By: Chris Gates

If you want to get strong, training with barbells is definitely going to help.

But if you’re a beginner to lifting weights, it’s important to approach lifting with a barbell in a safe and responsible way.

Because let’s face it…

• Lifting with a barbell requires proper form and technique.
• Learning proper form and technique takes time.
• Lifting with barbells can be quite challenging at first.
• You could hurt yourself if you’re not careful, or if you start too aggressively.

But you’re in luck! Because in this article I’m going to break down the best barbell exercises for beginners.

You’ll learn about the top 4 barbell exercises to get started with, and how you can maximize them to build both muscle and strength.

So let’s dive in and talk about how you as a beginner should approach lifting weights, and what you need to focus on to make progress and stay safe in the gym.

From there, we can transition into talking about how to build muscle and strength, and map out the top four barbell exercises for beginners!

How To Get Started With Lifting Weights

Before I throw a bunch of new exercises at you, I want to make sure you have a solid understanding of how to get started with lifting weights.

Because a big part of making progress with lifting weights is using the right progression.

By “progression,” I mean having the right plan to add weight to the bar, or add intensity to your exercises.

For beginners, the best place to start is often not with a barbell — at least not if you’ve never lifted weights before.

Bodyweight exercises are typically the best place to start if you’re a beginner, just to ensure you can complete some fundamental motor patterns with your own bodyweight. Because if you can’t do these with your bodyweight, you’re probably not ready to pick up a barbell.

1. Push Up
2. Pull Up
3. Squat

If you need some assistance to do push ups and pull ups, that’s OK. But I want you to get good at these.

Understand how to move your body efficiently and effectively in each of those motor patterns. Learn the exercises and get to know them like the back of your hand.

Once you do, you can move into lifting weights. And a great place to start is lifting with machines, because they’ll help you stay safe while moving weight around.

I have an entire article about lifting with machines, so check that out to learn more. In short, they’ll help you learn how to work the different muscle groups throughout your body with a very low risk for injury.

How To Build Muscle And Strength

Truly defining what it takes to build muscle and strength could take hours, but don’t worry. I’m not going to ramble on and on.

I’ve listed some key concepts below, with links out to more detailed information. Give them a read some other time once you’ve finished this article.

Lucky for you, beginners can often make progress very quickly! Simply getting started with strength training will cause you to build muscle at an effective and efficient rate.

If you can make sure you’re doing these three things when you get started, you’ll maximize your progress:

1. Train hard: Make sure you’re legitimately challenging yourself in the gym. You don’t need to go to failure on every single set, but you also can’t show up and just go through the motions.
2. Eat right: You should fuel your body to repair itself and grow. That means eating enough calories and protein consistently.
3. Get enough sleep: Most people need between 7-9 hours of sleep consistently to give their bodies adequate rest and recovery. At night is when a ton of the adaptations to strength training happen.

Training legitimately hard will kick your body into recovery mode, and it will get to work trying to build muscle. If you’re doing those three things right most of the time, you’ll put yourself in a position to build a ton of muscle and strength!

Barbell Basics

Once you’ve developed a certain competency level with strength training — starting with bodyweight exercises, and then moving to machines, followed by free weights — you can transition to using a barbell.

And that’s great! Because lifting with barbells really is the gold standard for strength development.

Barbells allow you to lift heavier weight, and progressively add more weight to the bar over time on a consistent basis, than any other free weights. For building strength, that’s a winning combination.

And when you’re able to lift heavier weight, you’re going to create more tension in your muscles, which will stimulate muscle growth.

All told, barbells are a fantastic piece of equipment to use when you lift weights.

Fast Facts About Barbells

Here are some fast facts about barbells that you should know:

• The standard barbell is 45 pounds.
• When you add weight to the barbell, you’re adding to that 45 pounds.
• So if you put a 25-pound plate on either side, you’re lifting a total of 95 pounds.
• You should ALWAYS add the same amount of weight to both sides of the barbell.
• The plates you can put on the barbell typically come in increments of 2.5 pounds, 5 pounds, 10 pounds, 25 pounds, and 45 pounds.

There are many specialty barbells available as well. Your gym may even have some of them.

But for the purposes of the best barbell exercises for beginners, we’re talking specifically about using a standard 45-pound barbell.

When You Start, Start Slow

Lastly, before we dive into the top four exercises, I want to make this abundantly clear…

You should NOT rush into things when you first get started lifting with barbells.

Take it slow, and get familiar with how the barbell works, and how you move with it, before entertaining the idea of adding weight to the bar.

These are some good rules to follow:

1. Take your time. Don’t throw a ton of weight on the bar before you can handle it.
2. Get good at lifting a specific amount of weight before you add more weight.
3. Work with a coach or trainer to make sure your form and technique are correct.

The quickest way to ruin your progress is to get too aggressive, and throw a bunch of weight on the bar before you’re ready.

Because you’ll get hurt, and then you won’t be able to train.

And I don’t know if you’ve researched this before, but…

Absolutely nobody has made progress with strength training when they couldn’t train.

The Best Barbell Exercises For Beginners: Deadlift

The first exercise in the best barbell exercises for beginners is the deadlift!

And this is for good reason, because there may not be a better exercise on the planet for building overall strength.

Think about it: the deadlift involves muscle groups all the way from your head to your toes (check out the tutorial video above to learn more).

By doing barbell deadlifts, you’re going to develop:

• Core stability and strength.
• Stronger legs.
• A stronger lower back.
• Stronger shoulders and upper back.
• More explosive power.

And the cool thing about getting started with this exercise is that you can pick a variation that feels good for you.

I’d recommend you try the following variations with light weight to see what feels most natural:

• Barbell conventional deadlift. (Tutorial video)
• Sumo deadlift. (Tutorial video)
• Romanian deadlift. (Tutorial video)

Once you find a variation that feels natural and comfortable, stick with that and get to work with perfecting your technique!

Form and technique pointers:

1. Stand with the bar over your mid foot.
2. Grip the bar with each hand just outside of each leg.
3. Take a deep breath in and brace your core before each and every rep.
4. Think about pushing the floor away with your feet to pull the weight up.
5. Lower it back down to the ground under control.

The Best Barbell Exercises For Beginners: Barbell Box Squat

Up next in the best barbell exercises for beginners is the barbell box squat!

This is probably the best barbell exercise for targeting specifically your lower body. Barbell box squats will target your thighs, hamstrings, and butt, while also engaging some of your upper body by stabilizing the bar on your upper back.

Not to mention that squatting is a fundamental motor pattern that will really help your strength and stability throughout life.

And by squatting down to a box, you’ll learn how to do a proper barbell squat safely.

One of the trickiest aspects of barbell squatting when you get started is going all the way down, and then finding a way to stand back up with weight on your back.

By squatting down to a box, you’ll get a little bit of support and learn how to squat to a proper depth with much lower risk of injury or instability.

Form and technique pointers:

1. Place the box behind you in a position that allows you to squat comfortably.
2. Take a deep breath in and brace your core before each rep.
3. Squat down to the box under control, and stop when you feel your butt hit the box.
4. After lightly touching the box, push your feet through the floor to stand the weight back up.

The Best Barbell Exercises For Beginners: Barbell Bench Press

Let’s move on to another fundamental motor pattern: pressing!

Next up in the best barbell exercises for beginners is the barbell bench press, which will primarily train your chest, shoulders, and triceps.

The muscle and strength you’ll develop by getting good at bench pressing will translate to many other upper body exercises, like dumbbell presses, shoulder presses, and more.

And when done properly, this exercise also trains your core and lower body. Your abs and legs play a big role in stabilizing your body while you push the weight up, so this is really a fantastic exercise for developing overall strength.

Form and technique pointers:

1. Lay on the bench and think about pulling your shoulders back and down, and dig them into the pad of the bench.
2. Dig your feet into the ground and create a stable base with your lower body.
3. When you begin each rep, think about slightly tucking your elbows and lowering the weight to your chest.
4. Explode the weight back up off your chest and press the bar back up.

The Best Barbell Exercises For Beginners: Inverted Row

The fourth and final of the best barbell exercises for beginners is an exercise that will hit the majority of your back: the inverted row!

It’s also going to train your grip, forearms, and biceps, so it’s a terrific option for upper body training.

While this is technically a bodyweight exercise, it’s a great tool to use to learn how to row with your arms and back.

And it’s a great starter exercise to eventually to transition to other barbell back exercises, like the bent over row, T-bar row, and more.

What’s great about the inverted row is that you can easily customize it to fit your level of strength by adjusting your foot placement, or adjusting the placement of the bar (check out my tutorial video to learn more).

You can even play around with your grip to target different areas of your back.

Form and technique pointers:

1. Make sure you set the bar up on a rack where you’ll be pulling the bar into the rack itself, not away from the rack. This is important to keep you safe.
   • Set the bar high for more assistance, or low for less assistance.
2. Lay on the floor directly beneath the bar, facing up, and grip the bar.
3. Keep your core braced and squeeze your glutes.
4. Row with your arms and back all the way up to the bar and touch it with your torso.
5. Lower your body back down to the ground under control.

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Thanks for reading! I hope you found this article helpful!

If you’re interested in coaching to help you get started with strength training and learn the proper ways to make progress, check out my coaching page! I work with people all over the world on their fitness goals, and I’d love to help you.

Take care!

~ Chris