Beginner Strength Training – Build Bigger Muscles Fast With The Strength And Size Full Body Workout

November 11, 2008
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I will be real here. The beginner strength training workout is not the only routine I’ve trained with. And, this is not the workout I have started training with. Having said that however, this is the workout I currently do and I would recommend to anybody that is a beginner or intermediate, because it produces the fastest progress thus the fastest results. I will write more about what physical goals you need to surpass in order to advance past intermediate status.

Beginner, Intermediate Or Advanced?


This may shock some people who have been training for many years and have achieved a certain degree of success, but you just don’t get to be advanced only because you started training a certain number of years ago. If you have roughly achieved the strength goals that I will list below, you can consider yourself advanced. If not, you are either a beginner, or an intermediate trainee.

Beginner Strength Training Milestones

You can stay on the Strength and Size Full Body workout until you reach these numbers:

  • Barbell Squat – 15 reps with 200lbs/90kg.
  • One legged calf raise – 15 reps with a 30lbs/14kg dumbbell.
  • Military Press – 10 reps with 120lbs/55 kg or with 60lbs/27kg dumbbells
  • Pull-ups and Chin-ups – 10 reps with 25lbs/12kg
  • Dips (video)- 10 reps with 50lbs/24kg
  • Barbell Biceps Curls – 10 reps with 100lbs/45kg or with 50lbs/22kg dumbbells
  • Barbell Deadlift – 15 reps with 200lbs/90kg

Here is the good part though – if you are a beginner or an intermediate, I have good news for you. Following the Strength and Size Full Body program, you will achieve your goals. And fast!

The Schedule

You will be training 3 days per week – Monday-Wednesday-Friday, Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, Saturday-Monday-Wednesday (I personally train on these days) – just pick one schedule according to how busy your life is and how tired you are each day. Ideally you should train on days you feel you have the most energy.

Save Additional Stress For Off Days

If you are on the eat stop eat diet, I highly recommend to do it on days you don’t train with weights. You should strive to make each workout as productive as possible in order to progress the fastest. The same goes if you are trying to lose a bit of fat with jumping rope or turbulence training style workouts.

Do these on off days. The Strength and Size program gives fast results but in order to do that it needs all your energy and your full commitment on each workout, each exercise, each set and each repetition.

Beginner Strength Training – Sets and Reps

  • Barbell Squat – 1 set – 8 to 20 reps. When you can do more than 20 reps, add 10-20lbs/5-10kg
  • One legged calf raise – 1 set – 8 to 20 reps. When you can do more than 20 reps, add a 5 10lb/5kg dumbbell. Next, choose the next heavier dumbbell, etc.
  • Military Press – 2 sets of 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, add more weight to the bar (the smallest possible increment) or go for the next heavier dumbbells.
  • Alternate the Military Press with Chin-ups or Pull-ups – again 2 sets, 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, choose a heavier dumbbell to hold between your feet.
  • Dips – 2 sets of 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, add more weight
  • Alternate the dips with Barbell Curls or Dumbbell Curls – 2 sets of 8-14 reps. When you are able to do 12 reps on the second set, add more weight
  • Barbell Deadlift – 1 set 8 to 15 reps – when you can comfortably do 15 reps (each rep starts on the floor as if it was the first one) add more weight.

Note: you must choose a weight that you can do at least 8 reps for all designated sets. In other words, if on the first set you do 9 reps, but on the second – only 7, then the weight has been too big.

Here Is How the Workout Would Look Like

Barbell Squat – 8-20 reps
Calf raise – 8-20 reps
Dumbbell Shoulder Press or Military Press – 8-14 reps
Chin-ups or Pull-ups – 8-14 reps
Dumbbell Shoulder Press or Military Press – 8-12 reps
Chin ups or Pull-ups – 8-12 reps
Dips – 8-14 reps
Barbell Biceps Curls or Alternating Dumbbell Biceps Curls 8-14 reps
Dips – 8-12 reps
Barbell Biceps Curls or Alternating Dumbbell Biceps Curls 8-12 reps
Barbell Deadlift – 8-15 reps

The Fastest Way to Grow Muscle

To get bigger you have to get stronger. The gird or cross-section area of the muscle corresponds to its strength. That fastest way to get stronger is to progress on each workout. So if you train your shoulders for example with shoulder presses and train 3 times per week, this would give better results than if you just trained them (and progressed) once a week.

beginner

The ultimate goal here is to reach the strength training milestones as fast as possible. Why waste your time in the gym? Give the program a shot if your strength is below the stats listed here. This is the fastest way for beginners to reach decent strength and size levels.

What’s Next?

So once you roughly reach the strength training milestones in this workout, the question is where to go from there? It is now time to start rotating the rep ranges in your workouts every 4 to 8 weeks. So you will do 3-6 reps for a few weeks, then 7-12 reps for a few weeks, then 13-20 reps and then you will start over with 3-5 reps. In this way you will ahieve bothmuscular sie and muscular density and hardness.

One workout that strategically incorporates different rep ranges in this way is Visual Impact Muscle Building. The cool thing about the workout that is in addition to the variation of rep ranges (for muscular size and for muscular hardness and density), it also has a definition phase built in so that if you want to lose fat while preserving your muscle size for a few months, you can do that too.

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