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15 Beginner CrossFit Workouts At Home
Wanting to start CrossFit and too intimidated to check out your local box? Yeah, I was like that too. Don’t fret, I’ve devised a list of the best 15 CrossFit workouts that any beginner can do at the comfort of their own home!
By the time you’re done with these workouts, you’ll feel so much more confident and less intimidated. You’ll waltz into that local box of yours with your head held high and “Eye of the Tiger” playing through your head!
What makes these workouts even better is that not a single piece of equipment is needed – no pull up bars, no barbells or dumbbells, no kettlebells, nothing. Just pure CrossFit based workouts using nothing but your own body!
Jump to the workouts!
What Makes These Workouts Perfect for Beginners at Home?
As beginners, your fitness capacity may not be at a level that’s required for typical prescribed WODs. So I’ve specially designed these workouts to cater for the absolute CrossFit virgin couch potato.
The movements are easy to do and don’t require insane ranges of motion. For instance, you will not be doing movements likes pistol squats, handstand push ups, and handstand walks. These are all very complicated and require good technique to execute well, and therefore are not suitable for beginners.
We’ve also excluded running in the workouts simply because of the fact that I’ve designed these workouts to be strictly done at home, in the purest sense.
However, the movements you’ll be doing are included in the list below (in alphabetical order):
- Air squats
- Alternating lunges
- Burpees
- Crunches
- Floor dips
- Heel taps
- Hollow rocks
- Jumping jacks
- Jumping lunges
- Leg raises
- Mountain climbers
- Pike push ups
- Plank
- Push ups
- Reverse crunches
- Sit ups
- Squat jumps
- Tuck jumps
- V-ups
- Vertical jumps
These movements are a lot more achievable for a beginner and does not require much technical know-how to perform.
By the end of these workouts, you’d have built up a respectable level of stamina, endurance, and strength allowing you to transition seamlessly into your local box’s classes.
To progress even further as a beginner CrossFitter, you’ll eventually need to start using actual equipment. Our list of 100 CrossFit workouts for beginners will provide a good introduction into WODs that require barbells, kettlebells, dumbbells, gymnastics rings; basically the whole works.
The “At Home” Aspect
The fact that these WODs will be done at home means that you’ll be very limited in terms of equipment.
These workouts have been designed with the assumption that you have not invested in a pull up bar, gymnastics rings, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, and so on… so why include movements like pull ups or clean and jerks, right??
Good news: You won’t need any piece of equipment whatsoever!
All of these workouts will be doable by any CrossFit beginner at their own home.
Will These Workouts Help Build Muscle?
Only up to a certain point. These workouts are designed for the absolute beginner doing workouts at home and is thinking about getting into the world of CrossFit.
They are not designed for those looking to build muscle. If you are aiming to build muscle, you can try our 8 week gym workout plan for beginners.
Beginners, however, will most likely find that after doing these workouts, their muscles will feel bulgier and bigger.
That’s because they’re experiencing what is commonly referred to as ‘newbie gains‘. This will eventually plateau and some form of resistance training will need to be applied in order to build muscle more effectively.
Resistance training with weights will always trump bodyweight no-equipment workouts when it comes to building muscle.
15 CrossFit At Home Workouts For Beginners
1. Legs All Day
20 Air squats
20 Alternating lunges (10 on either leg)
20 Jumping lunges
15 Squat jumps
Tips:
- Make sure you stretch those quads because they’re going to be on fire by the end of this WOD.
- Try to include some rest in between rounds to prep yourself for the next one. But not too much – you need to keep that heart rate up and the blood flowing.
2. BURRRRP!
Tabata Burpees (8 rounds)
20 seconds of burpees
10 seconds rest
Tips:
- This is an absolute killer. If you’re not on the floor in the fetal position after the workout, then something’s wrong! All kidding aside though, don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this workout.
- Pace yourself.
- Even before the workout begins, make sure you have a set number of reps your want to hit in the 20 second work phase. As someone who has done this workout multiple times, 8+ reps per round is “advanced” level. For a beginner, try 4 or 5 and stick to that number every round. Don’t decrease or increase it. The next time your try this workout, you can then increase to 6 or even 7 reps.
3. Planking Up
5 Rounds For Time:
5 push ups
45-second plank
10 sit ups
10 push ups
60-second plank
15 sit ups
Rest 60 seconds between rounds
Tips:
- Use the planks as supplemental rest time in addition to the rest in between rounds.
- Pace yourself on the push ups. Consider breaking them up into 2 sets of 5s.
4. Lunge, burp, squat!
5 Rounds For Time:
20 Jumping lunges
10 Burpees
10 Air squats
Tips:
- This is another quad burner so make sure you mobilise them as well as your hamstrings and hips.
- The burpees will also be taxing on the chest so ensure you do some chest stretches beforehand.
5. Core Killer
20 minute AMRAP:
5 minutes of leg-raises
5 minutes of sit-ups
5 minutes of reverse crunches
5 minutes of heel taps
Tips:
- Your abs are going to be on fire with this WOD so make sure you control your breathing – inhale on the eccentric phase and exhale on the concentric. E.g with crunches, inhale as you’re on the ground and then exhale when you crunch. This allows for better stabilization and more controlled reps.
- With the sit ups, try not to engage the abs so much on the way down. This will prevent your abs from feeling the burn too early on in the workout.
6. Whole Body Check
5 Rounds For Time:
20 Push ups
20 Sit ups
20 Burpees
20 Air squats
20 Alternating lunges
Tips:
- You whole body will be worked here so ensure you mobilise chest, shoulders, quads, hamstrings, and calves.
- If you’re slowly getting burnt out in the later rounds, break up the movements into sets of 5.
7. Jump Program
4 Rounds:
20 Tuck jumps
20 Jumping jacks
20 Vertical jumps
20 Jumping lunges
1 min rest between rounds
Tips:
- Roll out those quads and calves because they’re the main target muscles in this jump focused WOD.
8. Abs Destroyer
3 Rounds For Time:
20 Heel taps
15 Leg raises
10 Sit ups
15 Mountain climbers
20 Second plank
Tips:
- Your abs will be on fire after this. So make sure you control your breathing throughout the entire workout – don’t hold your breath at any point.
- Use the plank portion as a “resting” point – but don’t be fooled, planks are notorious for being easy to start off with but feel like hell in the later stages.
- With the sit ups, try not to engage the abs so much on the way down. This will prevent your abs from feeling the burn too early on in the workout.
9. Boulder Shoulders
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Pike push ups
Push ups
Burpees
Tips:
- This is another WOD where you will need to ensure you work at a sustainable pace. If you go out too hard too early, your shoulders will burn out and you’ll end up doing single reps for the rest of the workout. Divide the reps in manageable chunks.
10. Burn Baby Burn
10 min AMRAP:
10 Push ups
10 Mountain climbers
10 Squat jumps
Tips:
- As the name suggests, this is going to BURN. So pace yourself, especially on the squat jumps.
- Use the mountain climbers as a chance to “rest”.
- Break up the push ups from the start.
11. Cindy’s Cousin
20 min AMRAP
5 Sit ups
10 Push ups
15 Air squats
Tips:
- This WOD is a variation on of the Cindy WOD with sit ups taking the place of the pull ups. As a result, this workout is still relatively tough so do not underestimate it. 20 mins is a long time and it won’t be long before your pecs are going to start feeling the burn on those push ups. So mobilise your chest as well as your quads.
12. Minute to Win it
6 Rounds or Time:
1 min Floor dips
1 min Squat jumps
1 min Burpees
1 min rest
Tips:
- This is harder than it looks so don’t be fooled. Total WOD time is 24 minutes with 18 of those minutes spent doing work! So this is a long workout.
- Go at a manageable pace and break up the movements with small rests in between. Small means 2-3 seconds, not 10 seconds!
13. Lucky 7
7 Rounds For Time:
7 Pushups
7 Air squats
7 V-ups
30 second Handstand hold
Tips:
- The V-up is probably the most difficult movement in this WOD. Scale to sit ups if needed.
- Make sure you fully extend your arms when in the handstand hold.
- If you cannot do a handstand hold, perform 30 second attempts.
14. Lesley “Hero WOD”
30 min AMRAP:
24 Jumping Lunges
24 Hollow Rocks
24 Air Squats
24 V-Ups
24 Burpees
Tips:
- Stretch EVERYTHING. This is a whole body workout and . Hero WODs are known to be quite tough so be prepared.
- The hollow rocks are going to be very challenging and will burn your abs quite early. So break them up and have little rests in between.
- V-ups are also quite challenging. If you cannot do them, consider scaling them to sit ups or crunches.
15. Heart Rate Racer
15 min EMOM (5 rounds):
Minute 1: 8 Burpees
Minute 2: 20 Air squats
Minute 3: 15 Sit ups
Tips:
- As the name suggests, this one will get your heart rate racing.
- Make sure you control your breathing with every rep and don’t rush. 1 minute is plenty of time to finish the required number of reps per movement.
This is brilliant,I was looking for something simple to loose weight,I will let you know in the Future my result.
Hi Venaia! Thank you for the kind words! I hope this helps and brings you closer to your weight loss goals. Let me know if you have any questions or need any advice.
This is perfect! I tend to over complicate things as I wanted workouts which made me strong in every aspect, strength and cardiovascular. Now with these workouts I think I have good chance of achieving my goal, I let you know my progress after 30 days!
Hi Ryan! Yes, sometimes keeping it simple is the way to go. Hope this helps you closer to your goal, good luck! Looking forward to hearing about your progress.