Top Nine Home Body Weight Workouts
If you don’t have any dumbbells, benches, resistance bands, you can still get in great workouts that require only your body.
You might feel that your options are limited, but with good bodyweight routines you can open up your workout to a huge variety of exercises.
Why Bodyweight?
Bodyweight is an effective way to build your strength, endurance, and burn fat when gym equipment isn’t available.
Bodyweight exercises also provide more complicated maneuvers which prevent you from failing out too early before the effects of the routine start to take hold.
These types of workouts end up touching most areas of your body when performing them. Typical gym routines are able to focus on muscle groups, but don’t do much for comprehensive engagement.
What Are the Key Parts of a Bodyweight Workout
There are two main areas of bodyweight exercise that both affect different goals.
Isolated exercises are low impact, area-specific routines that still engage the whole body but allow growth in focused areas.
These workouts are key for toning and muscle definition.
Compound exercises consist of bigger movements that engage the larger muscles of your body in order to specifically lose weight and burn more calories.
Here are the top 9 bodyweight exercises to get you to your fitness goals.
1. Deep Squat
The deep squat is a compound squat that engages your calves, glutes, and quadriceps.
To perform this exercise effectively you will want to follow these steps.
- Start in a standing position with your feet shoulder-width apart.
- Raise your arms to either side of your head to keep your chest up and your form stable.
- Slowly bend at the knee and begin until your calves touch your hamstrings, or as far as you can go in a downwards fashion.
- Extend upwards slowly until you are back in your standing position again.
2. Bridge Kick
The bridge kick is a compound exercise that focuses on the core muscles in your abdomen and your lower back and hips.
- Sit in an upright position on the floor with one leg extended and the other bent with your heel a few inches from your hamstring.
- Place your palms behind you so that your fingertips are pointed forwards.
- From this position, use your foot that is on the floor close to your hamstring to push yourself off the ground, driving your hips upward to the ceiling.
- Keep your extended leg as straight as possible while in motion.
- Slowly drop your hips back down to the floor until you are back in the position you began with.
3. Spider-man Pushup
The spider-man pushup is a comprehensive workout that engages your chest, shoulders, thigh muscles, abs, and back.
- Begin in a pushup stance with your arms fully extended.
- As you bend your elbows and descend towards the floor, bring one of your knees up towards your elbow.
- Return to the original position and repeat the routine with the opposite leg.
4. Burpee
Burpees work similar muscle groups as spider-man push-ups do, but are more effective for burning calories.
- Begin in a standard pushup position and complete a pushup motion.
- At the end of the full pushup motion, quickly bring your feet in a hopping movement a foot from where your hands are placed.
- Spring straight upwards into the air, enough so that your feet come off the ground.
- As you hit the floor, move back into a standard pushup position, and repeat.
5. Toe Touch Crunch
This variation of the classic crunch focuses on your inner abdominal muscles, your side obliques, your lower back, and your pelvic floor.
- Start out in a lying down position with your legs extended up in the air so that your whole body is in an L shape.
- Extend your arms upward and pull yourself towards the top of your feet using your hips as the driving force.
- Touch the tips of your toes with your hands, keeping your back as straight as possible, then slowly fall back into your lying position, legs still extended in the air.
6. Corkscrew
This workout is an advanced movement that engages your side obliques, triceps, and shoulders.
- Begin in a pushup position with arms extended.
- Lift one arm and extend it outwards.
- Slightly twist your body towards the side of your uplifted arm.
- Simultaneously, lift your opposite leg and extend it fully in the direction of your outstretched arm.
- Attempt to touch your outstretched arm to the tip of your extended foot.
- Get back to your original pushup position and repeat the movement with the unused arm and leg.
7. Runners Skip
The runners skip is a cardio burning workout that engages your quads, core, and glutes as well as lighter stress of the shoulder, biceps, and triceps.
- Start in a lunge position, one knee to the floor, and the other in a right angle position.
- Bring the knee that is on the floor upwards in a jumping motion towards the ceiling, using your opposite foot to push off the floor.
- Once you come down from your jump, bring your body back into that initial lunge position. Switch sides.
8. Tricep Push
The tricep push emphasizes tricep, abdomen, and calf strength.
- Begin in a pushup position.
- Without moving your feet from their position, bring yourself downwards so that your elbows touch the floor.
- Your elbows should be flush with the sides of your body.
- Bring yourself back into the push-up position.
9. Classic Plank
This held position engages your abdominal and lower back muscles.
- Begin in a pushup position.
- Place your elbows on the floors so that your arms are flush with the sides of your body.
- Keep in this position thirty to sixty seconds.
