Total Body opens with a Build day, and Build days are strength days done one exercise at a time. There are five movements on the card - 14 reverse lunges, 14 split lunges, 14 side-to-side lunges, 24 shoulder taps and 24 plank leg raises - and each one is done for 5 sets with 30 seconds of rest between sets before you take 60 seconds and move on to the next. Rep counts are totals: 14 lunges means 7 per leg, 24 shoulder taps means 12 per hand. Nothing here is complicated, and it is not supposed to be; the first Build day is a tour of the movements the strength half of the program is made of.
The three lunges are three different questions asked of the same muscles. Reverse lunges step back and drop the rear knee toward the floor, loading the front leg's quad and glute through a stable, controlled pattern. Split lunges keep both feet planted in a stride and lower straight down, taking away the step and leaving nothing but the up-and-down work. Side-to-side lunges shift your weight from one deep side lunge to the other with your hands together at your chest, opening the hips and asking the inner thigh to control every transfer. Then the floor: shoulder taps in a plank, one hand rising to touch the opposite shoulder while the body refuses to sway, and plank leg raises, one straight leg lifting off the floor at a time while the hips stay level. Fifteen sets of lunges, then ten sets of plank - legs first, trunk second, the whole session standing on the same theme of moving one limb while the rest of you holds still.
On every lunge, keep your torso tall and let the knee travel down rather than forward; in the side-to-side version, the bent knee tracks over the foot and the straight leg stays straight with the foot flat. In shoulder taps, widen your feet a touch if your hips are rocking - the tap counts when the plank did not move. In plank leg raises, lift the leg with the glute and stop at hip height; higher than that is your lower back doing the lifting.
Day 1 asks nothing new of you except that you do all of it well - and doing all of it well is the entire assignment.
Make it Harder: Pause for a two-count at the bottom of every lunge before driving back up.
Make it Easier: Three sets of each exercise instead of 5, reps as written.
