Coach Zoe These types of workouts are the best exercise for female beginners at home to get results and see long term success in their fitness.
The best exercise for female beginners at home for long term results
Whether you have never worked out before or are getting back into your fitness, you want to set yourself up for success. You want to see long term results and keep them. And the best way to do that is to stick with it. People fall off track with their fitness for many reasons. Whether that’s because life got too busy, an injury occured, or they stopped seeing results, the most common underlying theme is lack of motivation. Laying a good foundation of exercise habits results in regular progress. In turn, boosting motivation and long term success.
Corrective and funcitonal exercise is the best exercise to start with for beginners. Functional exercise is used to enhance and use the movement patterns that we do in everday life. However, many of us have built bad habits and created poor movement patterns that resulted in muscular imbalances. Corrective exercise is used to correct those problems so we can exercise funtionally and improve imbalances. That way you can live, move, and exercise feeling your best.
Being a beginner gives you an advantage. The ability to create good habits! Not to say that you may not already have imbalances that exist or even have exercised with poor form. But by starting with corrective and funcitonal exercise, you can set yourself up for less injuries and more progress to stay motivated and advance.
How to start exercising for beginners?
When starting your workouts, you want to be sure that you are using the most proper form. Begin by taking some time to learn the correct mechanics of basic movements and exercises. Exercises like squats, deadlifts, lunges, push ups, presses, and rows.
These make up the 3 most important lower body exercises and 3 upper body exercises that are compound and functional to your everyday life. These exercises will also occur in most, if not all, workouts you do.
I have an Exercise Library that contains instructional videos of the major exercises you will be doing most often and should be looking to master. Take a look and some time to practice!
When choosing workouts, start with those tailored to (or with the ability to be modified for) beginners that focus on technique. Rather than rushing just to get a sweat, or uses more advance movements. Remember, your workouts are about quality over quantity. If you are eager for results, there is no need to rush into any specific formats of exercise. When starting from sedentary, any exercise will shock your body enough to burn calories and cause some change.
The type of workouts that are the best exercise for female beginners will mostly be funcitonal and corrective workouts that stick with a few compound exercises. These types of workouts should focus on improving posture and movement patterns as well as exercise form.
Why corrective and functional workouts are the best exercise for female beginners at home
Improve core strength.
Since corrective exercise focuses on improving posture, your core (a.k.a the spine supporting muscle groups) becomes the focus. Your core muscles make up your back, chest, abdominals, and even the muscles around the hip girdle. Good core strength improves alignment, posture, overall muscular balance.
A strong and supportive core will aide in proper mechanics and movement patterns in our workouts as well as everyday life. Reducing risk of injury and overuse while improving performance. That’s because most exercises require your core to engage or stabilize your spine. Even our most basic exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses, and push ups. These exercise mimic and are used during everyday activites like sitting and standing, picking something off the ground, and reaching overhead. And all of those require you to use your core.
Increase full body fitness.
Corrective and functional exercises are almost always compound (uses multiple muscle groups at a time). Therefore these kinds of workouts will often be full body. Workouts that are full body tend to consist of higher repetition and lower intensity. Because of this, full body workouts are the best exercise for female beginners at home because they help to improve muscular and cardiovascular endurance.
Muscular endurance is the first step to building muscle and improving strength. Cardiovascular exercise burns more calories, strengthens your heart, and improves circulation. The two main aspects of health fitness that are a must for everyone, especially beginners.
Require minimal equipment.
Workouts that use little to no weight are best for beginners. That is because you are still learning your workload capacity (i.e. strength). If you are working beyond your ability, it can be hard to focus on form and proper mechanics. When you minimize the intensity, you can focus on control of your movements and activating your “mind-muscle link.”
Just like when we watch our babies and children learn how to use their bodies to crawl, walk, run, climb, and play. They need to really focus on how to use their muscles and making that connection with their mind and body until those movements become easy and automatic.
Bodyweight workouts are also great for beginners because you are not overloading any specific part of the body. Minimizing fatigue and soreness of one particular area. Sure, you may get sore at first regardless. But it is much easier to stick with your workouts when you know you can go through your day without stiffness and aching and won’t be hindered in your next exercise session. Plus, you will be able to workout more frequently when you don’t need days to recover.
Can be done at home.
Corrective and functional exercise doesn’t require any special equipment that you cannot keep at home. The only equipment you need, if any, are easily stored and take up little room. This can include resistance bands, a PVC piper or broom stick, dumbbells, or a stability ball.
As long as you can honestly assess yourself (a mirror can be so helpful for this!) and focus on the given instruction, these workouts make for the perfect home workout. Working out at home is convenient, comfortable, and empowering. It’s my Ultimate Fitness Hack for Busy Moms. At home, there is no reason to compare yourself or waste time on travel.
How can a woman start working out at home?
Setting a goal, finding resources, and coming up with an action plan must be done in order to get started. When starting any fitness journey, it’s always important to lay the groundwork and set realistic expectations before you begin.
I’ve got you covered! Head over to my effective goal setting post to get started. Afterwards, I suggest that you dedicate a space to your home workouts so you can minimize excuses. That doesn’t mean you need a home gym or a separate room. Just get any equipment you want to incorporate and store it somewhere that is easy to access. Then use the internet to find any resources that will help you get started with your home workouts.
My youtube channel is dedicated to home workouts that require minimal space and equipment, so give it a try! I even have a Functional and Corrective Playlist available! If you want something that is not in video format, I have another option for you. Download my 7-Day Weekly Workout Plan. This plan uses basic compound exercises, can be done at your own pace, and incorporates strength and cardio workouts. This PDF printable is a great workout plan for female beginners at home.
How many days should a beginner start working out?
If you are starting from square one (completely sedentary), begin with 2 to 3 workouts per week for the first 3-4 weeks. However, a workout is different that just physical activity. On your non-workout days, try to get in 10-20 minutes of physical activity. That could be with something as simple as non-vigorous walking or just stretching. If you currently have a sedentary lifestyle, you can incorporate These Stretches And Exercises For Sitting All Day.
Allow your body time to adjust to the workload before increasing frequency. As you progress add in one more day for a few more weeks until you can participate in daily workouts. For example:
- Weeks 1-3: 3 workouts per week
- Weeks 4-6: 4 workouts per week
- Weeks 7-9: 5 workouts per week
- Weeks 10+: 6 workouts per week or daily
What is a good workout schedule for a woman?
A good workout schedule for a woman, is one that provides balance for ample recovery. Alternating between strength and cardio sessions as well as targeted parts of the body provides the best opportunity for progress and reduces risk of burnout. For example:
- Sunday: Upper Body Strength
- Monday: Low Intensity Cardio and Abs
- Tuesday: Lower Body Strength
- Wednesday: Rest or Mobility or Walk
- Thursday: Full Body Strength
- Friday: Full Body HIIT Cardio
- Saturday: Core Strength and Low Intensity Cardio
This is just an example, but you can see how there is a variety of strength training, cardio, full body, target body part, and intensity over the course of the week.
If you begin your fitness journey with corrective and functional exercise and workouts, you will be setting yourself up for long-term fitness results. Plus, you’ll feel better and improve your daily life.
Get started and let’s sweat! Try this full body, bodyweight CORRECTIVE workout.
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