Fitness
Level up your walking routine with this full-body strength training plan
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Coming off a month of fun, Olympic-inspired workouts, we’re going to keep the momentum going with a 31-day walking and full-body strength training challenge.
This plan is designed to provide a balanced approach to exercise, ensuring that all major muscle groups are engaged with basic strength-training exercises that are great for beginners. It’s a fantastic way to boost your fitness level and overall health while building muscle.
The upper-body workouts will focus on building strength in your arms, shoulders, chest and back, while the lower-body exercises will target your legs, glutes and core. By integrating walking into your routine, you will improve cardiovascular health, increase endurance, and enjoy the benefits of low-impact aerobic exercise.
You can also add the strength workouts to any cardio routine you already have in place, so if you’d rather bike, swim, run or take a HIIT class — go for it!
A 31-day walking and strength-training plan for beginners
>>Download a printable calendar here
Each week will feature a mix of targeted strength-training exercises and cardio sessions, helping to create variety in your daily routine. By the end of the month, you’ll not only see physical improvements, but also feel a sense of accomplishment and motivation to continue your fitness journey.
New to Start TODAY? Start by making walking a habit with this 30-day plan.
The benefits of strength training
Many people assume the main reason to incorporate strength training into their routine is to tone the body. While strength training does increase muscle mass that can lead to tighter, toned muscles, it’s far from the only benefit.
Strength-training exercises improve bone density and increase flexibility in the joints. Building strength in your muscles also helps improve balance, speed up the metabolism and burn calories. Muscle mass decreases naturally with age, so as you get older, incorporating strength-training workouts into your regimen becomes even more important. Strength training has also been largely associated with preventing injury.
The health benefits of walking — and why you should mix it up
In addition to strength training, we’ll also continue with our walks to help with cardiovascular health and mobility. This month, I encourage you to up the ante from our typical 20-minute walks and vary your walking times.
Varying the lengths of your walks not only keeps them more interesting and challenging, but also encourages your cardiovascular and muscular system to work in different ways.
Changing it up and keeping your body guessing can help with weight loss (if that’s one of your goals) and improves muscle endurance, stamina and cardiovascular health. Your usual 20 minutes may start to feel easier, and a longer walk may become your new norm, which will burn more calories, speed up your metabolism and improve your circulation.
If walking for 30 or 45 minutes is too much physically, or your schedule doesn’t allow for it, you can break it up throughout the day. Three, ten- or 15-minute bursts is equally as effective as one longer walk. Whether you break it up or do it all in one shot, the point is to increase your time or distance to get in more steps, combat a sedentary lifestyle and speed up your metabolism.
Strength-training routine for beginners
The strength-training plan features five upper-body exercises with dumbbells and five lower-body exercises done using your bodyweight. Perform 10 repetitions of each exercise and then repeat for a total of three rounds. For example, on upper-body days, you’ll do every exercise 10 times, and then once you’ve finished one round, you’ll complete two more rounds.
If you don’t have dumbbells for the upper-body exercises, you can grab water bottles or soup cans. I recommend starting with 3-pound dumbbells, unless you’ve used weights before and feel comfortable with 5- or 7-pound weights. For upper body and core, start with 10 repetitions. Then, to make things more challenging after a couple of weeks, increase to 15 repetitions.
For lower body, I’ve provided modifications for every exercise. If any of the moves bother your knees, stick with the modifications!
Upper body strength workout
Bicep curl
Grab your dumbbells and start with your arms hanging by your sides. Hug your elbows in toward the side of your body, and then curl the weights up toward your shoulders. Slowly lower them back down. Keep pressing the elbows in toward your side, and be careful not to let your arms swing. If your arms are swinging, your weights may be too heavy.
Overhead press
Stand with your feet as wide as the shoulders and hold one dumbbell in each hand. Bring the dumbbells up to a goal post position at shoulder height. Press the weights up toward the ceiling, so that they are slightly in front of your head (just enough so you can see the weights with your eyes without looking up with your neck). Relax the neck and keep your shoulders down away from the ears. Bring the weights back to the goal post position.
Tricep kickbacks
Holding a weight in each hand, hinge forward at the hips with a flat back. Hug your elbows in toward your sides, and kick the weight toward the back of the room by moving the arm below the elbow only. Feel the back of your arm tighten as you press the arm back, and then release it back to the starting position.
Hug a tree
Hold the weights out to your sides at shoulder height, parallel to the floor. Relax the shoulders down, and then pull the arms toward the front of you as if you’re hugging a tree. Keep the elbows level with your arms — don’t let them dip down — and be conscious of the shoulders starting to raise up. If this happens, it means the weight is too heavy or you’re too fatigued, so you can either perform less reps or decrease the weights.
Serve a platter
Start with your arms at your sides. Bend your elbows at a 90-degree angle so that the weights are out in front of you. Reach the arms straight forward, as if you’re serving a platter, and then pull them back in toward you. Keep the palms facing up the entire time.
Lower-body strength workout
Side lunge
Stand with your feet hip-width apart, and then step your right foot a few feet to the right as you bend the right knee. Keep the left leg straight, and sink back into your right glute. Press down through the right heel to come up to the starting position. Repeat 10 times and then switch sides.
Modification: Standing side leg raises
Stand with your feet hip-width apart and step the right foot to the right so that your toe is resting on the ground and your weight is in the left foot. Point the foot and engage the quad. Lift the leg up as high as the hip, and lower it down. Repeat 10 times, and then switch to the left leg.
Stationary lunge
Stand with your feet as wide as your hips and your hands on your hips. Step your left foot back a few feet. This is your starting position. Bend the right knee so that it is over the right ankle, and bend your left knee so that the knee reaches down toward the ground. Look in the mirror and make sure your spine stays straight up and down and that you’re not leaning forward. Press down through the front heel to come up to the starting position. Repeat this 10 times then switch sides.
Modification: Standing leg lifts
Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Point your right foot in front of you and squeeze the quad. Lift the leg up almost as high as your hip, and then lower it down. Repeat 10 times and then switch to the left leg.
Squat
Begin standing with your feet as wide as the shoulders, toes pointing forward. Bend at the hips and knees while keeping your heels and toes on the floor. Slowly sit back into a squat position with your chest up, your shoulders back and abs in. Make sure that your knees are not crossing over your toes, and that you are as close to a 90-degree angle as possible. Straighten your legs by pressing into your heels to stand back up. Squeeze your glutes at the top, tilting your pelvis forward.
Modification: Modified squat
Holding onto a counter, chair or table with one hand for balance, step the feet out as wide as the shoulders. Sit your glutes back and bend your knees to lower into a half squat. Keep the knees over the toes and pull the abs in. Press down through the heels to stand back up.
Calf raises (all levels)
Stand with your feet as wide as your hips. Come up onto the toes to lift the heels off of the ground. Then lower the heels down. Repeat 10 times.
Curtsy lunge
Standing on your feet with your feet as wide as your shoulders, step your right foot back behind your left and to the left of your left foot. Bend both knees as you lower down into a lunge in this curtsy position. Then press down through your left heel to bring your right leg back to center.
Modification: Standing with your feet as wide as your hips, balance on your left foot as you bring the right knee up toward your waist in front of you. Lower the foot down.
Fitness, like anything else, is partial to trends, and at the moment, exercise is portrayed in extremes. “You’ve got to do HIIT training. You’ve got to run marathons. You’ve got to lift heavy.” The actual truth is much less snappy and attention-grabbing: fitness should be balanced and well-rounded. Slow and intentional is better than intense and sloppy.
There’s one functional exercise which is particularly good at challenging us in the ways we often forget, and most of us have never heard of it: the Turkish get-up.
But what is the Turkish get-up, and why is it so good for you?
What is functional movement?
Functional movement is any exercise which mimics and builds on the way we move in everyday life. Rather than aiming for aesthetic results or personal bests, the goal of functional exercise is to feel a little better all the time, in every movement you do, whether that be taking the stairs, lifting heavy boxes, or, if you’re a mum like me, bending down to pick a child up off the floor.
Functional movement incorporates multiple muscle groups, or the entire body, to build strength in a way you’ll actually use, multiple times a day, without even really thinking about it – the best type of exercise. But functional movements aren’t all about building muscle – they also crucially improve coordination, joint stability, shoulder strength, balance, hip mobility, and, perhaps most importantly, core stability and strength.
Over on Strong Like Mum, functional exercise is the name of the game. If you or someone you know is postnatal and ready to start rebuilding core strength, we’ve just released week three of the Strong Like Mum core challenge – all you need is 15 minutes, for a stronger core in just 6 weeks.
Start from week one to start building the vital foundations needed to rehabilitate a strong core. Join the Strong Like Mum core challenge:
What is the Turkish get-up?
See the step-by-step guide below for how to do a Turkish get-up.
The Turkish get-up is an incredibly beneficial, multi-step, multi-joint, full-body exercise targeting every major muscle, which has a simple goal: get from lying down on the floor to standing up, while holding a weight in one hand.
The whole movement is about being balanced, steady, and controlled. It takes an incredible amount of strength to move with intention, rather than trying to go as fast or hard as your body can take. High-impact exercise can be great, but slow and controlled movements can challenge your body in loads of ways, too.
In April of this year, strongman Mike Aidala broke the Guinness World Record for the heaviest Turkish get-up with a whopping 118.6kg
Record breaker
It’s ideal for hitting all the areas we often forget while we’re pushing for a heavier weight or racing to break a personal best. It’s about slow control, brain function, focus, and coordination.
The Turkish get-up is also really easy to replicate if you have children, as it seems more like a fun mobility challenge than an exercise routine. Maybe you could call it a teddy bear get-up: rather than holding a weight, they’ve got to balance their teddy bear in their hand.
How to do a Turkish get-up
Here’s a rundown on how to do a Turkish get-up.
Why is the Turkish get-up so good?
There’s a growing interest in longevity and healthy ageing at the moment. People are starting to think about the long game and what’s going to help create strong foundations for future exercise, in the immediate short-term and into older age.
This is where Strong Like Mum comes in. If you’re postnatal and want to be able to do high-intensity exercise, lift heavy weights, and run marathons, that’s great! But in order to get there, we need to start in the right way. We need to build those strong foundations in order to have longevity with our health. If you want to be able to get the maximum benefit out of this exercise, you’re going to have to do it with the right technique, and that’s where the six-week core program will really help.
For another great full-body workout, check out this video from Strong Like Mum:
If you do this exercise wrong, it can actually cause you all sorts of issues, like back pain or shoulder strain. You have to do it right, and doing it right comes with laying all the foundations that we learn over on Strong Like Mum.
For more evidence-based postnatal recovery advice, pelvic floor education and realistic fitness guidance for women navigating motherhood and midlife, subscribe to Strong Like Mum on YouTube.
Fitness
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Les Mills, the New Zealand Olympian who opened an Auckland gym in 1968 that grew into an international group fitness brand, has died aged 91, his family confirmed.
Mills, a four-time Olympic athlete and former Auckland mayor, and his wife, Colleen, founded the first Les Mills gym on Victoria Street in central Auckland after a sporting career in which he represented New Zealand in shot put and discus.
More than five decades later, Les Mills workouts are used by clubs around the world.
The business, now run by later generations of the Mills family, became internationally known for choreographed group-exercise classes set to music.
Mills’s son, Phillip, joined the business full-time in 1980, and his partner, Jackie, helped develop the music-driven group-fitness model that became central to its global expansion.
Les Mills became an international fitness brand. (Supplied: Les Mills)
Phillip Mills said in a statement that his father had achieved a great deal in his life, but the common thread was that he always wanted to help others.
“Dad was immensely strong, driven, and always cared deeply for the less advantaged,” he said.
“He left a lasting impression on everyone he met, and his spirit lives on in gym workouts around the world, continuing to help people fall in love with fitness.“
Les Mills was born Leslie Roy Mills in Auckland in 1934.
He competed at four Olympic Games from 1960 to 1972 and won five Commonwealth Games medals, including discus gold at the 1966 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Kingston, Jamaica.
Move into politics
He later moved into local politics and served as mayor of Auckland from 1990 to 1998.
Juliet Yates served on Auckland Council during his first term.
She told RNZ he brought others together.
“He was a very, very pleasant person to work with,” she said.
“He was really good at bringing people together and achieving things for the benefit of the city,”
she said.
“At the time, I think the achievements of the council he was mayor of were benefiting the whole of the city.”
He also remained active in sport as a coach, helping guide New Zealand discus thrower Beatrice Faumuina to the world title in 1997 and Commonwealth Games gold in 1998.
Les Mills was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1973 for services to sport and a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2002 for services to local government and sport.
Reuters
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