Weight Training Workout Plan

Hello lifter girls, time to get your groove on. (I’m sorry its difficult to come up with the first line, I make blunders!) So, I’ve decided to share my first ever routine, I do give some routines out to my friends on a regular basis but those are more verbal not actually penned down like this! Honestly I’m a little nervous.

Before I begin the routine, I wanted to share something with you, after the first article I wrote here, one of my college seniors contacted me (one I never met in college) and said she liked it (she’s a regular reader of ) and we got talking and we along with my other college seniors (who I had never met even once after moving here!) went for a brunch and I met 4 amazing ladies (of whom only I knew earlier!), it was great! And it was all thanks to Miss Fit! We had a great brunch and it was great catching up on college stories again. So, I guess life has its own strange ways, you never know where co-incidence will take you! Love this blog all the more now

Sorry, I digress. This post is about a routine that is strictly based on lifting, obviously you always shouldn’t be doing one type of training, so anyone who is interested, do this training for 3 or 5 weeks tops and then switch to more dynamic movements for a while or something else and then come back to it if you really like it. I will follow this up with another weights routine that involves more functional exercises which involve more movements.

Now about the routine, I’m actually more of a barbell girl than a dumbbell one, so I’ll write with respect to barbells, but that doesn’t mean you have to strictly follow this and pick up a barbell too, if you are new, try using dumbbells first and move to the barbell once you are comfortable. For every workout, I’ll address three groups, Advanced, Intermediate and Beginner.

When it comes to weight training, we always keep it simple, no complex jargons, no complex things to do, only basics, once you’ve got your basics right you can do different things, but as Arnav mentioned in his post earlier, the routines should be simple, the weights should increase.

Note: These are my best and favorite exercises but that does not mean other exercises aren’t any good, my trainer said a wonderful thing today- ‘no exercise is bad, it’s just about what you want’. I totally agree, actually I am all about efficiency, as I have a very limited time, and I give priority to exercises that work multiple muscles and my core simultaneously because that is most efficient for me. That’s my idea behind choosing and doing these exercises.

Workout A

Workout B

Workout C

Workout D: :

Once a week its good to hit some HIIT. This is what I used to do: Pick up a barbell weight which is not too heavy for you, in fact pick one on the lighter side. Do the following with it (non stop):

5 Clean and Press

5 Front Squats

5 Bent over Row

Finish this circuit, take a 3-5 minute rest and repeat 3-5 times depending on how you are feeling. Sip some water and get down again:

30 second push ups

30 second squat jumps

30 second kettlebell swings

30 second High knees 30 second side lunges

Take 2-5 minute rest in between and repeat 3-5 times.

If you feel like, add a minute of skipping rope to it (Its an advanced option) If you want you can skip this all and do a HIIT of your own: for example, jog lightly for 2 minutes, run very fast for 1 and take rest or walk slowly for 2-3 minutes and repeat 6-7 times.

Workout E:

Any activity that you like: running, swimming, yoga, aerobics, boxing, spinning, dancing, etc etc. Just about anything, but it should be fun for you.

Now this is how it goes:

Monday: Workout A

Tuesday: Workout E

Wednesday: Workout B

Thursday: Workout D

Friday: Workout C

Saturday: Either Workout E or Walking or Nothing

Sunday: Nothing (you can do light stretching, yoga, walking if you want- but nothing high intensity- I strongly believe that you should give your body at least one day off per week from exercise). I know ho w you hate it but your muscles need plenty of rest to grow, especially if you are working this hard.

You can lift more than 3 days a week, you can just recycle Workout A, B or C any other day also but I think its better to not. Three days a week is pretty good! This is not a strict schedule that you have to follow to the T, but is simply a guideline to help you build your own routines, with this one acting as a base.

Once you get good and strong you can try DROP SETS: After you’ve finished your working sets, take up your warm up weight (should be light) again without any break and hit 25-35 reps with it. It’ll really burn (that’s lactic acid) but it really works well for conditioning and endurance.

Don’t do drop sets on every exercise, listen to your body and do them when you feel the need. As I finished this I realize its already very long, so I am going to write a follow up article with the correct form of these exercises in a second one. So you can take a print out of this one and keep with yourself while you refer to the other one for instructions and form.

NOTE: Do not just read this and go ahead, I strictly urge you to go through the instructions, no matter how long you’ve been doing this, it never hurts anyone to get a refresher. Incorrect form can cause VERY SERIOUS injuries. Not kidding.

NOTE: Though I’ve included optional exercises, doesn’t mean you HAVE TO do them. Feel free to skip if you want to. Don’t over-push yourself. Its better to start with baby steps.

NOTE: I do understand that a lot of us out there have never done a single squat in their lives and you cannot really squat all the way to the parallel. No worries, start by going down as much as you can and progress, also do not touch the weights (I dare you) unless you’ve mastered the body weight one.

Do not be ashamed. Every success story has to start somewhere. There was a time I used to stand by the mirror and do bodyweight squats and in those times, 10 squats for me was an achievement. All of us have to get past that stage. You cannot go from alphabets to essays in a day. You have to learn to make your sentences first. Remember that.

I’ll add the warm up and cool down to the next post also.

About the Author

Shruti graduated as a comp sci engineer last year from IITR with 2 degrees and excess 11 kg on he body, since then its been a year of constant struggle, weight loss, plateaus, reading, learning, training and improvising for her. She took to weights in November last year and haven’t looked back since,

She loves lifting and running. (Squat 60, Deads 60 and Bench 32.5- her shoulders are dead weak OHP-20 [all kgs]). She eats clean (well mostly!) and has not only have lost tonne of weight but has also packed on awesome muscle! When she is not training or watching friends, she reads books exclusively about fitness and nutrition. Still on a journey to be better! Read other articles by the author

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