Novice fitness introductory training course schedule

The safest and most error-tolerant weekly training plan for newbies to get started with fitness is "3 times a week, full-body strength training with 1 day interval + 2 times low-intensity aerobics + 2 days of flexible rest." A single training session is controlled to 45-60 minutes. There is no need for complicated part differentiation, and it can avoid the common pitfalls of 90% novices of injuries, giving up halfway, and ineffective training.

My childhood friend who has been sitting for 6 years went to the gym for the first time a while ago. When he came up, he searched for "six workout schedules a week" and had to make a set of abdominal muscle tearers. In the third week, he twisted his waist because of wrong movements. He lay at home for half a week and complained that "exercise is pure suffering" - this is basically the starting point for 80% of novices. They always think that the more complicated the plan, the more advanced it is. In fact, it is completely unnecessary.

Nowadays, there are actually two schools of thought in the fitness circle regarding entry-level programs for novices. One school advocates starting with differentiated training of "chest/shoulder/back/legs/arms", saying that it can establish the muscle feeling of single parts in advance and lay the foundation for subsequent advancement; the other school insists that novices have poor neural recruitment ability, and training one part alone is mostly compensatory force, which is extremely inefficient. Whole-body training is the most cost-effective choice. I have trained more than a dozen novices myself, and have tried both split and full-body modes. Objectively speaking, both are correct. If you can steadily devote more than 5 days of training time every week, and can calm down and spend 1-2 weeks studying the details of each movement, split training is absolutely fine, but 90% of ordinary novices squeeze in 3-4 free days a week at most, and usually do it continuously I feel tired even if I take the express delivery, but the adaptability of whole-body training is really much higher - there is also data in exercise physiology. During the novice bonus period (the first 12 months of training), the muscle anabolic efficiency brought by whole-body training is about 30% higher than that of single-part differentiation. To put it bluntly, it takes less time to build more muscles and lose more fat.

You don’t have to do anything fancy every time you practice, just four movements. First spend 5 minutes to warm up. You can either step on the elliptical machine or raise your legs in the same place. If you are slightly sweaty, do a few shoulder circles and lunges. Oh, and don’t press your legs when you get up. That is a static stretch. Doing it before training will easily cause strain. Do dynamic stretches. Then practice squatting as the first movement. For beginners, use empty bar squats or bodyweight squats. If your knees are bad, find a box and do box squats. Squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Don't squat too low to hurt your knees. Do 3 sets of 12 reps, with a 30-second to 1-minute interval between sets. Don't squat for half an hour while scrolling through Douyin. I have seen too many novices practice 10 minutes and 20 minutes while scrolling through their mobile phones. In the end, they say fitness is useless. It's strange that it can be effective. The second action is to practice pushing, either kneeling push-ups or Smith frame bench press. When pushing, feel the tightening feeling in the chest. Don't use your arms to throw it. 10 times per group, 3 groups. The third is pulling. Most beginners have rounded shoulders and hunched backs. You must do the pulling action. Either pull down in a high position with a grip a little wider than shoulder width, or do bent over rowing with two dumbbells. Feel the muscles of the back squeeze into the middle without slumping. Do one set of 12 times, 3 sets. Finally, add some core training. Just do dead bugs or planks. Don't do sit-ups. Those things put too much pressure on the lumbar spine. You can hold the plank for as long as you want. One set of 30 seconds to 1 minute, 3 sets is enough. Calculated, including the warm-up band and relaxation, it will definitely be done in 45 minutes. You don't have to spend two hours in the gym. If you spend too long, it will be easy to overtrain.

As for aerobics, don’t listen to what others say that you must run 5 kilometers after each training session. Newbies’ cardiopulmonary fitness is already poor, so running twice will have a psychological impact. You can just arrange aerobic training in the intervals between strength training, such as strength training on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, walk two more stops after get off work on Tuesday and Thursday, or ride a shared bicycle for 20 minutes, or dance at home for 20 minutes. As long as the heart rate is controlled at about 60% of (220 minus your age), you don't have to be breathless and comfortable. The most important thing is comfort. Take a complete rest for the remaining two days. Lie down if you want. Go out and eat if you want. Don't set too strict KPIs for yourself. Muscles grow during rest. When you train, you only tear out small tears in the muscle fibers, which will be repaired and thickened when you rest. If you train too hard, you won't give the muscles time to grow, which is useless.

If you don’t have time to go to the gym, you can still do it at home. When squatting, use bodyweight squats. When pushing, use kneeling push-ups. When pulling, find an elastic band and put it on the door handle to do pull-downs. The effect is not much different. Don’t use “no gym” as an excuse. If you have a large base weight, replace squatting with seated leg presses, and replace running and jumping aerobics with swimming or an elliptical machine. Don't hurt your knees by running hard.

I also encountered this trap when I first started working out. I searched for various advanced movements every day, such as rope flyes and single-leg deadlifts. I practiced fancy exercises for two months, but my weight did not change at all. Really, novices should not pursue any perfect plan. Just practice this for 3 months. If it doesn't work, come back to me. Oh, by the way, if you feel a stinging sensation during practice, stop immediately. Don’t force yourself to do it. If your movements are wrong, just ask a guy in the gym who is good at it. Most people are willing to teach you, which is much better than trying to figure it out on your own for half a year.