Beginner Home Build

This is an (almost) bodyweight Build workout for beginners or someone needing a low impact workout to get started. All you will need is two cans! If you would like to increase the difficulty of the exercises you can add weights.

1. SIT TO STAND SQUAT 3 x 10

Start with your feet slightly outside your hip width. Tuck your hips and draw your belly in so that your spine is aligned. Sit back to a chair, keeping your spine neutral. Keep your knees out and lower all the way to the chair. Push back up through your feet, keeping the weight in the mid foot to your heel (not your toe). You should feel this exercise in your quads and glutes. To make it harder, remove the chair or hold a weight close to your chest.

2. HIP THRUST PULSES 3 x 10

Start by leaning against a chair or couch. Bend your knees to 90 degrees and push your heels into the floor, raises your hips up. Hold at the top, using your glutes. Lower and raise about a quarter of the whole rep, pulsing at the top. You want to feel this exercise in your glutes. To make it harder, increase range of motion or add a weight to the hips.

3. SCOOTERS 3 x 10

Holding onto something solid, like a chair or a wall. Place your weight in one foot. Tip over, sending the other leg that isn’t on the floor back, as if pushing along a scooter. You should feel this exercise in your quads and glutes. To make it harder, bend the front knee more into a lunge.

4. BODYWEIGHT HINGES 3 x 10

Start standing in neutral spine with your feet under your hips. Soften your knees and hinge over, keeping back straight until you feel the stretch in your glutes and hamstrings. Push the floor away from your heels, squeezing your glutes at the top. To make this exercise harder you can hold weights in your hands and into a Romanian deadlift.

5. INCLINE PUSHUPS 3 x 10

Lean on a bench or chair. Tuck your hips and engage your core so your back is straight. Lower chest down to the chair, keeping elbows at 45 degrees and shoulders down. Push back up again, using the chest. To make it harder you can complete the exercise on the floor.

6. LYING RETRACTIONS 3 x 10

Lay face down on the floor. Place your hands at your temples, set your shoulders down and pull back, squeezing the muscles of your back. To make it harder you can reach your arms out straight.

7. CAN LATERAL RAISES 3 x 10

Hold a can or weight in each hand. Raise arms out to the side, until horizontal. Lower slowly and repeat, keeping the tension on the shoulders. 

8. PLANK UP DOWNS 3 x 10

Place your forearms on the floor in a plank position on your knees. Press up onto your hands, using your arms, lower back down and press up on the other side.

9. LEG LIFTS 3 x 30 sec

Lay on your back on the floor. Tuck your hips and engage your core. Lift one leg up, using your abs, then lower back down. Switch to the opposite side, keeping hips still. Keep activation in abs the whole time.

10. KNEE PLANK 3 x 30 sec

Lean on your forearms. Tuck your hips and draw belly in. Hold.