Beginners' Fitness: How To Make a Workout Plan

Welcome to another part of my posting series on fitness for beginners! As a complete fitness novice I want to share what I learn as I learn it so that you can use the information too! I’m not an expert or a professional (clearly), and you should always ask your doctor if you have any questions or concerns about your health.

The thing that I found most challenging about starting to work out is that I had no idea what I should be doing, how often I should be doing it, and when I needed to take a break. Every person is different, and what I’ve gotten from reading is basically that your plan will be different based on what your goals are. Someone who’s training for a triathalon is going to have a different plan than someone who wants to get a little toned for bikini season or someone who wants to lose 50 pounds. And that makes sense, right? So the first thing I did in developing a plan was

• Make some goals

It actually took me a couple days to really think about this one! Why am I exercising? What do I hope to get out of it? What would I love to be able to accomplish? For me, personally, my goals are to become stronger, learn how to run, and gain muscle weight. The most difficult of those goals is actually going to be last one, but it’s probably the most important to me. With my health issues in the past year I lost some weight that I really need to get back, and I want it to be more muscle than flab!

• Pick some cardio + strength training

To have a balanced plan you need both cardiovascular exercise and strength training exercise. How much of each you do depends on the person but since my main goal is to build muscle, I want to make sure to do a good amount of strength training to build my muscles (also I don’t want to burn too many calories with a lot of cardio because I want to GAIN weight).

• Make a plan and stick to it!

I don’t know about you, but I’m a lot more likely to do something if I’ve already laid out a plan for how to do it. My current plan looks like this:

• Monday: cardio (interval running/walking on treadmill or elliptical)
• Tuesday: strength training (weight lifting and strength exercises at home)
• Wednesday: slow yoga/rest
• Thursday: cardio (interval running/walking on treadmill or elliptical)
• Friday: strength training (weight lifting and strength exercises at home)
• Saturday: cardio (speedwalking or cycling)
• Sunday: rest

One thing I’ve learned a lot from healthy living bloggers is that it’s super important to take rest days. So I take two a week, and sometimes if I’m feeling sore or just bored then I’ll do some slow yoga to stretch out on rest day.

CARDIO:

While I do want to learn to run, I get WAY too easily bored to just run a few miles every day. I’m also out of shape so that kind of exercise is really hard for me. I set myself a goal for at least 2 miles of total cardio work every time I go to the gym (I arrived at that number just based on my own fitness level right now), and depending on the day and my mood I do one of the following or some combo of them:

HIIT:

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. I learned about this workout method a while ago when Jason was participating in the Fit2Fat2Fit workout program. It’s a very efficient way to do your cardio, and I love it because it keeps you engaged and doesn’t get boring! You do a less than minute of running at high effort and then slow it down to a walk or jog for another minute or two, and then repeat. This is a good demo that I watched when I was getting started:

My HIIT treadmill workout is 3.8MPH for two minutes (that’s a fast walk) alternating with 7.0-8.0MPH for one minute (sprinting). I repeat that for 15 minutes.

Aerobic Interval Training:

Another option that I like is just regular interval training, which most treadmills have a setting for (which is why I like it!) that takes your speed and/or incline up and down automatically.  The intervals last longer than in HIIT but it’s still a lot more engaging that just running at a constant speed for your whole workout. Another interval option that I follow is the one in the Couch to 5K program, which is designed for beginners who want to learn to run.

Other stuff: I like to do the elliptical, bicycle, stair stepper, and other machines every once in a while to mix it up.

STRENGTH TRAINING: 

I love lifting weights! I always have! I just think it’s really fun. I loosely follow this plan for strength training, which is made for beginners and has been working great for me. I actually found it a bit too easy after learning the moves, so I either add an extra set of repetitions or add some exercises from this Shape magazine workout for beginners. I also add it a little core work with crunches and other exercises. There was a great Tuesday Trainer on Lindsay’s List with a bunch of core exercises demonstrated by other bloggers and I’ve been loving those! If nothing else, I stick in some planking at the end of my strength training.

I’m also doing the Bikini Series from the Tone It Up! girls which has been giving me some awesome workouts to add into my routine.

That’s what I’m doing for now but I’m sure that as I get stronger my workouts will look totally different, and hopefully I’ll work my way up to doing more intense workouts!

One last thing…

Don’t forget to stretch!!!

The first couple weeks I was working out I didn’t really stretch and that is DUMB. The second I started stretching I noticed a lot less soreness, and I know I’m a lot less prone to injury now that I’m stretching properly. I do a good 5-10 minutes of stretching before and after every workout. I do this stretching routine for strength training and this one for cardio days.

As always, if anyone more experienced has any advice, please comment below! 😀

Great posts from the pros:

How to Build Your Own Workout Routine from Nerd Fitness

How to Create a Workout Plan from Fitnessista

How to Build a Workout Plan from FitSugar

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren