This is a beginner-friendly 6-week MetCon program designed to build strength and conditioning. You don’t need any experience, just kettlebells, a barbell with weight plates, and dumbbells.
- Level: Beginner
- Duration: 6 weeks
- Frequency: 3 days per week
It sticks to the spirit of metabolic conditioning and functional fitness: functional movements, varied workouts, conditioning, strength, and skill, but without any gymnastics that require high-level skills or advanced barbell work.
Go directly to the program in StrengthLog.
Why MetCon Training?
You’ve probably seen the videos of people throwing barbells around, climbing ropes, and collapsing in sweat.
It looks intense, and it looks intimidating. And it looks like fun!
It’s all three, and more.
Is MetCon training the ultimate way to max strength and muscle growth?
No, it is not. But you will get a lot (not a little – a lot) of everything.
Strength. Movement skills. Speed. Balance. Confidence. And you’ll build muscle, too.
But more than that, you’ll realize what your body can do.
If you walk into a box (that’s what the aficionados call this kind of gym), you’re going to be surrounded by people who are all working hard.
Some are beginners. Some have been training for years and years.
But everyone understands what training hard for your goals means.
And that’s perhaps the best thing of all: community. If you want it, that is. Training solo is legit, and MetCon training works either way.
So, are you ready for something that challenges you and supports you at the same time? And reminds you that progress doesn’t mean starting out perfect.
Sure you do. That’s why you’re here.
Beginner MetCon Program Weekly Structure
You train 3 days per week, preferably with at least one rest day between sessions. For example:
- Monday
- Wednesday
- Friday
Each workout takes 45–60 minutes at the most: short but effective. They include:
- Warm-Up: 8–10 minutes
- Skill or Strength Practice: 15–20 minutes
- Workout of the Day: 8–15 minutes
Terminology Guide
Note on “sets” and “reps”: If you’re new to strength training, you might not know what these things are.
- A rep is one full completion of an exercise, like one squat or one press. It’s the single movement from the starting point, through the full motion, and back to the start again.
- A set is a group of those reps done back-to-back before you take a breather. If you do 10 squats in a row and then rest, you just did one set of 10 reps.
Other Useful Terms
- Round: A sequence of exercises done with little to no rest between them.
- WOD: Workout of the Day
- AMRAP: As Many Rounds As Possible in a given timeframe. In a 10-minute AMRAP, you do as many rounds of the listed exercises as you can. Can also mean As Many Reps As Possible, but in this program, we’re talking rounds.
- EMOM: Every Minute on the Minute – you start a round of exercises at the beginning of each minute. When you finish the round, you rest until the next minute starts.
Example Week
Below is the first week of the Beginner MetCon Program in detail.
Future weeks gradually ramp up the volume and introduce other exercises in a progressive way.
The program in its entirety is available in the StrengthLog workout tracker app. It’s the best way to run it, and both the app and the program are free.
When you follow this program in the StrengthLog app, it keeps track of everything: weights, sets, repetitions – the whole nine yards.
Workout 1
Warm-Up
- 2 rounds: 10 air squats, 10 arm circles, 10 glute bridges, 20-second plank
Skill/Strength
- Goblet squat: 3 sets of 8 reps
WOD (8-Minute AMRAP or 6 Rounds)
- 8 air squats
- 8 ring rows
- 8 sit-ups
Workout 2
Warm-Up
- 2 rounds: 10 good mornings (bodyweight), 10 incline push-ups, 10 lunges, 20 dead bugs
Skill/Strength
- Kettlebell deadlift: 3 sets of 6 reps
WOD (10-Minute AMRAP or 6 Rounds)
- 10 kettlebell deadlifts
- 8 incline push-ups (regular push-ups if you can)
- 100-meter (~110 yard) jog
Workout 3
Warm-Up
- 2 rounds: 10 step-ups, 10 band pull-aparts, 10 air squats
Skill/Strength
- Dumbbell shoulder press: 3 sets of 8 reps
WOD (3 Rounds, Not for Time)
- 12 step-ups
- 10 dumbbell shoulder presses
- 12 sit-ups
- 1½ minutes brisk walk
Progression Rules
Increase one thing at a time: weight, reps, rounds, or speed.
For strength exercises (like shoulder presses and goblet squats), add a little weight when you can do every repetition with good form:
- Increase upper-body lifts by 2.5–5%
- Increase lower-body lifts by 5–10%
OR:
- Add 1 rep per set before increasing weight.
For conditioning exercises (in the WODs), try to move more smoothly before trying to move faster.
If you can’t maintain good form, rest more between exercises or rounds. Nothing wrong with that when you’re a beginner.
How Hard Should This Program Feel?
For the first 6 weeks, your goal isn’t to destroy yourself. The Beginner MetCon Program starts easy, as you saw in the sample workout week above (if you think it looks too easy, don’t worry – it gets more challenging).
Your goal at this point is to learn movement and build a neat habit of training. You want to end each workout feeling like you’ve done something, but you could have done a little more.
Use this effort guide:
- Weeks 1–2: Easy to moderate, around 5–6/10 effort
- Weeks 3–4: Moderate, around 6–7/10 effort
- Weeks 5–6: Moderately hard, around 7–8/10 effort
Use light weights when you start the program.
Scale anything, anytime. A modified rep range or easier variation that you can complete with proper form beats any “as prescribed” program, including this one, done with bad form.
Make sure you learn good technique before you try to lift as heavy as you can or to go as fast as possible, like you see competitive functional fitness athletes do.
You’re not one yet – just on the fast track.
After the 6 Weeks
After completing this program, you should be ready to repeat it with heavier weights and faster movements or to join a beginner-friendly MetCon class.
A good next step would be to repeat weeks 5 and 6 with harder scaling: start at “Moderately hard, 7–8/10 effort” and build to “Very hard, 9/10 effort” toward the end.
Follow the Beginner MetCon Program in StrengthLog
This beginner MetCon routine is one of the many free programs in our workout log app, StrengthLog.
The app makes it super easy to keep track of your weights and reps and ensures you’re on the right path.
It remembers what weights you used in your last session, and automatically loads them into your next one. And trying to improve on your last workout is the key to improving and getting stronger over time.
StrengthLog is free to use, and so is this program.
Track Your Training. See Real Progress.
Log your workouts in one place and watch your numbers climb, week after week.
- Free to get started
- Fast workout logging
- Cardio and strength training
- Free weights and machines
- Functional fitness
- Beginner-friendly training programs and workouts for every fitness goal
Download StrengthLog free:
Final Rep
That’s it, you’ve reached the end of this article. Now the fun part – the actual training – is about to start.
After 6 weeks, you’ll be a little stronger and a little more capable than you were yesterday. And this is just the beginning.
Thanks for reading, and good luck with your training.
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Last reviewed: 2026-06-30
