The 5-Move Workout That’ll Make You the Queen of the Weight Room

Holly Perkins is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, founder of Women’s Strength Nation, and author of Women’s Health’s Lift to Get Lean.

Sure, bodyweight exercises get a lot of glory—and for good reason. Burpees and pushups can help you develop a baseline of strength and function, and they’re easy to perform anytime, anywhere.

But in order to improve your strength beyond that baseline, it’s critical to enter into a progressive resistance program using weight loads above your current ability.

When it comes to increasing your true strength, it’s helpful to isolate and address each large muscle group individually. That way you can put all of your “oomph” into your back, chest, arms, or legs.

If you want to improve your leg strength, you’ve got to focus solely on your legs. If you want to improve your ability to pull, you’ve got to concentrate exclusively on your back. This is precisely how I radically changed my body at the age of 40. And it’s exactly why gyms are filled with the large machines that isolate each muscle group.

But what if you have no clue what you’re doing in the weights room? Well, the five moves below all feature machines that are present in nearly every commercial gym. They’ll help you improve your strength, and inspire change in each muscle group. Ready to get started?

The Workout:
Because this is a strength-based workout, you will be completing “straight sets” with dedicated rest in between each set. You will complete all four sets for each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. Use the first set as a working warmup at a comfortable weight load, then increase the weight by five to 10 pounds for the remaining three sets. Rest for 30 to 60 seconds (but no longer!) in between each set and choose weight loads where the last two reps of every set are very challenging. Complete the number of reps for each exercise as listed below.