Workouts for women: the exercises that matter, by body part

Most workouts for women on the internet are the same workout with a different stock photo: tiny dumbbells, sets of thirty, a promise about "toning", and a suspicious amount of inner-thigh work. It's just a weaker version of what actually works, which is what works for anyone: a handful of big movement patterns, loaded properly, done consistently, getting a little heavier over time.

This is the hub for exercises by body part: what to do for your back, legs, core, glutes and upper body, how to build those into sessions, how to progress, and how it all fits around running. Write the plan yourself or let an AI coach that plans your running and lifting together set it up. The exercises are the same either way.

Workouts for women: what actually changes (almost nothing)

The exercises in a good women's program are the exercises in a good program. Squats, hinges, rows, presses, carries. There is no secret female version of a deadlift.

What does change is the person. Your goal, how many days you can train, what equipment you have, how long you've been lifting, and whether you're also training for a 10K or a Hyrox. That's what a women's lifting and running schedule should be built around. Not a gender filter on an exercise library.

The research backs this up. A 2020 meta-analysis comparing men and women on the same resistance training programs found no significant difference in muscle growth or lower-body strength gains between the sexes, and a larger relative gain in upper-body strength for women. The studies were mostly short and in young to middle-aged adults, so it's not the final word. It is a pretty clear sign that women don't need a different program, and that "go light, you're a woman" is folklore. The long version, including how to start and how heavy to go, is in our guide to strength training for women.

Two myths worth dropping

• ›"Toning." Muscles get stronger and bigger, or they don't. How visible they are depends on body fat, and training one area doesn't burn fat from that area. A six-week trial of abdominal exercise found ab training alone didn't reduce abdominal fat or waist circumference, though it did improve muscular endurance. There is no toning zone. There's training.
• ›"Lifting heavy makes women bulky." Building muscle is slow for everyone. Nobody wakes up accidentally huge from three sets of goblet squats twice a week. Heavy, in coaching terms, just means a weight that's hard for five to ten reps.

The five patterns behind every good workout

Before body parts, think in movements. Almost every useful exercise belongs to one of five patterns, and a week that covers all five covers your whole body.

Good back workouts for women

The back is the area most beginners skip, mostly because you can't see it in the mirror. It's also the area that holds you upright under a deadlift, keeps a squat from folding forward, and does most of the work every time you pull, lift or carry something.

The core back exercises:

• ›One-arm dumbbell row. One hand and knee on a bench, dumbbell in the other hand, back flat. Pull with your elbow, not your hand: drive it back past your ribs, pause, lower all the way. 3 x 8–12 per arm.
• ›Lat pulldown or pull-up progressions. Start from a dead hang or full stretch, set the shoulders down first, then drive your elbows toward your back pockets. If you can't do a pull-up yet, negatives and band-assisted reps get you there.
• ›Romanian deadlift. Soft knees, push your hips back like you're closing a car door with your butt, bar or dumbbells close to your legs, lower only as far as your hamstrings allow with a flat back. It's a hamstring exercise that your lower back holds steady.
• ›Face pull or band pull-apart. Light, high reps for the upper back and rear shoulders. A good finisher.

Back workouts with dumbbells

If dumbbells are your whole gym, you still have a full back workout: one-arm rows, chest-supported rows on an incline bench, dumbbell Romanian deadlifts and rear-delt flyes. That covers both the upper and lower back. The full list of moves, with and without equipment, is in back exercises for women.

Legs: squat, hinge, single leg

A complete leg workout needs one squat, one hinge and one single-leg exercise. Everything else is detail.

• ›Goblet squat. Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell tight to your chest, elbows down. Feet a little wider than hip-width, toes slightly out. Sit down between your heels with your knees tracking over your toes, go as deep as you can with heels down and a flat back, then stand up. The front load keeps you upright almost automatically.
• ›Deadlift. Bar over midfoot, shins to the bar, brace, push the floor away and drag the bar up your legs. A trap bar or kettlebell version is a perfectly good main lift for most people, forever.
• ›Bulgarian split squat. Back foot laces-down on a knee-height bench, front foot far enough forward that the heel stays planted. Drop straight down like an elevator, then drive up through the front foot. The back leg is a kickstand.

Runners in particular get a lot from single-leg work, since running is a single-leg sport. The full lower-body session, with sets, reps and progressions, is the leg workout for women.

Stomach workouts for women: train the core, skip the myths

Most stomach workouts for women are built around crunches and a promise about belly fat. The promise doesn't hold up (see the abdominal exercise trial above), and crunches are only one of the jobs your core does.

The core's main job in lifting and running is to stop unwanted movement: keep your spine from arching under a press, from twisting when you carry something on one side, and from folding when you deadlift. Train those jobs:

• ›Dead bug for resisting arching.
• ›Side plank and suitcase carry for resisting side-bending.
• ›Pallof press for resisting rotation.
• ›Hanging knee raise or cable crunch for the bending part, if you want it.

Ten minutes, two or three times a week, after a lift or an easy run, is plenty. The full routine is the ab workout for women.

Glutes: hip extension, done heavy

Your glutes already work hard in squats, deadlifts and split squats. A glute-focused session adds exercises where hip extension is the main event, like the hip thrust.

Hip thrust: upper back on a bench, feet flat, barbell or dumbbell across your hips. Tuck your chin, brace, and drive your hips up until your thighs are level with your torso. Squeeze, pause, lower under control.

Is the hip thrust better than the squat for glutes? Less than gym lore suggests. In a nine-week trial comparing hip thrust and back squat training, both produced similar glute growth, while the squat group grew more quadriceps and adductor muscle. Each group got stronger at the lift it trained. Both are good. The squat does more jobs.

The full session, from warm-up to finisher, is the best glute workout for women.

Upper body: push, pull, arms

Upper-body strength is where the research above found women's relative gains were largest, and it's the part of most women's programs that gets the least attention. Fix that with two patterns.

• ›Push: push-ups (incline until flat ones are solid), dumbbell bench press, dumbbell overhead press. Shoulder blades back and down before you press.
• ›Pull: everything from the back section above.

A pair of dumbbells covers most of it, and an upper body dumbbell workout for women can be as simple as a press, a row and an overhead press, done well.

Chest training is the most skipped part of a women's program, usually because of a vague idea that it's a men's thing. A chest workout for women is just pressing, and pressing strength is useful every time you push yourself off the floor.

Arms get trained by all that pressing and pulling. Direct work like tricep exercises for women and bicep workouts for women makes a fine finisher, not the main event.

Good pre workouts for females: what to do before you lift

"Pre-workout" means two things: what you do before training, and the powder in the tub. The first matters more.

The warm-up

Five to ten minutes of easy cardio, then a few lighter ramp-up sets of your first exercise. For example, if today's goblet squat is 3 x 8 with a 16 kg bell, do a set of eight with bodyweight and a set of five with an 8 kg bell first.

The supplement

Most of what a pre-workout supplement does comes from caffeine. The International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand on caffeine reports that caffeine improves performance in many but not all studies, usually at 3–6 mg per kg of body mass, that very high doses mostly add side effects, and that pre-workout supplements containing caffeine have been shown to improve performance. A product labeled "for women" is still mostly caffeine plus other ingredients, so check the label for the caffeine per serving, which varies a lot between products. A cup of coffee does a similar job. If you're pregnant, sensitive to caffeine, or on medication, ask your doctor before using one.

Sample workouts for women: two sessions or three

These are coaching practice, not law. RPE 8 means you could have done about two more reps.

Session A: lower

Session B: upper

Session C: hinge and glutes (if you lift three days)

How to progress

Use double progression. Pick a rep range, say 8–10. When you hit the top of the range on every set with clean form, add the smallest weight jump available and drop back to the bottom of the range. Write it down, or you'll never know what "last time" was.

When the heaviest dumbbell you own stops being hard, slow the lowering down, add a pause, or move to a harder variation (goblet squat to Bulgarian split squat, incline push-up to floor push-up). Most plans take a lighter week every three to five weeks.

How workouts for women fit a running week

If you also run, the rules are the same as for anyone running and lifting: keep the hard things apart and let the easy things fill the gaps.

• ›Heavy legs on an easy run day, never the day before intervals or the long run.
• ›Upper days go anywhere. They don't share much with your legs.
• ›Same day? Separate them. An updated meta-analysis on concurrent training found running and lifting together didn't compromise maximal strength or muscle growth, but explosive strength gains were blunted more when both were done in the same session than when separated by at least three hours.
• ›Lift heavy enough to matter. A 2024 meta-analysis on runners found high-load strength training (at least 80% of max) produced small improvements in running economy, while submaximal loads did not show the same effect.

A running-priority week with two lifting sessions:

A lifting-priority week runs three sessions (A on Monday, B on Wednesday, C on Friday) with easy runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

How exrsz handles it

exrsz builds a periodized plan from your goal, schedule, level and equipment, so a home setup with two dumbbells gets exercises you can actually do. It balances running and lifting in one plan, adapts the loads each week based on how you trained, and reshuffles sessions you miss.

FAQ

What are the best workouts for women who are beginners?

A goblet squat, a Romanian deadlift, a row, a push-up or press, and a carry, done twice a week for three sets of 8–10 reps. Add weight when every set hits the top of the rep range with good form.

Should women lift heavy?

Yes, in the coaching sense: a weight that's hard for five to ten reps. A 2020 meta-analysis found women and men on the same programs gained muscle and lower-body strength at similar rates.

Do stomach workouts for women burn belly fat?

No. A six-week trial found ab exercises alone didn't reduce abdominal fat, though they improved muscular endurance. Train your core for strength and stability.

What are good pre workouts for females?

A five-to-ten-minute warm-up plus ramp-up sets matters most. If you use a supplement, caffeine is the main active ingredient; the ISSN position stand reports performance benefits at 3–6 mg per kg of body mass.

How many days a week should women lift?

Two sessions a week is enough to make real progress, and three works well if lifting is your priority. Runners usually keep it to two.