The PERFECT Beginner Workout

What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. Today we continue our perfect workout series

and this one's all about the beginners. I have a perfect full-body workout for you

that's going to take you through step-by-step. I'm going to give you exactly what you have to

do. Not actually just for a couple of weeks, but for three months, I want to make sure

that you get this right. That being said guys, let's start breaking down 10 essential movement

patterns that every beginner must master. Okay, so it s not only important to understand

that there's these 10 movement patterns that you have to master, but within the movement patterns

there's some exercise variation that we're going to build upon. We're going to take them

from level 1, to two, to three and the difference between these levels is either the complexity of

the exercise or the amount of weight that you can use to load on the exercise because it's

going to be important to make sure you're pushing yourself forward in both of those cases.

So, what does it look like? Well, the first movement pattern is something we call the

Horizontal Push. This is where we use the shoulders, the chest and the triceps to do

a movement like, let's say, the push-up at the most basic level. And I like the push-up

as a Level 1 variation because it demands that you build some scapular controls with

your hands placed firmly on the ground. We move from there though to a Dumbbell Bench

Press. We take away the ground as something that can assist us to building that stability and we

now have to have that stability ourselves. The good thing about using dumb bells is

that because they can float freely, if you have any start imbalances between the right and left

sides, you're going to see it here. Because when we move to Level 3, when you perform

the Barbell Bench Press if you have those imbalances there, they can kind of be hidden

because both hands are placed on a fixed bar. We move on to the next movement pattern and this

is the Vertical Push. And here we're talking mostly about the shoulders and the triceps,

overhead pushing activity. We start with a 1-Arm Dumbbell Press, it's easier to move with one

arm at a time because, again, you can look for those imbalances between the right and left side

and there's less core control that's demanded of you by using just one dumbbell at a time.

But when we step it up to Level 2, we now have to push both of them together. Again, additional

weight being moved over your head requires more core stability and control, but we're going to get

to that if we progress the right way. And we move to Level 3 here and that's,

once again, where we incorporate the Barbell Overhead Press. You have to now move your body

around the bar as opposed to the Dumbbells around your body which increases the complexity, but you

can also load this exercise even heavier. We then move to the next patter, the Horizontal

Pull. So, now we're talking about biceps and back, we start with something called the Chest Supported

Row. When we get in this position, we don't have any demands on our low back strength to be able

to do the row, we can focus on our ability to get stronger and develop those pulling muscles.

We can take away that support though and move in Level 2 to a Tripod position. And here you still

have a little bit of support, you're not having to support your entire body and space with your low

back, but you have minimized that level of support and increased the demand in the weight used here

on your pulling muscles. And then of course, we can move freely at Level 3 to the Barbell

Row where now you do have to have that support and strength of the low back to keep your body

in the right posture and position to be able to pull, in this case, heavier weights.

We then move to the fourth position here and it's the Vertical Pull. And we know that the

base level here is we're talking about something like a Pulldown and if you have access to a

Pulldown machine, you can honestly weight this to a degree that's able to be done by

even a very rank beginner with light weights being used. Or, if you don t have access to that,

you could simply use a band over a pullup bar and do a banded version of a Pulldown.

When we take it to the next level, we're obviously being able to get ourselves to be

able to do Pullups. So now we use a band though in an Assisted Pullup situation.

This band is going to unweight your body from anywhere from 50 to up to 80 pounds depending

upon the resistance of the band that you're using. Of course, our goal is to ultimately

get in Level 3 to your ability to do Pullups themselves without any assistance at all.

Which brings us to our movement pattern and that is the Hinge. And it's not about pulling

with your upper body at this point but learning how to pull with your Posterior Chain and hips,

because they're some of the most powerful pullers in the entire body if you learn how

to do it right. So, what we do is we start with something here called a Pullthrough at Level 1

where we're simply focusing on hinging back at the hips and then using powerful hip extension to

drive yourself back to a vertical position. And we take it to Level 2 here with an RDL,

not having to take if fully off the ground as you will in a Deadlift, but simply learning how to use

those hips in an abbreviated range of motion to get through that powerful hip extension. Of

course, as I mentioned all ready, Level 3 takes it to the floor to one of the best exercises we

can do and it's the Deadlift, the gold standard of Posterior Chain strength and development.

Which brings us to the next movement pattern and it's the squat. Here guys, we're talking

about your ability to move your body up and down in space. And of course we're going to start with

a variation of a squat, it's the Dumbbell Drop Squat. The thing I like about this more than any

other, is that it will actually teach any beginner the exact place their body should be in space when

they perform the squat because the dumbbell will drop right down through the center of gravity

and take your body into the right position. But we simply can't load that heavy enough to

progress forever. So, we have to now learn how to bring that dumbbell up in Level 2 to a Goblet

position. It's a bit more challenging, but you have to be able to control that up there as well.

Which is a perfect transition to Level 3 and it's the classic Back Squat. And here,

of course, we're going to be able to use the most amount of weight while still staying true

to the mechanics we use on perfecting the squat with the lighter weights.

Now the seventh and eighth movement patterns are actually related. They're a variation on

the Lunge. And as an Athletic Strength Coach guys, I can tell you right now, the Lunge is one of the

most overlooked but beneficial movement patterns that you need to master. We start with a Static

variation, we're just going to move our body up and down in space, similar to a squat, but with

one leg out in front of the other. And we start with a simple body weight Split Squat. Unweighted,

remember the complexity or the weighting of the exercise determines which level we're at.

To take it to Level 2, we actually now add weights in the same Dumbbell Split Squat position,

working each side obviously, but going straight up and down and building the strength in our Quads.

And then we take it one step further, to one of my favorite exercises of all time,

it's the Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat. Again, working one side, but certainly we

can increase the load that we use here and the challenge on the front leg as well.

And then we want to add some movement to it and that's where the Dynamic Lunge variation comes in.

At Level 1, you're looking at, again, a Biweight situation when performing a Reverse Lunge. I like

the Reverse Lunge because it's more forgiving on the knees if you have any current knee issues.

We then take it to Level 2 where we add a single Dumbbell to the situation here and we do a

Single Sided or a Suitcase Reverse Lunge. This is good because it's going to demand

increased stability of your hips in the frontal plane while you still perform that

Saddle Plane motion. Of course, we can add one more Dumbbell to the equation in Level 3

to perform the heaviest variation and it's simple the Dumbbell Reverse Lunge.

We move on to the ninth movement pattern here guys and it's a Core Flexion move.

Realizing that the flexion of the spine and the rotation of the pelvis are crucial to learning

how to contract your abs properly. We're going to start with something very simple in Level

1 with a Rollup. This is a Pilates movement that teaches you not only how to get up off the ground,

but to control that segment by segment as you lower yourself back down to the ground.

Which brings us to Level 2 where we now can perform something called the Jackknife. And

with the legs now kept off the ground, we have some additional weight challenge because the legs

themselves are going to provide that. At Level 3, we have something even more difficult which is the

Hanging Knee Raise. Which now demands that your body can be controlled while hanging from a bar,

we're trying to curl the pelvis and not just simply use the Hip Flexors

and lift the knees up. Then finally we have the Carry,

which is another one of those overlooked movement patterns, but no less important. Guys, you have to

learn how to build your grip and hand strength and be able to dynamically move it in space.

We start with a Suitcase Carry at Level 1 where we have a single Dumbbell at one side,

of course you're going to be working both sides. We move to a Farmer's Carry where we have

a Dumbbell in each hand now which is going to obviously increase the amount of load that you're

carrying around. And then we move to the third and most challenging of these and that is the Overhead

Carry. Once you get those arms up overhead, like I alluded to back with Press, there's a

lot more core demands placed on your body. How do we work our ways through these levels

and movement patterns so that you have the exact plan that you need to follow?

Well, we start with our first month of training here and it's divided into three workouts: An A,

B and C. The A and B workouts are your total body workouts and are performed in

alternating fashion on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So, you're going week one, A, B and A

and in week two B, A and B and you'll repeat that through weeks three and four. The C workout will

fall in the days in between on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the entire month.

So now with those 10 movement patterns, how do we split them up over the course of A, B and C. Well

we start with A and in A here we start with the Squat movement pattern, followed by the Vertical

Push, the Horizontal Pull and then the Lunge, in this case the Static Lunge variation.

In the B workout, we have the Hinge, the Lunge, this time done Dynamically, the

Horizontal Push and then the Vertical Pull. In the C workout, we actually pair together those

last two that I mentioned, the Core Flexion pattern and the Carry movement pattern.

What does that mean now for Level 1 specifically, what are you going to actually follow? Well,

we have those movement patterns again broken down into those three workouts and the exercises that

we drop in here are those Level 1 exercises. Each of these exercises is going to be performed for

three sets to 12-15 repetitions to Form Failure. Or, to Form Failure alone on the body weight only

exercises. Now the goal here guys, is to build up your ability to perform and master these

movements, it's not about loading the weight yet that's why the rep range is higher.

And you might say to yourself, "But I already do Bench Press" we're taking a step back here guys,

we're only talking about six workouts over the course of this month. I want to ensure that you

learn how to build that foundation once again from the ground up to master these movements to set

you up for nothing but success down the line. So, each of the workouts shown here can do exactly

that for you and prepare you for the next month. Which brings us into month two. In month two,

now we increase the Level as well to the Level 2 exercises. The structure is going to stay the

same. We still have the same grouping of the movement patterns, except this time with the

change in exercises we have new workouts. So, now we have D, E and F, with D and E being those total

body workouts done in alternating fashion on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And then we have

those core and carry workouts done on Tuesdays and Thursdays. With the Level 2 exercises now in

place here guys, you can see as I drop them in the goal has changed a little bit transitioning away

from just building that foundation to now actually trying to build strength upon that foundation. And

the reps and sets will change as well. The reps are going to drop down to the eight to 12 range,

picking a weight that you fail within that rep range but still can complete every single

repetition you do in good form. Also giving you the option of adding an additional set here

to build upon that volume as you continue to build your experience in these movement patterns.

Which then sets us up for the success as I said, at Level 3. So, now in month three guys,

you actually can do this for longer than a month. Talk about a video that keeps on giving here guys,

I wanted to make sure that our beginners out there had something to follow where they could make the

best gains and experience the most success possible. We built that foundation up and

now we're going to break it down again, one more time, with the H, G and I workouts, still broken

down with the same grouping of movement patterns, but now we introduce those Level 3 exercises.

And what you're left with in these Level 3 exercises are the traditional Barbell exercises

that you can perform for strength in three sets of five or three by eight fashion. The

idea being to build that foundation of strength now on that really stable foundation that you've

taken the time to rebuild from the ground up. As you perform these exercise guys, if you could do

the three sets of five, you want to make sure that you continue to add weight, progressively

overload these movements. You would do that by adding five pounds to each workout on each lift

if you are able to successfully achieve the three sets of five in the previous workout.

If for some reason you didn't get all three sets of five, then you would repeat the

weight that you used the previous workout. If once again you failed, you maybe overshot the

weight that you chose, you drop that down by five pounds and repeat until you can master

all three sets of five. And traditionally the weight you're going to use here guys to start,

you're going to pick a weight that you know you can perform the five reps for but is still

going to challenge you. You're always going to be able to adapt them as we go based upon

the success for failure I just mentioned. And with that guys, you've got a step-by-step

game plan.

follow this plan step-by-step. And where would you go from here? It really is up to

you guys. If you want to continue to build out that strength, you can certainly stick

in that third phase here and in that Level 3 and continue to add weight and do that.

If you want to shift your goals and you want to just focus on building muscle, whatever it is

guys, I've actually got step-by-step plans that include nutritional game plans as well all over

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Why were you late, this is a beginner

I'm not a beginner anymore. Oh, you're not?

No. Take a look as these muscles? Why do you always show your biceps when

we're talking about beginner stuff? Because they look good.

make sure you leave thumbs up below. Let me know what I can cover, and I'll do my

best to do that for you. And if you haven't already done so,

Guys, I'll see you later. They look good.