So you want to lose weight, get fitter, and gain confidence but don’t know how where to start?

Or maybe you want to start working out at home to reduce your exposure to the COVID-19 virus?

Either way, we’re here to help!

At Sleekgeek we use a simple but highly effective method for designing workouts that can be scaled from absolute beginners to much more advanced trainees.

In this guide, we’ll be focusing on absolute beginners who are wanting to work out from home with minimal equipment.

For those of you who are more advanced, I will also include some guidelines on how to scale the exercises up to be more challenging.

Beginner Home Workout Schedule:

The Sleekgeek Beginner Workout uses a 3-day workout schedule.

You’ll be alternating two different workouts (“Workout A” and “Workout B”) in an “ABA BAB” manner.

The schedule looks like this:

Because of the alternating workouts, Week 3 will then look like Week 1 (ABA) and Week 4 will look like Week 2 (BAB).

The exact days of the week that you do these workouts on doesn’t really matter. You could workout Monday, Wednesday, and Friday like above. Or you could workout Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Or Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

The important thing is that you try to give yourself at least 1 day of rest between each workout to recover.

If you’d like, you could also do light cardio or active recovery like walking, cycling, yoga, etc, on these off days. It’s good to try and stay active every day in some way.

If you are someone who struggles to build a new routine, be sure to schedule your workouts in your diary / calendar ahead of time and pre-commit to doing them rather than deciding on the day if you will or won’t workout.

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Beginner Home Workout Equipment:

The Sleekgeek Beginner Workouts are designed to use as little equipment as possible.

You absolutely do not need to have an expensive gym membership or fancy equipment in order to get a fantastic workout in.

Plus, these home workouts can also be done in a hotel if you’re travelling or outdoors at the park if you can find a jungle gym. This is why resistance bands are a fantastic investment – they’re relatively cheap and very portable.

You’ll need:

• Your bodyweight (yay!).
• A sturdy chair.
• At least 1 resistance band (getting a 13mm and a 22mm is perfect).

If you do not yet have a resistance band we are selling them on our online store with national delivery. Order one here.

These resistance bands are also sometimes called “Power Bands”, “Strong Bands”, or “Pull-Up Bands” depending on who is selling them.

The main thing is you don’t want those thin flimsy “rehab bands” or the super short “loop bands” that you often see Instagram models squatting with.

You want a nice big strong resistance band.

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Beginner Home Workout Exercises:

The Sleekgeek Beginner Workouts are full-body workouts.

This means that you’ll be doing exercises that work both your upper body and lower body during each workout.

Full-body workouts work incredibly well for most goals (whether you want to lose weight, build muscle, get stronger, etc) as well as for most levels of experience (beginners, intermediates, and advanced).

Since this is a home workout program, we’ll keep the exercises to only your bodyweight and a couple of resistance bands.

The workouts look like this:

WORKOUT A:

#1: [Squat] Bodyweight Box Squat
(Alternatives include Bodyweight Squat or Band Squat)

#2: [Horizontal Push] Bodyweight Incline Push-Up
(Alternatives include Bodyweight Push-Up, Band Push-Up, or Band Push-Up With a Slow Eccentric)

#3: [Single-Leg] Bodyweight Reverse Lunge
(Alternatives include Bodyweight Split Squat or Band Squat)

#4: [Horizontal Pull] Band One-Arm Row
(Alternatives include Band Two-Arm Row)

WORKOUT B:

#1: [Hip-Hinge] Band Romanian Deadlift
(Alternatives include Band Deadlift)

#2: [Vertical Pull] Band Two-Arm Pull-Down
(Alternatives Band One-Arm Pull-Down)

#3: [Glute] Bodyweight Glute Bridge
(Alternatives include Shoulder-Elevated Hip Thrust, Single-Leg Glute Bridge, or Band Glute Bridge)

#4: [Vertical Push] Band Two-Arm Overhead Press
(Alternatives include Band One-Arm Overhead Press)

Here’s a recap of the two workouts and a video demonstrating each.

WORKOUT A:

• [Squat] Bodyweight Box Squat
• [Horizontal Push] Bodyweight Incline Push-Up
• [Single-Leg] Bodyweight Reverse Lunge
• [Horizontal Pull] Band One-Arm Row

WORKOUT B:

• [Hip-Hinge] Band Romanian Deadlift
• [Vertical Pull] Band Two-Arm Pull-Down
• [Glute] Bodyweight Glute Bridge
• [Vertical Push] Band Two-Arm Overhead Press

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How To Do The Workouts:

The Sleekgeek Beginner Workouts are designed to be done for:

• 3 sets of each exercise
• 10-12 reps of each exercise
• 30-60 seconds of rest in between each exercise

This is a good starting point.

You can, of course, play around with this:

• Sets: If you’re worried about getting too sore, too tired, or are super short on time then, starting out with 2 sets of each exercise is absolutely fine. If you’re finding the workouts a little bit too easy, then pushing on to 4 sets of each (or some) exercises is also an option.

• Reps: There’s a wide range of acceptable reps that one can perform for each exercise, ranging from as low as 1 or 2 reps to as high as 15, 20, or more. However, due to the limitations with bodyweight and resistance bands, this is not always practical. Aiming for 10-12 reps of each exercise is a good place to start, but it’s OK if you find that you can only do 6-8, or would like to push on to 12-15, for example.

• Rest: The amount of time that you need to rest between each exercise is different for everyone and can also depend on the exercise. You’ll get the most benefit by being well-rested before doing your next exercise so that you can give it your all, but if you’re short on time or finding the workouts a bit too easy then feel free to reduce your rest accordingly.

• Frequency: As explained above, these workouts are designed to be done 3 days a week. But you can also do them only 2 days a week or even 4 days a week if you really want to.

There are 3 different ways that you can do these workouts:

OPTION 1 – REGULAR WORKOUT:

The simplest and most beginner-friendly way to do these workouts is to do each exercise one by one, repeating them three times before moving on to the next exercise.

For example, in Workout A, you’ll:

1. Do [Squat] Bodyweight Box Squats for 8-10 reps.
2. Rest 30-60 seconds.
3. Do [Squat] Bodyweight Box Squats for another 8-10 reps.
4. Rest 30-60 seconds.
5. Do [Squat] Bodyweight Box Squats for a final 8-10 reps.
6. Rest 30-60 seconds.
7. Move on to the next exercise (Bodyweight Incline Push-Ups) and do the same thing.

OPTION 2 – CIRCUIT WORKOUT:

The most fun, challenging, and time-efficient way to do these workouts is by doing it as a circuit. This means doing 1 set of each exercise one after another until you’ve gone through all of the exercises and then repeat them all again for a total of 3 times.

For example, in Workout B, you’ll:

1. Do [Hip-Hinge] Band Romanian Deadlifts for 8-10 reps.
2. Do [Vertical Pull] Band Two-Arm Pull-Downs for 8-10 reps.
3. Do [Glute] Bodyweight Glute Bridges for 8-10 reps.
4. Do [Vertical Push] Band Two-Arm Overhead Presses for 8-10 reps.
5. Rest 30-60 seconds.
6. Repeat the circuit 2 more times.

OPTION 3 – SUPERSET WORKOUT:

A good compromise between the beginner-friendly regular way and the more fun, challenging, and time-efficient circuit way is to do what’s called a superset. This is when you perform two exercises back-to-back 3 times before moving onto the next two exercises.

For example, in Workout A, you’ll:

• Do [Squat] Bodyweight Box Squats for 8-10 reps.
• Do [Horizontal Push] Bodyweight Incline Push-Ups for 8-10 reps.
• Rest 30-60 seconds.
• Repeat the above 2 exercises 2 more times.
• Do [Single-Leg] Bodyweight Reverse Lunges for 8-10 reps (each leg).
• Do [Horizontal Pull] Band One-Arm Rows for 8-10 reps (each arm).
• Rest 30-60 seconds.
• Repeat the above 2 exercises 2 more times.

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How To Make The Exercises Easier or Harder:

You’ll notice that each exercise listed in the workouts above had [something in brackets] before it.

These are used to identify major movement patterns.

These major movement patterns (push, pull, squat, hip-hinge) are generally accepted to cover the most common and functional ways that your body moves to get real-life tasks done on a day-to-day basis.

We’ve also added single-leg and glute-focused movements to the list too.

These are all compound movements that involve multiple joints and large muscle groups to help you effectively and efficiently get a great workout in.

In the download below you’ll find a list of exercises for each major movement pattern, shown from easiest to more difficult – with quick videos to demonstrate each exercise.