Steve Reeves Workout For Beginners (Full Workout)

There’s no denying the influence Steve Reeves has had on the weightlifting community. Before the days of Arnold, his success as an actor helped to bring bodybuilding into the mainstream.

Today we’ll look at how his views on a beginner workout changed from when he first started compared to what he’d recommend as an older, more experienced lifter.

Steve started training at the age of 16 after being beaten in an arm wrestling competition by a much smaller boy, and it was his boy who introduced Steve to his garage gym and weightlifting.

In the book “Building the Classic Physique,” Reeves has his first workout listed, having 11 different exercises, each done for one set of ten repetitions.

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John Meadows video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quVjBtH-aFU

6 of these exercises he doesn’t repeat in his future recommended workout despite that program having a total of 17 different exercises.

The warm-up for his training session at 16 was dumbbell swings, like his Mr. America program. But in his Dynamic Muscle beginners program, he suggests warming up on a treadmill or bike.

Another exercise he did at 16 that would take some practice is the clean. Back in his day, many lifters would incorporate Olympic lifts into their routine as these were the common weight training movements.

It’s interesting to note that in his first workout, there was no direct tricep or abdominal work.

In his Dynamic Muscle beginners program, he has two exercises for every body part but only one set of each exercise, which makes it easy to split into an A and B workout, having every major muscle group being worked each session and since this cuts the number of exercises in half. I’m doing two sets as it’s quicker to do an extra set than set up for a whole new exercise, getting more done in less time.

He chose 12 to 15 for his rep range; this is higher than his Mr. America program, where he used 8 to 12 repetitions.

Either way, as the lifter gets stronger and can lift more than 15 repetitions on an exercise, he increases the weight and starts working his way back up to 15 again.

The first one I changed was chest flyes; he has these after chest press, which works great, but just doing chest flyes on their own in a training session compared to an incline chest press is going to be suboptimal, so I swapped them.

The next one is pullovers. Steve has them after bent over rows again, a good combination but pullovers on their own? Better off switching them for lat pulldowns or pull-ups if you can do them.

Interestingly, he doesn’t have squats in this program, as he had them in his first workout. Here he opted for leg extensions for quads and leg curls for hamstrings. These would be simpler movements for a beginner; you could swap them out for squats and RDL’s if you wanted.

For the low back, he did seated forward bends with a barbell. The first time I saw this exercise being done was in a John Meadows video, and he used a dumbbell. It’s like a seated good morning, except it takes the hamstrings and glutes out of the movement. If you chose to do Romanian deadlifts instead of hamstrings curls, I don’t think you’d need this exercise.

He has 3 core exercises sit-ups, leg raises, and side bends. I’d change sit-ups to crunches, I don’t mind leg raises; you could start lying on the floor and gradually advance them to an incline and then a captain's chair.

The obliques are worked better with a twisting movement like Russian twists or a cable or band wood chop.