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. As always I'm leaving the screenshots
here for you to take and make sure that you can 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 Athleanx.com. Guys, if you found the video helpful
make sure you leave your comments and thumbs–
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
Why were you late, this is a beginner video.
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.
Okay. Guys, if you found the video helpful
and you want to see others in this series, 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, make sure you click subscribe and turn your notifications, so you never miss a
new video when we put one out. What is this?
I'm showing off quads. You
said different muscles.
Guys, I'll see you later.
They look good.