Can You Reach Your Goals By Just Using Your Bodyweight?

There’s nothing like going to the gym to lift weights and build muscle and even lose fat as a result. Progressive resistance is done by constantly trying to get a little more weight up or more reps with the same weight as you’ve used before. This is how muscle building is done.

Maybe You Don’t Want To Go To The Gym

Of course, not everybody wants to go to the gym for a variety of reasons. Some just don’t like working out in public. There are also membership fees and the time to drive to the gym. Whatever the reason, it may be more convenient for you to work out at home. So what do you do if you don’t have much, or any, workout equipment?

Maybe You Just Prefer Bodyweight Workouts

Even if you do go to the gym, maybe you prefer using your body weight for most, or all, of your exercises. There could be a variety of reasons for people to do this. Maybe you need to make weight for certain sports and have to avoid putting on too much muscle weight. Possibly, newbies want to build more strength before they really get into using weights. Or, maybe it’s just the way you want to train.

Bodyweight Exercise Should Be Part Of Your Routine

Even if you do lift weights at the gym or at home, some bodyweight exercises should always have a place in your routine. You can use them to warm up your muscles for heavier work. By contrast, you can use them to wrap up a workout by doing a high rep set so you finish with a nice pump. I use exercises using just my body weight in a variety of ways, but they are always done at some point.

Make The Exercise More Difficult

The key to building muscle with bodyweight exercises is to do versions of them that are more difficult to get a lot of reps on. This can lead to progressive resistance just with the weight of your body. It’s really just a matter of changing up some common exercises to get more out of them.

 

Push-ups

Everybody knows the classic push-up is one of the kings of bodyweight exercises. They are great for working the chest. The downside is that you can get to the point where you can do a ton of push-ups. However, there are some incredible ways to really get pumped from push-ups.

One simple way to get more out of push-ups is to make one small change in how you do them. As opposed to just pushing straight up, try pushing your body back as well as up. You will feel the difference when you make this change in how you do push-ups, and you won’t get as many reps – at least at first.

Hit The Upper Pecs

Another thing you can do to get more out of push-ups is to elevate your feet so you target the upper chest more like you would on an incline press. You can push the soles of your feet against the wall or put your feet up with your toes on a chair or couch. Both ways will achieve the desired effect. Once again, performing push-ups up and back will allow you to get more out of them.

Tyson Push-ups

The Tyson push-up is one of the best chest exercises that will have your pecs screaming. They take the up-and-back form of the push-up a step further. To do this exercise, you get into a push-up position with the toes on the floor, but the soles of the feet against a wall. You then push back at an angle so your knees bend.

One of my favorite ways to use the Tyson push-up is to do a superset of them followed immediately by normal push-ups. If I want to take it even further, I’ll do Tyson push-ups with my feet elevated, followed by ones with my toes on the floor, then finish with regular push-ups.

Train The Shoulders

The front muscles of the shoulders are gonna get plenty of work from push-ups. One thing you can do to hit the shoulders more is to get your body upside down against a wall. You then carefully lift up using the shoulders. This is one you only want to do if you know you can handle it, and it will take practice to master.

Hit The Triceps With Push-ups

To target the triceps from push-ups, you can any form of them with your hands closer. In this case, keep your elbows close to your body as you raise and lower your body. You can also do a push-up style of exercise with your hands right next to each and way out in front of your body. For this exercise, you lower the arms until the elbows touch the floor, then return to the starting position.

 

Pull-ups

Pull-ups are another one of the best bodyweight exercises. There is no exercise like it for training your lats and biceps. It’s also an exercise that allows for a ton of variety to target the muscles differently due to where and how you grip the bar.

Whereas push-ups can become too easy for many, it’s much rarer to have the ability to do a very high number of pull-ups. Of course, strength is a major factor, as well as your body weight. Whether you need to make them easier, or harder, or they are just right at your present strength level, pull-ups are a must-do exercise.

Where To Do Pull-ups?

Finding a place to do pull-ups shouldn’t be very difficult. Basically anywhere you can put an overhead bar that will hold your weight will do the trick. Just make sure it’s stable enough to handle your weight. You can find plenty of funny videos online of people using doorway pull-up bars that result in them falling on their butts.

Use Variety

Where and how you grip the bar while performing pull-ups will make a difference in how you are targeting the upper back muscles. Going for a shoulder-width or wider grip is going to hit the lats more, especially if you pull your elbows in as you are pulling up. To hit more of the middle upper back muscles, try using a v-grip if possible.

Targeting The Biceps

You can also hit your biceps by doing pull-ups. Of course, they are used on any type of pull-up as an assistant to the lats. Using a close underhand grip and pulling up with as wide an arc as possible will help you focus more on the biceps.

Use Assistance If Needed

Pull-ups can be tough to get a lot of reps on for many people. In this case, you can do assisted pull-ups. The best case scenario is to have somebody holding your legs and offering as little help as possible for you to get each pull-up repetition. Otherwise, you can always use an object underneath you to help give you the boost required to get all the way up.

Making Pull-ups Tougher

By contrast, you may find that just doing regular pull-ups is actually getting a bit too easy and want more of a challenge. To do this, you can try side-to-side pull-ups. These are done by pulling your body up to one side. As you pull up to one side, the other will straighten a bit. Whatever the case, one side will be doing the vast majority of the work. You can alternate which side you pull up to on each rep.

 

Squats and Lunges

Leg training shouldn’t be neglected in your bodyweight workouts, which makes the squat essential. Squats done with just your body weight can also end up being too easy. As with other exercises, they can be modified to be more difficult and more effective.

The first step in getting more out of bodyweight squats is to get more of a range of motion. This means going down as deep as possible. Experiment with your stance to find the best one for getting the most depth.

Of course, even deep squats done with your body weight will become quite easy. At this point, you can try other forms of the squat to train your legs.

Bulgarian Split Squats

The Bulgarian split squat is one of the best bodyweight exercises for the legs. They have you training one leg at a time, which will automatically create a lot more resistance than doing squats with both legs. The unilateral training you get from Bulgarian split squats can also help you improve your balance and muscle imbalances.

To do Bulgarian split squats, you have to have one leg forward and the other behind you. The back leg is then placed on a bench or piece of furniture behind you. You then squat down with the front leg, which will basically be doing all of the work. Once you get to the bottom of the rep, lift your body back up, using the leg muscles.

The quadriceps will do most of the work on Bulgarian split squats. The glutes, hamstrings, and calves will all have secondary roles in the performance of this exercise as well. The core also gets involved in keeping the body balanced throughout the movement. It’s possible to target the glutes more by putting your front foot further out in front of your body.

When doing Bulgarian split squats you really have to do all of your reps with one leg before switching to the other. Trying to reposition yourself between each rep just wouldn’t be worth it.

Lunges

Lunges are the other main bodyweight exercise to train the legs. The biggest difference is that you start by standing with both feet on the floor and step out in front with one leg. You then use the leg you stepped out with to return to the starting position. There are a few ways you can effectively perform lunges.

The most common way to perform the lunge is to stand straight, step forward with one leg, and return to the standing position.  Make sure to lower until the thigh is parallel to the floor to get the most out of the exercise. You can either train one leg at a time, going to failure with one before training the other. If you prefer, you can alternate between which leg you lunge with on each rep.

Save Your Knees

Another way to do this exercise is to step back into the lunge position. This can be the best way to lunge if you have knee pain. Stepping back won’t put as much stress on the knees and will allow you to take advantage of the lunge.

Walking Lunges

My favorite way to lunge is to do the walking version of the exercise. When you do walking lunges, you move forward as you lunge instead of returning back into a standing position. The leg used to lunge with alternates as you “walk” forward down the track.

 

Ab Exercises

Abdominal exercises are easily among the most popular bodyweight exercises. Considering that it doesn’t take any weight to get a great ab workout, they fit well into any bodyweight workout routine.

Crunches and sit-ups are going to be the most basic exercises to train the abs. All you need to do is to lie on the floor and use your abs to do both movements. Sit-ups get a bad rap, as they tend to hit the hip flexors. However, with a decline bench, they are a great ab exercise to do.

Leg Raises

Leg raises are excellent for hitting the lower abs and there is a variety of ways you can do them. The simplest way to perform this exercise is while lying on the floor and raising the legs up in the air using the lower abs. Using your pull-up bar to do hanging leg raises is another excellent option. You can do them with the legs straight or knees bent, or even one leg at a time. There are plenty of options when it comes to leg raises.

Target The Obliques

To target the oblique muscles on the sides of the midsection you can add a twist to the side as you do a crunch or sit-up. Alternate the side you twist to on each rep.

Another way to hit the obliques is to do side planks or side plank lifts. For a regular side plank, you need to hold the body in the same position. You then rely on the core (especially the obliques in this case) to keep it stable. For side plank lifts, you raise the side facing upward and return to engage the muscles even further.

More Core Exercises

The classic plank will also work the core, as it stabilizes the body. Make sure to use the stopwatch on your phone to time how long you can hold a plank. As you are able to hold one for longer, you will be progressing.

Beyond these ab exercises, there are many variations you can do to keep your body from getting used to always doing the same thing. You can do a completely different ab workout every time you train if you’d like.

 

Setting Up A Bodyweight Workout

There are multiple ways to set up your bodyweight exercises into workouts and routines. It comes down to how much you want to do for each muscle group per workout. Maybe you want to train the whole body. Possibly, you prefer splitting the upper and lower body into separate workouts. There really is no wrong answer as long as you don’t under or overdo it.

Circuit Training

One great way to do a bodyweight workout is to take advantage of circuit training. This form of training will have you going from exercise to exercise, performing one set of each. It’s best to start with either the upper body or lower body and go through all of the exercises for one area before training the other. It’s also best to start with exercises that train multiple muscle groups and finish with isolation exercises.

The benefit of circuit training is that, since you are training a different area of the body than you did the exercise before, you won’t need as much rest. This will keep your heart rate up and is great for general fitness. However, it’s not necessarily the best routine for packing on some muscle.

Training Each Muscle

Training each muscle group or area of the body with multiple exercises and sets is another way to set up your bodyweight routine. In this case, you would start with one muscle group and exhaust it through training before hitting another muscle group. It’s best to take more rest between sets when training like this.

Split Routines

As you get more advanced, you can split up your routine to train a few muscles per workout. The most common way to do this is to do lower body exercises one day and upper body exercises on another. You can split your bodyweight exercise routine even further if you’d like. It depends on how much you want to do for each muscle group per workout.

 

Get Started Today

Without a doubt, you can see how bodyweight exercises can help you reach your fitness goals. It doesn’t have to take up all of your time, and you can do it just about anywhere. This is your health after all, so why not do what you can to improve it?