Beginners Workout Program

The United States Surgeon General recommends that Americans get at least 60 minutes of daily physical activity, including a combination of cardiovascular activity, weight training and flexibility exercises. The following beginners workout program emphasizes form and safety while ensuring
that users are aware of which muscles are being used.

The first page of each exercise shows proper body position – described with simple directions next to each picture. The second page of the beginners workout program gives background information, including:

Notes the most common uses for the muscles
Notes postural issues on which you should focus
Notes which muscles used during each exercise
Provides a link to a website where you can see an illustration of the muscles

Learn the exercises one at a time, then when you feel confident you are using good form and posture, try to complete several repetitions in a row. Aim for each set to take about 90 seconds. In this amount of time you ought to be able to finish anywhere from 8-10 repetitions. All 12 exercises, done in succession should take approximately 20 minutes.

Workout Exercise #1 – Lateral Spinal Flexion
Workout Exercise #2 – Spinal Rotation
Workout Exercise #3 – Spinal Extension From Prone
Workout Exercise #4 – Spinal Flexion From Supine
Workout Exercise #5 – Rear Stationary Lunge
Workout Exercise #6 – Half Squat
Workout Exercise #7 – Hip Extension
Workout Exercise #8 – Unilateral Balance
Workout Exercise #9 – Shoulder Flexion
Workout Exercise #10 – Standing Push
Workout Exercise #11 – Standing Pull
Workout Exercise #12 – Jumping Jack

Beginners Workout Program: Source

The beginners workout program was created by the Iowa Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Nutrition. Our thanks to them for sharing this excellent beginners workout program. Please note that the primary authors for this workout program was Dr. Diane Bartholomew and Curtis Linhart along with assistance from John Walling of Des Moines and Bev Ahern of Grundy Center.