The Best Body Weight Exercises

You can get so used to your gym routine that you might forget you can actually get a very effective with some body weight exercises.

There are plenty of reasons to break up your routine and work in body weight workouts. So take a break from the gym and let’s go over some ways to mix up your workout. If you’re locked into a workout plateau, it’s good to slip out of the normal routine and throw your body a curve ball with a body weight focused day.

Yes, that’s right you can build muscle with your body…

In addition, beginners getting into weight lifting also must acclimate the body to exercise before attempting to add additional weight. Lastly, maybe you simply don’t have access to a gym or you’re on vacation with your family; there is no excuse when you can still workout with your body weight.

Exercise Anywhere With Body Weight Exercises

Remember, the workout I am giving you today can be performed anywhere: hotel room, office or home. If you’re on vacation, don’t let that be an excuse, you have plenty of room to perform these body weight exercises in your hotel room. If you’re in the office and work permits you a quick workout, you can complete this in as little as a 15 minute workout.Ideally, you will want to find a local park if possible. 

Pushups allow your heart to pump blood faster both during and after the exercise.
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Bodyweight Workout And Your Vacation

If you’re planning a vacation and you are a gym junkie like myself, create a simple checklist when seeking out a hotel. When scheduling your room, be sure to ask if they have a gymnasium, pool, local parks, or running/biking trails nearby. Another great site to check out is run the planet for avid runners. They provide excellent info on terrain, length of path, and international race calendars.

Beginners Workout And You’re New to the Gym

If you’re new to the gym that’s all the more reason to start with body weight exercises before stepping up to weight training. Nearly every certification course is going to tell you to slowly acclimate your client into a resistance training program. Before taking on additional weight, you must develop your stabilizer muscles first to handle loading these movements with added resistance. This will help you or your client have a more gradual transition when graduating to the gym and prepare the body for rigorous training.

If You’re Stuck in a Plateau

This might come to a surprise, but science recommends you have an unloading week when you are weight lifting or strength training. A great website for more information on blending an unloading week is healthliving.azcentral. Body weight exercises can fit right into an unload week to give your body a break from weight lifting. The benefits of doing this include injury prevention, mental health and improved strength. So, if you’re locked into a plateau during a lifting program, it’s best to incorporate a “light” week, as you will actually yield better results over the long term.

The Body Weight Exercises

For the following workouts, try to complete 10-15 reps of each and complete as many sets as possible in 15 minutes. Depending on your athletic ability, you may need to decrease or increase the amount of reps/sets you are doing. Once you have this dialed in, bodyweight exercises provide an excellent measure of your current fitness level. Do your best not to rest between sets and complete these back to back to optimize your time. Remember that using body weight workout versus lifting will require less rest between exercises. 

1)   Body Weight Squat

Directions– Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Keep your hands behind your head or straighten your arms out in front. Lower your body as far as you can by pushing your hips back and bending your knees. Try to accomplish a 90-degree angle. Pause once you hit 90 degrees and drive back up to a standing position, keeping your back straight.

2)   Thigh Tap Push ups

Directions – From the push up position, bring your chest to the floor, keep your spine in a neutral position. At the top of your rep, bring your hand to the side of your leg while balancing with the opposite arm.

3)   Sprinter Sit-ups

Directions– Start with your feet shoulder width apart. Keep your hands behind your head or straighten your arms out in front and use for stabilization as if you were running. As you extend each leg and retract it up to the body as far as you can, squeeze your abs at the top end of each rep as if you were crunching. 

Body Weight Exercises Benefits & More…

There are many other great benefits to body weight exercises that you may have not considered. Your core is made up of 29 muscles, and by doing even simple bodyweight movements you are utilizing all of them. These exercises will be great for improving your core strength, which will lead to better athletic performance and posture and improve the look of your midsection

Another positive effect of core training is improved balance when you are performing these workouts. For example a more advanced version of a body weight squat would be a pistol squat. By doing these extreme functional exercises, you can improve body control and awareness. Another reason is improved athletic performance with better balance.

Here’s an example of a more advanced body weight exercise: the pistol squat.

Here are some more…

If budgeting is part of your everyday life and you’re looking to save some money, working out with your body is quite perfectly FREE. Gyms can get pretty pricey these days and if money is an issue, you can always find a local park or just stay in the comfort of your own home.

Fresh air doesn’t hurt either…

If you are worried about injuring yourself or you’re recovering from an injury body weight exercises are the best option. Body weights by definition will be much safer than typical resistance training. When recovering from an injury body weight will be the way to recover, give your body a slow but effective recovery.

Conclusion

There is good reason for body weight videos and programs taking center stage recently. We have just mentioned some, of the benefits but there are more. Performing these workouts I have given you today will mix up your workout routine and keep you building strength.

Remember, you are in the drivers seat of your health, so don’t make excuses that you are “out of town”, “can’t afford a gym” or “don’t have an effective plan”.

-Terry Asher