4 Types of Full Body Workouts for Women
Choosing the best type of workout for your fitness goals can be so frustrating when you have no idea where to start. With the endless amount of information on the internet, how do you really know you’re choosing the right workouts, spending the right amount of time in the gym, or changing it up enough for it to even work? In this post I’ll be discussing some basic full body workout tips for beginners that will help women decide where to start when building a new fitness routine. Keep reading for an in-depth explanation that will help you jumpstart your workout program!
I’ll be discussing:
Traditional Strength Training
Aerobic Exercise
Plyometric Workouts
HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)
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1. Traditional Strength Training
Most women tend to back out when they hear that they actually NEED to do strength training regularly. BUT I promise there is nothing to be afraid of with strength training.
All those women you see that have huge muscles did not get those overnight by adding in a little strength training. Those women supplement their workouts with excessive amounts of protein that the normal person wouldn’t consume and probably spend HOURS each day working out and lifting heavy. This is not the goal for the average woman who is not competing in competitions and is just looking to get a little leaner. Not to mention, those muscles definitely don’t happen by accident.
Strength training is actually one of the best ways for women to burn fat and get lean. So let me explain.
Whenever you lift weights, more specifically heavy weights, you are creating microtears in the muscle fibers. As you supplement with a healthy amount of protein and rest, your body starts working to heal these tears by building the muscle back stronger to prepare for the next time.
As we all know, men have significantly higher levels of testosterone than women. In a simplified explanation, this is actually the hormone that plays a huge role in the growth of tissue, more specifically muscle tissue. Considering women have a lower level of this hormone, it is much more difficult to get huge muscles especially if you aren’t consuming insane amounts of protein and working out like a maniac.
In addition, women tend to have lower levels of estrogen as they age. This hormone helps with maintaining strong bones. So, considering levels decrease with age, the risk of osteoporosis, which is basically weak and brittle bones, increases with age. This is my #1 reason for performing strength training in every single workout. The amount of bone density you have maxes out around age 25 so after that it is a steady decline. Strength training can actually slow this decrease significantly making you much less likely to have brittle bones, fractures, or other injuries as you age. Not to mention, the added strength adds muscle tone creating that lean look we all want and actually burns more calories per day.
So, what is strength training? Basically, anything that causes improvements in strength also known as resistance training. Essentially you are putting a “stress” on the muscle causing it to perform better after recovery.
You can do strength training by using free weights or dumbbells at the gym and other equipment that helps to add weight and resistance. Any weight-bearing exercise will help with bone density. For example, jumping puts stress on the bones in your legs while pushups put stress on the bones in your arms. This is a good thing to prevent injury and make your body stronger to support the active lifestyle you want.
2. Aerobic Exercise
For a lot of people, aerobic exercise or cardio, can be the most dreaded part of a workout. This is mainly because women have been told they must do cardio to be lean and I will say up front that this is NOT true!
I definitely think cardio is important because it is extremely healthy for your heart and your lungs. However, if you absolutely hate it, there are other ways to get your heart rate up without running for miles.
Some examples of traditional cardio include:
Running
Swimming
Walking
Cycling
Jump roping
Rowing
Riding an elliptical
Stair stepping
This is not an exhaustive list though!
If all of these ideas make you want to give up on exercise completely, fear not! There are plenty of ways to incorporate these ideas into your strength training workouts! For example, instead of just doing walking lunges, try staying in the same spot and do jumping lunges. You will be working the same muscles while getting your heart rate up and working your cardiovascular system as well. As much as we all hate burpees, it is a great option for getting the heart rate up while working on pushups and strength in your legs.
I used to absolutely HATE running so I started changing my workouts to incorporate exercises like these and I experienced a whole new freedom from cardio! It’s amazing to finally figure out that you don’t HAVE to do anything you don’t want to do. And believe it or not, I actually enjoy a little running now that I don’t feel forced to…
3. Plyometric Workouts
This is a workout style that I feel like is not talked about nearly enough! Plyometrics are exercises that focus not just on strength or endurance but POWER.
The goal with these exercises is to perform the maximum amount of force in a very short amount of time. So, in other words, doing the same exercises but much quicker.
Plyometrics usually involve lots of jumping. Some examples are jumping lunges, plie squats, box jumps, tuck jumps, clapping pushups, wall throwing, and burpees. There will always be some overlap for certain exercises so don’t let that confuse you that burpees can be considered cardio and plyometrics. Either way it gets your heart rate up and works on power and jumping so ultimately it can be included in both and that’s ok! It’s just added benefit and with fitness that is totally ok!
Another cool thing about plyometrics is that they are really good at creating lean muscle. This is mainly because the added resistance is a little lower due to the fact that it is being performed quicker. Lowering the resistance a little helps to prevent injury and allow you to do it longer.
Take this scenario for example:
Say you want to do lunges. If you were working on strength, you might hold a 20lb dumbbell in each hand while you perform 3 sets of 10 lunges. This would be a pretty tough exercise so if you decided to turn these into jumping lunges, it could be dangerous to perform this exercise with an added weight of 40 lbs. In this case, you would want to lower the weight to maybe 5 lbs in each hand or even no added weight at all to make it a plyometric exercise and perform 3 sets of 20.
This can be done with almost any exercise and is a great way to transition your workouts when you decide to change up your routines depending on what your goal is.
4. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)
This is a great workout type for a more intermediate level. You can get so much bang for your buck with these workouts, especially if you are pressed for time.
As the name implies, these workouts are very high intensity which basically means you get the same effect with a much shorter workout. Unfortunately though, these workouts are so intense that you should only perform them 2 or 3 times at most per week.
So, what are HIIT workouts? All HIIT workouts essentially are based around an interval of performing one strenuous exercise for a short amount of time followed by a less strenuous exercise for a longer amount of time. The amount of time for each one just really depends on what exercises you are wanting to do.
The cool thing about HIIT is that it can be more aerobic, or strength based or even a combination of both. I’ll explain what I mean by this.
For example, a cardio HIIT workout might include a 30 second sprint followed by a minute and a half jog or walk repeated about 10-15 times. The total time for this workout would be about 20-30 minutes.
If you wanted to do a more strength focused HIIT workout, it might include an exercise like 20 jumping lunges followed by 15 pushups. The strenuous exercise would be the jumping lunges to get your heart rate up and then the “rest” would be the pushups to catch your breath a little.
Then there are combinations between the two where you might do a strength exercise like 20 squats followed by a quarter mile jog.
HIIT workouts are great when you want to get stronger and burn fat at the same time because they are super high intensity and I have seen the best results by incorporating these workouts in weekly. Just keep in mind, if you are someone who has high stress levels already, these workouts can really raise your cortisol levels so I would recommend holding off on HIIT until you are in a stress free period.
PLEASE do not forget to drink lots of water and fuel your body enough to support these workouts because you will not see the results you want if you aren’t eating the right foods. If nutrition is an area where you struggle, check out this post on How To Simplify Nutrition In 3 Easy Steps, for more information on this topic.
I spent years watching people create their own workouts wondering how in the world they knew what to do to achieve their goals. Once I finally learned the difference between these workouts and what the goals are behind them, it was a total game changer for my fitness goals. I was able to go from not seeing any results to actually feeling myself get stronger, seeing myself get leaner, and enjoying going to the gym with a purpose.
If these workouts have piqued your interest and you feel like you’re ready to commit to a fitness plan but still don’t know where to start, I urge you to check out my eBook: Sculpting Secrets: Complete Guide to Creating Your Own Fitness Plans with Ease! You can purchase this entire guide for only $159, which is a huge steal because it includes all the info, exercises and step-by-step planning that you need to design and customize your very own workouts. Trust me, you will never need a personal trainer again after reading my eBook. Get $60 off with my coupon code: GOALS