A Beginner Fitness Guide For Women
You want to lose weight, but you’ve never stepped into a gym before. You don’t know what a plank is and you’re afraid that you’re going to grow into one of those big muscular men at the gym, if you’re using weights when you exercise. Just starting out? No need to worry, ladies. No one was born a wise, all-knowing person. We are all learning, and that is the reason we are bringing you, right now, a beginner fitness guide for women.
There’s no reason to feel intimidated!
If you’re new to the gym or exercise , ideally, you should start out at a low intensity and volume, then gradually bump it up as your body adapts. If you can afford it, you should definitely get a personal trainer, just to make sure you’re starting off the right way.
A Beginner Fitness Guide For Women?
We bet you’re wondering what would that be all about. A beginner fitness guide for women should include both cardio to burn calories and develop the cardiorespiratory system and strength training to build lean muscle and improve bone density.
In addition, you should also include before and after “stretching sessions”, just to make sure you improve your flexibility and avoid injuries, along the way.
So, how does it look?
Because we want to go easy on you, we would like to suggest two types of combinations. One of them would have you going at the gym 3 times a week, and the other one would require you to pay 4 visits at the gym.
The First one – Slow and easy.
- Monday: cardio
- Tuesday: full-body strength training
- Wednesday: rest
- Thursday: full-body strength training
- Friday: cardio
- Saturday: rest
- Sunday: rest
The Second one – Slow and Moderate
- Monday: cardio
- Tuesday: full-body strength training
- Wednesday: cardio
- Thursday: full-body strength training
- Friday: cardio
- Saturday: rest
- Sunday: rest
What kind of exercises are recommended for beginners?
A Fitness guide for Women.
Down bellow, we have a few exercises for women who are just starting out. Most of them are basic and easy to execute exercises, just so you can learn fast and become more comfortable doing them. Also, you can find them all in our Diet and Workout Plan App, so make sure you give them a check.
A full-body gym workout plan includes a wide variety of exercises like:
- Squats (weighted or body-weight)
- Lunges
- Step ups (weighted or body-weight)
- Chest press
- Assisted pull-ups (machine or bands)
- Shoulder press
- Back rows
- Machine Leg press
- Leg extensions
- Leg curls
- Bicycle crunches
- Planks
It is usually recommended that you do around 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions, per exercise.
What do we Recommend for Cardio?
Doing cardio at the gym, usually offers you the possibility of mixing things up. We know that not all gyms have a huge variety of cardio equipment, but let’s hope yours has at least a few of the ones we list down bellow:
- Treadmills
- Elliptical machines
- Stationary bikes
- Recumbent bikes
- Stair climbers
- Rowers
Each cardio machine usually allows you to start at minimum intensity or speed. At first, begin with 20 to 30 minutes cardio workouts, just so you can get your body accustomed with your new lifestyle.
If you want an exercise plan you can use the workout plan from DWP Fitness app.
We Mentioned Strength Training. Does That Mean We Have to Use Weights?
First, you should know that we strongly recommend strength trainings for women. And, yes, you would sometimes have to use weights. That story about women getting too big as a result of using weights at the gym, is total BS. I mean, we see all these guys struggling to gain some muscle mass, even though they eat right and train accordingly. There are a lot of studies that cover this subject, and the main reason you don’t have to worry about “getting too muscular” is the fact that women don’t produce enough testosterone in order to gain all that muscle mass.
If you’ve ever seen really big and muscular women, like for example, women bodybuilders, you should know that they only achieved those results by using testosterone enhancing treatments or steroid cycles. Trust us, you’re safe!
If you want to stay informed, don’t forget to check out our other blog articles and our app for a personalized DIET and WORKOUT PLAN.