The Best Beginner Exercises for Building Muscle for women.

If you’re new to lifting weights, working out just 2-3 times per week is often enough to maximize your rate of muscle growth. You don’t need to do that many different exercises, either. All you need to do is focus on getting stronger at four compound exercises. These exercises are:

The Squat
The deadlift
The push-up
The chin-up

These four exercises work all of the major muscles in your body, they’re great for developing general strength. The problem is, the most popular versions of these lifts—barbell backs squats, conventional barbell deadlifts, push-ups from the floor, and chin-ups from a dead hang—are difficult and require quite a bit of practice.

If you’re a beginner, we recommend starting with these beginner variations:

The goblet squat (will work your biceps, shoulders, quads, obliques, abs, calves, lower back and butt). You can do these with a dumbbell, kettlebell, or weight plate.
The dumbbell sumo deadlift (will work all the muscles in your thighs, your grip (forearms), all the muscles in your back). And it’s the best lift in the world for building a bigger, stronger butt. You can do these with a dumbbell. If you only have a barbell, you can do Romanian deadlifts instead.
The raised push-up (will work your triceps, shoulders, chest, and abs). You can do these against a weight bench or couch.
The dumbbell row (will work most of the muscles in your backs, including your lats, traps, and rear delts). You can do it with a dumbbell, but if you don’t have one, you can do a barbell row instead.

The Workout

The workout is very simple

Goblet squats: 2 sets of 10 repetitions. Goblet squat
The dumbbell sumo deadlift: 2 sets of 10 repetitions. Dumbbell sumo deadlift
The raised push-up: 2 sets of as many reps as you can do (AMRAP).Raised push-ups
The dumbbell row: 2 sets of 10 repetitions. Dumbbell row

When doing the workout, worry less about the number of reps and more about bringing the lift close enough to failure. If you fail at 8 or 15 reps, that’s just as good as failing at 10 reps. Anywhere from 4–40 reps will build muscle. 10 reps is just a default. Rest 1–2 Minutes Between Sets

Start With Two Sets, Then Add More

Start with just a couple sets, then work your way up. We recommend doing two sets of each exercise the first week. Practice your form, find the right weights, take your time.

Do Three Workouts Per Week

Each workout will stimulate muscle growth for the next 2–3 days. After those 2–3 days, your muscles will be (mostly) repaired, and you should be ready for another workout. More importantly, you should be stronger. You should be able to lift more weight or pump out more repetitions than last time. Because each workout stimulates a couple of days of muscle growth, training every second or third day works very well. Here’s a good default schedule, but feel free to adjust it:

Monday: work out
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: work out (even if sore)
Thursday: rest
Friday: work out (even if sore)
Saturday: rest
Sunday: rest (and full recovery)

Progressive Overload

To build muscle, you need to force yourself to get gradually stronger over time. You can do this by lifting more weight (e.g. choosing a dumbbell that’s heavier), squeezing out more repetitions (e.g. doing one extra rep on your second set), or using a deeper range of motion (e.g. switching from push-ups to deficit push-ups). This is called progressive overload.

Make Sure to Eat Enough Calories & Protein!

To build muscle you’ll need to work on your nutrition as well. Combining this workout with enough calories and enough protein is key in order to gain weight and build muscle.

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