How do I start working out?
On this page
Start smaller than you think, with three 10-minute brisk walks and two short strength sessions in your first week, then add a little each week. Your first hour a week does the most. In 661,137 adults, doing less than the guideline still went with 20% lower risk of death than doing nothing.
Most people start the way they’ve seen it done on TV. They plan an hour a day, six days a week, and start a new diet the same Monday. By the third week they’re sore, behind and bored, and they stop. A plan that feels serious is usually too big to repeat, and in the first month, repeating it is the whole job.
What we’d do
In week one, take three 10-minute brisk walks and do two 12-minute strength circuits at home. In week two, do exactly the same again. In week three, add one thing, and in week four, add 5 minutes to each walk. If you miss a day, make the next one count, and don’t try to make up for it.
Start the way you’d break in new shoes, with short walks first and longer ones once nothing rubs.
Your first four weeks
This is the plan the quiz builds for someone starting from almost nothing with three days a week. It follows the US guideline’s advice that inactive people “start low and go slow”.
| Week | What you do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Day 1, a 10-minute brisk walk and a strength circuit. Day 3, a 10-minute brisk walk. Day 5, a 10-minute brisk walk and a strength circuit |
| 2 | The same again. The habit comes first |
| 3 | Start building toward 150 brisk minutes a week, a little more each week |
| 4 | Add 5 minutes to each walk |
| 5 | Redo the chair stand test from the quiz and check your phone’s step average |
The strength circuit is six moves, 40 seconds each with 20 seconds of rest, twice through, which takes about 12 minutes. Chair squats, counter push-ups, glute bridges, rows under a sturdy table, a carry with two full grocery bags and a one-foot hold at the counter. Stop each move with two or three good reps left. Today’s session plays it for you, with a voice and a timer.
Why start so small?
Because the first hour is where the biggest change is. In the 2015 pooled study of 661,137 adults, people doing less than the US minimum of 150 brisk minutes still had 20% lower risk of death than people doing nothing. Meeting the minimum took it to 31%, and five times the minimum only to 39%. Those are people who chose their exercise, and in their curve, going from nothing to something was the steepest part.
If you’re starting from zero, you’re in good company. About 80% of US adults and teens don’t get enough activity, according to the team that wrote the 2018 guideline.
When will it get easier?
Within a few weeks. In a 2007 study, seven young adults who trained their thighs three times a week were 39% stronger after 35 days. Much of that early gain comes from your nerves learning to drive the muscle harder, since the thigh muscle itself had grown only about 7%. The circuit that felt hard in week one usually feels easier by week four. That’s the point to add weight or a third round.
Who should talk to a doctor first?
Most people can start walking today. The American College of Sports Medicine’s screening looks at how active you are now, whether you have symptoms or known heart, metabolic or kidney disease, and how hard you plan to go. Talk to a doctor before you start if you’ve had chest pain, get dizzy or faint, or get very short of breath with light effort, or if you have a heart condition, kidney disease or diabetes and aren’t active now. The session player asks these questions before it plays anything, and who should check with a doctor first has the rest.
5 sources
- Arem H and others, Leisure time physical activity and mortality: a detailed pooled analysis of the dose-response relationship, JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015europepmc.org
- US Department of Health and Human Services, Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition, executive summary, 2018odphp.health.gov
- Piercy KL and others, The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, JAMA, 2018europepmc.org
- Riebe D and others, Updating ACSM's recommendations for exercise preparticipation health screening, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 2015europepmc.org
- Seynnes OR and others, Early skeletal muscle hypertrophy and architectural changes in response to high-intensity resistance training, Journal of Applied Physiology, 2007europepmc.org
