If you want the best muscle building exercises for beginners, you’ve come to the right place. These exercises will help you pack on muscle and get ridiculously strong.
But please, don’t just skip to the end of the article for the list of the 10 best muscle building exercises for beginners!
I want you to understand why these are the best muscle building exercises for beginners and how to determine which ones to include in your workouts.
Along with the 10 best muscle building exercises for beginners, I’m also going to show you exactly what you need to do in order to build muscle and get stronger.
So find a comfortable spot, and get ready to read.
Let’s get jacked!
Don’t make this mistake!
When I first started working out in high school, I used to copy bodybuilding workouts I would find in fitness magazines.
I would sneak into the weight room after school and follow the routine of whatever bodybuilder happened to be featured in the latest issue of “Muscle and Fitness”.
Keep in mind, this was before the days of TikTok and Instagram. I know, I know. I’m aging myself 🙄
Even though I worked hard, and followed the bodybuilding workouts precisely, I didn’t see great results.
Why?
Because the workouts that professional bodybuilders started with are not the same workouts they do now.
And, you know, steroids..
The truth is that the exercises that build muscle for a professional bodybuilder are different from the exercises that build muscle for a beginner.
Compound exercises vs. isolation exercises
When it comes to the best muscle building exercises for beginners, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is doing too many isolation exercises and neglecting compound exercises.
And if you’re wondering what the f**k the difference between compound exercises and isolation exercises is, don’t worry. I’ve got your back (and your biceps, triceps, legs, and all your other muscles as well.. See what I did there? 😉)
A compound exercise is when you use multiple joints and muscle groups to perform an exercise.
Think about a barbell back squat for example. A barbell squat is going to involve your hip, knee and ankle joints. You’re going to be using your quad muscles, glutes, and hamstring muscles.
An isolation exercise uses just one joint and targets a specific muscle group.
The bicep curl is an example of an isolation exercise. When you’re performing a bicep curl, you’re working only the muscles of your biceps.
When you do compound exercises, you’re going to be working a lot of muscles at the same time.
This is going to help you build muscle and get stronger much faster than if you’re trying to build your muscles each with their own exercise.
The list of the best muscle building exercises for beginners is going to mostly be made up of compound exercises, so that you can build muscle as quickly as possible.
Now, I’m not saying that isolation exercises are bad or that you shouldn’t do them at all. I think including a few of them at the end of your workouts is absolutely fine.
I’m just saying that when you’re just starting out, you’ll make much faster progress by focusing on compound movements.
Train movements, not muscles
So now you know you should be mostly doing compound exercises.. But how do you decide which ones you should choose?
The best muscle building exercises for beginners are going to be compound exercises that focus on working movements, rather than working individual muscles.
And I know what you’re thinking. You’re reading this because you want to build muscle.. So shouldn’t you be focusing on working out your muscles?!?
If you just think about trying to work individual muscles, like your biceps or your butt, you’re more likely to end up with an unbalanced physique.
Let’s face it. You’re probably going to end up working out the muscles you like to workout, and neglecting the ones you don’t.
Planning out your workouts is kind of like packing for a vacation.
When you’re packing for vacation, you can’t bring your entire wardrobe along with you. You have to be strategic about what you want to pack because there’s only so much you can fit in your suitcase. If you bring too many socks but not enough underwear, you’re in for a rough trip.
Likewise, you can’t do every single exercise in your workouts every week. There are only so many exercises you can do in your workouts and still be able to recover.
If your entire workout consists of isolation exercises, you’re going to need to do way more exercises to make sure you hit all your muscle groups, and it’s much more likely that you’ll neglect some muscle groups.
When you focus on movements instead of muscles, you WILL be working your individual muscles, without leaving any behind.
What are the basic movement patterns?
The basic movement patterns are the different ways our bodies can move.
When you’re planning out your workouts, you want to include exercises from each of these movement patterns.
These are the 5 main ways our bodies can move:
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- Upper body push: The upper body push movement pattern mainly works your chest, shoulder, and tricep muscles. Examples include the barbell bench press, push-ups and dumbbell shoulder presses.
- Upper body pull: The upper body pull movement pattern mainly works your back and bicep muscles. Some upper body pull exercises are chin-ups, dumbbell rows, and cable rows.
- Squat: The squat movement pattern mainly works your quad and glute muscles. Barbell squats, goblet squats, and leg presses are all examples of the squat movement pattern.
- Bend: The bend or hinge movement pattern mainly works your glutes and hamstring muscles. Some examples are barbell deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts and barbell hip thrusts.
- Lunge: The lunge movement pattern works your glutes, hamstrings, and quads all at once. Since you have to balance on one leg, the lunge movement pattern works a little more of your glute medius and adductor muscles. Lunge exercises include walking lunges, Bulgarian split squats, and reverse lunges.
So you can see that by making sure you’re targeting the basic movement patterns, you’re going to hit all the muscles in your body.
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How to build muscle
Before I give you the list of the best muscle building exercises for beginners, I want to give you a few tips on how to actually build muscle.
You can do all the exercises I give you, and do them with perfect technique, but if you aren’t doing the right things to build muscle you’ll just be spinning your wheels!
Sets and reps to build muscle
When you go to the gym, you want to make sure you’re doing the right amount of sets and reps for your goal.
Let’s quickly define what sets and reps are so we’re on the same page.
A rep is short for repetition, and it is one complete motion of an exercise. So if you’re doing a push-up for example, a repetition is when you lower yourself down and push yourself back up.
Sets are groups of repetitions, broken up by periods of rest.
Let’s say your workout program calls for 3 sets of 10 push-ups. You would do 10 repetitions of push-ups, followed by a period of rest. After resting, you would do another 10 push-ups, followed by another period of rest. Once your rest is up, you would do a final 10 reps of push-ups, for a total of 3 sets of 10 reps of push-ups.
When your goal is to build muscle, you’re going to want to do 6 to 12 reps for most exercises.
How many sets you do is going to depend on how many different exercises you’re doing.
Based on the research, there’s a sweet spot for building muscle between 10-20 sets per muscle group per week (1).
Now, as a beginner, you’re going to be on the lower end of that range. We’re also focusing on compound exercises and training movements instead of muscles, so there’s going to be an overlap on a lot of exercises.
This is another reason I like focusing on compound exercises and training movements instead of individual muscles. You’ll need less overall exercises in your workout program to reach your total sets per week because you’re working more muscle groups with each exercise.
Progressive overload
When your goal is to build muscle and get stronger, you need to be making your workouts more difficult over time.
This is something called progressive overload.
Our bodies don’t like to change much. It’s much easier to stay where you are than to add muscle to your body.
In order to make your body change, you need to give it a good reason.
When you do a challenging workout, you are telling your body that it needs to change something in order to adapt and grow new muscle.
By making your workouts more difficult over time, you’re giving your body a reason to keep changing and build new muscle. It’s much easier to progress compound movements that focus on movements than it is to progress isolation exercises.
As a beginner, your focus should be on improving your technique each time you workout.
Using good technique is going to make sure that you’re using the right muscles to do your exercises and will minimize your chances of getting hurt.
Even if you keep the weight you’re using the same each week but use better technique, you’ll be making the workouts more challenging over time.
Calorie surplus
Most of the time, to build muscle you need to be in a calorie surplus.
This means that you need to eat more calories than you burn each day.
Building muscle is kind of like building a house. To build a house, you need all the right materials and you need workers to actually build the house.
When you’re building muscle, you need to be eating enough protein (which is like the materials for building your house) and you need to be eating enough calories (which are like the workers who will be building your muscle house).
Now, I don’t recommend going off the deep end and completely stuffing your face every day in an effort to build muscle.
You only need a calorie surplus of around 20-40% above your maintenance calories if you’re a beginner.
So if your maintenance calories are 2,000 calories per day, you’d only need to eat between 2,400 and 2,800 calories per day to optimize your muscle growth as a beginner.
You can use my calorie calculator below to find how many calories you need to build muscle.
Cal’s Calorie Calculator
The 10 best muscle building exercises for beginners
Without further ado, here are 10 best muscle building exercises for beginners!
Exercise #1: Barbell bench press
Ah, the barbell bench press, also known as “the king of all upper body exercises”. It’s only fitting to give it the number one spot on this list!
It’s a compound exercise that will work your chest, triceps and front shoulder muscles.
Focus on using the best technique you can, and try to increase the weight you use each workout.
Exercise #2: Dumbbell shoulder press
By using a steeper incline, you’re going to work your shoulder muscles more than with the barbell bench.
Exercise #3 Chin-up
Chin-ups are a fantastic way to add muscle to your back.
If you can’t do a chin-up just yet, I have an entire article on how to get your first one, and then 5 more.
Exercise #4 Dumbbell row
Be sure to watch the entire video on these.. I show you where to place your hand on the dumbbell which makes a big difference!
Exercise #5 Barbell squats
Just like the bench press is the king of the upper body exercises, the barbell squat is the king of the lower body exercises.
You’ll be working pretty much every muscle in your lower body with the barbell squat.
Exercise #6 Hack squats
By using a machine like the hack squat, you’re going to get a lot of stability, which means you can focus on pushing the weight without worrying about trying to stabilize yourself.
A lot of people argue over whether machines are better than free weights.
I think that’s a silly argument. There’s no reason you can’t include both!
Exercise #7 Barbell deadlift
Barbell deadlifts will build pretty much every muscle in your body.
They are also probably the most butchered exercise on the planet, so make sure you watch the entire technique video!
Exercise #8 Dumbbell Romanian deadlift
The main difference between these and barbell deadlifts is that with barbell deadlifts, you’ll be resetting the weight on the ground after each rep.
With Romanian deadlifts, your glutes and hamstrings are under tension the entire time.
Neither exercise is better than the other, they are just different and you can include both in your workouts.
Exercise #9 Dumbbell split squats
This exercise will work a little more of your quad muscles.
To make it more challenging, you can place your front foot on a small box or step.
Exercise #10 Dumbbell reverse lunges
The dumbbell reverse lunge will work a little more of your glutes than the split squat.
Wrapping up
Well there you have it!
Including these 10 muscle building exercises for beginners in your workouts will help you build bigger muscles and get stronger.
Hopefully you found this helpful, and you have an idea of what you need to do to build muscle as a beginner.
If you want me to take all the guesswork out of your workouts and nutrition, and create a plan specifically for you, you can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions leave them below!