Two Full-body Workouts Per Week
Doing two full-body resistance-training workouts per week is an effective way to meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended exercise guidelines as well as your fitness and weight-loss goals. In designing a full-body workout, target your hips, legs, back, chest, arms, shoulders and abs. With so many muscles to work, the most efficient way to get a full-body workout is to use compound exercises to work several muscle groups at once.
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Benefits
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Two resistance-training workouts per week deliver health benefits beyond just building stronger muscles. Muscle-strengthening activities also help strengthen your bones and in turn lower the risk of osteoporosis and broken bones. Weight training helps reduce the symptoms of arthritis, back pain and depression. Increasing lean-muscle mass helps burn fat and lowers your risk of developing diabetes.
Sample Workouts
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If you’re a beginner when it comes to resistance training, start by using your own body weight to provide the resistance. An effective body-weight resistance-training workout would include pushups, wall squats or lunges, calf raises, crunches, back extensions and shoulder presses using equally weighted items like two water-filled gallon milk jugs. If you have access to dumbbells and barbells, do bench presses, barbell squats or leg presses, weighted calf raises, reverse dumbbell flys, military presses, crunches and barbell deadlifts.
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Sets, Reps, Weight and Rest
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A single set of each exercise is optimal for beginners, but work your way up to two or three sets of each exercise per workout. Each set should contain eight to 12 repetitions, focusing on perfect technique with each rep. You know you’re using the right weight if the final rep of the set is difficult to complete. Rest for about one-and-a-half minutes between each set.
Considerations
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Your muscles need rest following a full-body workout, so always rest for at least 48 hours between your two weekly workouts. Keep your workout sessions relatively short when starting out -- 20 to 30 minutes is ideal. As your fitness level increases over the next six to eight weeks, slowly increase the duration of each workout to a max of 45 minutes by adding sets and/or reps. Increase the resistance of each exercise every two or three weeks to keep building strength and muscle size.
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References
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