength knowing where to start can be half the battle – never mind heading to the gym for the first time.

We don’t want you to head to the gym empty-handed. So, to avoid dreaded procrastination, and to ensure you’re getting a good burn from your first few sessions we’ve created three essential beginner workouts for women.

Do one of these every other day and you’ll not only have more knowledge on movements, technique and what exercises hit which muscles – you’ll also be laying the foundations of fitness.

Once you have this nailed, you can start to branch out into other areas.

For example, why not check out these workouts:

Before we get started with the workouts, we want to talk a little about what we’re trying to achieve with these sessions. If you’re ready to go, simply scroll down a few paragraphs and get started.

What will these beginner workouts for women involve?

Our aim with these workouts is to build a good level of fitness. That means both cardio and strength too.

So many women forgo strength training and hit the treadmill instead. While this will help you get fitter, it’s not the best way to ensure you’re getting the most out of your body.

Lifting weights is becoming so much more popular with women, as the health benefits and the physical rewards are being seen and felt across the world.

Every felt envious of a girls amazing butt in the gym? It’s cos she lifts weights. Can’t seem to create abs no matter how many sit ups you do? Once again, you need to be lifting weights.

Don’t worry, this is a beginner program so we’ll just be teaching you the basics – you won’t be ripping barbells quite yet!

We’ll start at bodyweight for most of these movements and when you start to feel confident you can add the load when you feel ready.

By combining cardio with some functional weight training movements, we’ll not only help you benefit from the huge range of health benefits associated with more muscle, you’ll be able to drop fat too (if that’s your goal).

We’re going to be focussing on HIIT training here, as its one of the most efficient ways to work out, as well as one of the best ways to challenge and improve your body [1].

We’ll give you all of this over three carefully planned workouts, designed to get your body moving, your muscles burning and your heart pounding. You’ll perform one workout, then take a rest day – your body isn’t used to this so it’s important we give it time to repair and recover.

Each workout will be focus on giving you a full body workout – once you learn which movements work which muscle groups, you can start to do more focussed legs, arms, or back sessions.

As you get used to it you can start to train four times a week.

Does all of this sound good? Great!

Let’s get started.

Beginner workouts for women

Day 1

On the first day of your new training routine, we’ll kick you off with a full body session. Focus on completing one set of the allocated repetitions, then rest for a minute before starting the next set.

Take your time and focus on achieving good form. If you have any trouble perfecting the technique, either follow our step by step guides via the links below or ask a personal trainer to help you out.

When you’ve finished your workout, we recommend you stretch your whole body for at least 5 minutes and have a protein shake. This should help to reduce your stiffness the next day, but prepare for some soreness when you get out of bed tomorrow!

Day 2

For your mid-week workout, we’ve got a cardio session designed to help you say goodbye to hours spent on the treadmill and hello to a short, sharp, yet effective workout.

The aim of this workout is that you push yourself, however we know you’re still getting into this fitness thing, so don’t worry about maxing out your speed settings.

Instead use this session as a benchmark. Experiment with the intensity and find what feels easy and what gets your heartrate up.

Next week you can max out, but right now we’re still getting your body used to moving more and finding it’s limits.

By alternating between high intensity and low intensity, we can improve your body’s ability to burn fat and work hard, without spending all your precious time plugging away at a run.

It’s one of the most effective ways to improve heart health, fitness and burn fat.

Now you’re getting into the groove of this, you can start to push yourself harder every week. This is essential to getting the most out of this type of beginner workout for women. The harder you push yourself in the high intensity moments, the more fat you’ll burn and the fitter you’ll be – don’t let your body plateau.

Day 3

Once again, we’ll finish on a muscle focussed, full body session. By this point your muscles should’ve loosened off from the first workout and you should be feeling ready to go for it again.

We’ll be using different movements in this workout, but it should still give you a full body burn. Check it out.

Remember to stretch and eat plenty of protein to ensure you reduce recovery times and get the most out of your workout.

The final word – hints and tips

With these beginner workouts for women, you should have the foundations to build strength, fitness, knowledge and, most importantly, your confidence.

Once you have all these things in the bag, you’re taking the first step to a fitter, healthier lifestyle.

Our final take away point is this – don’t forget about nutrition.

The best way to get the best results from your workouts, whether that’s fat loss or strength, is to make sure your nutrition is on point. Check out our article on the IIFYM flexible diet to get started.