The Strength Plan I'd Recommend To Any Beginner | E18

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Hey guys! Welcome back to Train Like a Girl. My name is Abby. I'm an online health and fitness coach and here to debunk all the rubbish with you. Or for you. Um, and today's episode is jumping off the back of last week's episode. So last week we talked about how to be a fitter, healthier, stronger person as a normal person that's not a fitness influencer and doesn't want to make their life the gym. Because that is the majority of us. And most of us don't need some excessive plan or whatever. So I wanted to follow up with a really practical episode and a practical guide on what I would suggest for any beginner. So today I'm gonna give you the exact kind of strength training setup that I would recommend for basically any beginner. Any of you that, you know, have uh want to gain some strength, because let's face it, if you've been sticking around here long enough, you'll know that strength training is it's essential. I was gonna say it's the goat, but it's not just like from an aesthetic or like it's not because I personally like doing it. It's it's essential for our old lady bodies, it's essential for our health. And so I want to make it much more accessible because when we look at strength training online, it's bloody intimidating. So, for my beginners, whether you want to train at home, in the gym, with dumbbells, with just body weight, or with machines, this is probably where I'd start you. Because honestly, as I said, beginner programs online are often way too complicated. And when you're a beginner, you might fall into the trap, and I did this too, and I wish I didn't years ago, but the unnecessary trap of thinking that like more is better. And so maybe you start at the gym or at home and you think, I need to sweat loads, it needs to feel like a real grind. But actually, you don't need fancy exercises or six training days a week or complicated booty burner circuits or jumping around your living room or anything like that. As a beginner, your goal is not like optimizing the best training plan. The goal actually is really simple. Consistency. You'll probably hear me say that word a lot in this episode, and I'll I'll tell you for why in a second. But consistency, learning the movement, building confidence, and just gaining a bit of strength gradually over time. That's it. So personally, if I was programming for a beginner, I'd strip it right the way back, and I'd say, let's do two or three full body sessions a week. That is it. Because where a lot of beginners go wrong, like you know, we start we we see the turn of a new year, for example, and we're like, right, this is it. This is the year. I'm gonna get to the gym, I'm gonna do those spin classes every morning, I'm gonna do they they they feel like they need to max out. And it's through no fault of their own. It's probably because we've got too much information online and it all looks like it has to be optimal for it to work. But the it could not be less true than that. And it's not because more is bad, but it's because more is usually not more effective for beginners. You just need enough training to improve, but you also need enough recovery to not feel destroyed, to build your confidence, and to actually stick to it. And honestly, most beginners grow and improve really, really well and stick to it from relatively low amounts of training. And the reason I like full body sessions is because beginners need practice with movements. So you don't need like an arm day or a push-pull legs or you know, hyper-specific bodybuilding splits. You just need to learn the basics first. And that doesn't mean that it's gonna be when when we say the word basic, it makes it sound like, oh, it's gonna be too easy though. But honestly, if you hone in on the basics, you will fly. You will see so much more benefit from doing that, from mastering the basics, than trying to overcomplicate things. And honestly, that is just a surefire way to shoot yourself in your own foot. And I'm gonna come back to consistency. You need to have a plan that is basic enough, but an improvement from where you're currently at, so that you can actually sustain it, so you can actually show up. So if it's like two or three sessions, half hour, 45 minutes, that is probably gonna be way more attainable, right? And that matters because with strength training, especially, what matters is the consistency. If you're jumping around doing different sessions every week, you're not gonna improve. So I've done episodes on this before about progressive overload, but in basic terms, to get better at strength training, you have to repeat it. So it's not about doing like the best workout each week and changing it all up and doing the next best workout you've seen from your new favorite influencer or whatever. It's about doing the most basic program again and again and again and again and again. Blah blah blah blah blah. Sorry, choke it over my own words here, but consistency matters. It's a bit like, and I use this analogy a lot, it's a but it's it's like riding a bike. So if you if you can't ride a bike and you want to learn how, would you go with option A, week one, use the bike, week two, swim, week three, run, week four, mountain climb, week five, go back to the bike and expect to be better at it. Or would you go week one, bike, week two, bike, week three, bike, week four, bike. You know which option you choose if you want to get better at it. You choose option two, obviously. And the same goes with strength training. Your body needs a reason to adapt. Your body needs a reason to get stronger, and the only way it does that is by learning the skill. So, how you learn the skill, you do the same shit over and over again. Which is why, regardless of how complicated people's training plans get, the strongest people on the internet, your favorite fitness influencers or whatever, they're always doing squats, they're always doing deadlifts, they're always doing the same program every single week because it works. And because we can only get better if we're doing it's a skill. We can only get better at it if we're doing it again and again and again. So, by that logic, we need to strip it right the way back and have a program that you're actually going to be able to do week in and week out. So that is why I'll reiterate, for every beginner, almost every beginner, I reckon two to three full body sessions is perfect. And in each, we're gonna get a bit more technical here because I want to give you, I wanna give you your money's worth, even though this is free. Each workout is gonna have some kind of squat pattern, some kind of hinge pattern, some kind of push, some kind of pull, and a bit of core. Simple. Might not sound simple if you don't understand those terms, but it is really simple. A squat, a hinge, a push, a pull, a core. Simple. So for example, your squat movement could be a body weight squat. It could be a goblet squat where you hold a kettlebell. It could be a leg press if you've got access to some machines in the gym. It could be a lunge. That is a squat movement pattern. So each of your sessions would have one of those. Your hinge pattern, so we're thinking about hinging at the hips, could be a Romanian RDL, a Romanian deadlift. It could be a hip thrust. It could be a kettlebell deadlift. It could be a body weight good morning. I know that it could be a body weight glute bridge. So I know these might all sound, if you've not done gym before, these might all sound complicated, but my point with this is your hinge pattern can be as basic as a body weight glute bridge. So we can strip it right the way back. So we've got one squat, let's say it's a goblet squat, we've got one hinge, let's say it's a kettlebell deadlift. That's our lower body movements. We then have a push exercise, which is our upper body push, could be a push-up, a chest press, a shoulder press, and then you've got a pull movement, so like a row, a rowing action, bent over rows with dumbbells. If you're in a gym, it could be a lap pull down. If you're at home, it could be a banded row. And then I would probably, for functionality and for strength overall, I would add in some core at the end so it could be a plank, it could be some crunches or dead bugs, it could be some carries. If you've got access to the gym, it might be walking up and down with um kettlebells, carries. And that I know that sounds like a lot, but that squat movement, hinge movement, push movement, pull movement, and core movement, perfect, perfect session. And I would do two or three of those a week for most beginners. And that is honestly enough. More than enough. If you've got more exercises than that in your program, I would be questioning if you're working hard enough. So usually I would program with that structure, maybe four to six exercises per session. And I would do two to three sets of each of those with somewhere around six to fifteen reps of those movements. So for example, four to six exercises with all of the stuff I just said. So push, pull, hinge, squat, core, and you might do two or three sets of, so let's say you do three sets of squats for your squat pattern, and we're gonna go for 10 reps. So three sets, 10 reps each time of squats, boom, done. Then you move on to your hinge. Three sets, RDL, we're gonna go eight reps, boom, done. So you from all of that that I've just given you, this is really basic, but these basics work. And let me tell you, the best bodybuilders in the world, they're doing this. They're not doing way more exercises because if you give those exercises and those sets and reps everything you've got, you will improve week on week dramatically. That is literally all you need, nothing fancy. Now, here's the really important part the goal is not to annihilate yourself every session. I actually think beginners, all of us, really, but beginners especially in your first couple weeks of training, you should feel leave your workouts, probably feeling like, yeah, I could have done a bit more. Because if every session destroys you, your recovery is gonna suck, your motivation's gonna drop, your soreness is gonna be awful, and then your consistency is gonna disappear. The best beginner program should leave you feeling capable, successful, and confident to come back again with room for improvements, right? That matters way more than intensity. And off of that, we can talk about progression. Because this is where most people panic. So let's talk about it. Progression doesn't need to mean like adding tons of weight every week or smashing personal bests every week or training to failure or feeling really sweaty or any of that stuff. As a beginner, honestly, progression can simply be, actually, not simply, literally, this is what I would highly recommend: better technique. Improve on your technique with that basic program. Just stick with that every single week and improve on your technique. Film yourself. There's so much value in filming yourself, and then comparing your squat, for example, with a good squat online if you can't afford a coach. So really focusing on better technique, which will in turn improve your confidence. Maybe then from there you can look at adding an extra rep or slightly better control, or then gradually moving into more weight eventually. But that is all. So for your first, honestly, six weeks, take the program structure I just gave you, apply that to yourself twice a week, and just gently and just really focus on technique every single week for four to six weeks. That is it. That is what I would do with a client. So I've basically just given you six weeks of coaching for free, and I promise your body will adapt really well. Honestly, beginners often underestimate how much progress they're making because they're expecting dramatic transformations overnight. But usually the first wins are things like feeling stronger, having more energy, better posture, less aches and pains, improved confidence, and just everyday movements feeling better. And that stuff matters so much. So I hope that helps. Another thing I want to just really stress here is home workouts absolutely count. I think social media has convinced people that if you are not a massive gym goer with intense workouts, it doesn't matter. It could, that could not be further from the truth. That is completely false. As a beginner, you can absolutely, and even even as an intermediate lifter, honestly, you can absolutely build strength, fitness, and muscle from home very effectively. Especially if, you know, a month or two into your plan you you decide to invest into some dumbbells, some resistance bands, you're gonna fly it. Because the print principles, regardless of how advanced you are, are the same. Consistency, small progressions week to week, and repeating those basics. That is what works. And honestly, I think one of the biggest mistakes mistakes that beginners make is trying to optimize things too early. Or maybe not and misunderstanding what optimizing actually is. Because as I said, the advanced lifters are doing what I've just laid out to you. They're doing the basics very, very well. So if you start there, you will that is honestly the perfect plan. You just need a plan that you can stick to in your real life. So don't make it unattainable for yourself. Don't think I need the perfect plan. I need to be sweating my tits off. It's not that. It's you need a plan that you can still follow in real life when you're busy, when you're tired, when your motivation is low. Because long-term results are built from you guessed it, consistency, not intensity. And yeah, obviously, as we lift heavier and heavier, the intensity is gonna feel harder, but your body will adapt to that. So we will always be then trying to progress from there, if that makes sense. It's the consistency that is the king. So if I could give you one piece of beginner advice, it would honestly be this: keep it simple enough that you can stick to it. Because the people who get results long term usually are not the people doing the craziest plan. I promise you. They're the people that kept showing up long enough for these basics to work and to get shit hot at these basics. So take the plan that I've provided here for you today. And if that all still sounds too confusing, drop me a message. I'm gonna leave some information in the show notes of how you might be able to work with me. So you can reach out to me via that. And if you want me to structure this plan out for you so to take out all the guesswork, that's exactly what I do with my beginner clients. So, yeah, I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope that episode was helpful. I will check in with you again next week.