By: Chris Gates

If you’re a beginner and you want to get started with strength training, you’ve come to the right place!

In this article, I’m going to help you build the best strength training program for beginners.

And I’m glad you’re here, because I can absolutely relate to being a beginner with lifting weights. As a beginner, it can be intimidating.

You might not know what equipment to use, or what exercises to do. You could be confused about how many sets and reps to do, and what weight to use, too.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

And I know how to help!

I work with clients all over the world to create customized strength training programs that work — no matter your experience level. Many of the people I work with are complete beginners and new to the strength training world, and in this article I’m going to share with you some of the most effective strategies we use!

I’ll walk you through the basics and we’ll make this program tailored to you. We’ll do it in a way that will help you make more progress, build more muscle and strength, and develop more confidence.

As a result, I’ll take all of the guesswork out of things so you know exactly what to do, why you’re doing it, and how to make long-term progress.

First, let’s dive into some basic information you should know about strength training and how it changes your body. Then, we can get into the specifics and start building the best strength training program for beginners!

The Best Strength Training Program For Beginners: The Benefits

As you get started with strength training, there are a few things that will be helpful for you to know.

Whether your goal is to get stronger, or build muscle, or change your body composition, or anything else related to the gym, strength training is going to help!

Strength training is really the core of what your training program should be built on.

Yes, other forms of exercise are absolutely valuable. Doing things like cardio, yoga, playing a sport, etc. come with tremendous health benefits, but all of those things are made better by strength training.

It’s a good concept to think about…

Strength training — building muscle and getting stronger — will positively benefit you in virtually every aspect of your life. There are no downsides to getting stronger, or building muscle.

Strength training will improve the health of your muscles, your bones, and your joints, and it will help you develop better mobility, stability, and reduce the risk of future injury (just to name a few of the benefits). All of these pros for strength training are money in the bank for better health and longevity.

Not to mention the fact that strength training will help you look better and feel more confident!

The Best Strength Training Program For Beginners: The Fundamentals

There are benefits galore that come with strength training.

But how can you achieve those benefits? What should you be doing in the gym to get the most out of your strength training program?

Focusing on compound exercises is a great place to start. Compound exercises are exercises that involve multiple muscle groups at once. Some examples of this are:

• Pressing
• Squatting
• Deadlifting
• Rowing

These types of exercises will engage more of your muscles and allow you to lift more weight, which will help you get stronger in a hurry!

In addition to those exercises, let’s focus on a guiding principle that will carry you far in your strength training journey…

Strength training is about providing your body with a stimulus through lifting weights. Your body doesn’t really know what equipment you’re using, or how many sets and reps you did, or how much weight you lifted.

Your body just recognizes when something is challenging, and it tries to react to that challenging workout by adapting and building muscle to make things easier the next time you lift.

Throw everything else out the window. That’s the most important concept to understand.

If you can understand that, you’ll make tons of progress.

And here’s why…

The key to the best strength training program for beginners is to always be challenging yourself.

As you get started with strength training, you’re going to make fast progress. Virtually everybody does. As your body adapts and you make progress, you need to make sure you continue to lift in a way that challenges your body.

This is a concept called progressive overload, and it’s how you build muscle. You need to progressively train harder and harder over time, making sure that your performance increases over time.

As a certain exercise gets easier, make it harder. You can do that by adding sets, adding reps, or adding weight.

You should always prioritize form and technique over increases in weight, so challenge yourself to maintain that perfect form and technique while making your exercises harder.

Adding even one rep per session is a performance increase, so focus on making slight improvements consistently over time. And do it in a way that’s safe.

The Best Strength Training Program For Beginners: Let’s Build A Program!

Alright, you’ve got a solid understanding of how strength training works, and what you should focus on in your program.

Now, let’s start building your program!

Since you’re a beginner to strength training, I think a great place for you to start is three training days a week, and we’ll use each session to focus on a specific motor pattern.

Day:	Workout:	Muscle Groups Involved:
Day 1	Push Day	Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Day 2	Pull Day	Back, Biceps
Day 3	Lower Day	Glutes, Hamstrings, Quads, Calves

A lot of people start way too aggressively with strength training, and it eventually leads to quitting. You don’t have to lift five, six, or seven days a week to make progress. In fact, lifting that much is probably going to be less effective for you.

Three days is a great place to start for beginners. It will allow you to build muscle and get stronger, and you won’t beat your body into the ground to the point of being sore every day and wanting to quit.

Within each of those sessions, we’ll focus on hitting a lot of the general recommendations for building muscle that work for most people. Here are the basics, and if you’d like to learn more you can read my article on how to structure your training for muscle growth.

• Complete 10-20 hard sets for each muscle group, each week (we’ll be on the lower end of this range as you get started).
• Lift somewhere in the 5-30 rep range for each set.
• Train legitimately hard. Each set should get you near failure (but you don’t have to actually hit failure).

Day 1: Push Day

Day 1 is your push day, and we’re going to focus on the chest, shoulders, and triceps.

In order to get an all-around quality workout, we’ll start with a compound pressing exercise and follow it up with accessory exercises that create a comprehensive push day.

Here’s what it looks like!

Exercise:	Sets and Reps:	Notes:
Dumbbell Bench Press	3 sets 8-10 reps	This is your heavy exercise for the day, so give it your all and lift as much as you can while being safe and prioritizing form and technique.
Dumbbell Lateral Raise	4 sets 12-15 reps	This exercise is normally done best with lighter weight and really focusing on form throughout each and every rep. You can do it seated or standing, whichever is most comfortable.
Rear Delt Fly	4 sets 12-15 reps	This exercise is normally done best with lighter weight and really focusing on form throughout each and every rep. You can do it seated or standing, whichever is most comfortable.
Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Press	3 sets 8-12 reps	Focus on bracing your core throughout each and every rep to remain stable.
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press	3 sets 8-12 reps	Put the bench at a slight incline. No more than 45 degrees, but ideally much lower than that.
Standing Triceps Extension	3 sets 10-15 reps	You can use a handle or rope attachment for this one. Whichever is most comfortable.

Day 2: Pull Day

Day 2 is going to be your pull day, and just like in Day 1 we’re starting things off with a compound exercise, followed by accessory exercises.

Here’s what it looks like!

Exercise:	Sets and Reps:	Notes:
Seated Row	3 sets 8-10 reps	Focus on pulling your elbows back towards your hips. Don’t go too heavy on this to the point where you need to use momentum to complete the reps.
Barbell Curl	4 sets 8-10 reps	You can use a standard barbell or an EZ curl bar for this.
Lat Pull Down	4 sets 8-12 reps	You can use a standard lat pull down bar for this, or you can use other attachments like a V-grip or handles.
Incline Dumbbell Shrug	3 sets 8-12 reps	Put the bench at a slight incline. No more than 45 degrees.
Dumbbell Hammer Curls	3 sets 10-12 reps	Curl all the way up, and then all the way back down. Use a full range of motion. If you start to sway your upper body to perform this exercise, lower the weight.

Day 3: Lower Body Day

Day 3 will focus on the entire lower body, and you know the drill by now… We’re going with a compound exercise to start.

Here’s what it looks like!

Exercise:	Sets and Reps:	Notes:
Goblet Squat	3 sets 8-10 reps	Control each part of this exercise — the squat down, and the squat back up. Hold a dumbbell at chest height with both hands. If you’re not able to use a dumbbell, you can do bodyweight squats to get started.
Standing Calf Raise	3 sets 10-15 reps	Do these elevated on a step or staircase. You can add weight by holding on to a dumbbell with one hand.
Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift	4 sets 8-12 reps	Push your butt back towards the wall behind you. When you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, think about pushing the floor away with your feet and thrust your hips forward.
Split Squat	4 sets 8-12 reps (each leg)	You can do this with dumbbells or bodyweight.
Sit Ups	3 sets Reps to failure	Three sets of sit ups or crunches to failure.

The Best Strength Training Program For Beginners: Program Notes

Let’s break down a few final points for your program before you get outta here…

• You might be wondering why there are no barbell movements like the squat, bench press, or deadlift. That’s because beginners typically need to get familiarized with those motor patterns using dumbbells or machines before grabbing a barbell. Feel free to substitute those exercises into your program as you get comfortable.
• The exercises I’ve included in this program will work for most people. If there’s one or two you can’t do, feel free to swap in a different exercise variation. Just make sure it’s for the same muscle group!
• Try to stick to a 60-second rest period in between sets. If an exercise gets really intense, you can extend that rest period to 90 seconds.
• In addition to your strength training routine, doing things like eating adequate protein and calories is going to be helpful.
• Sleep is also really important so that you can effectively recover from your workouts. Try to get somewhere between 7-9 hours of sleep a night, on average.

—

I hope you found this article helpful! Like I said at the top, this stuff works. If you’re interested in getting customized coaching to help you build a program, check out my coaching page and fill out a coaching application form if you’d like to talk about your goals!

Thanks for reading!