Getting into shape, maintaining physique, and adding some chisel to your bod can sometimes feel like a tough task. It’s not always easy to fit a solid workout into a busy day. A busy day turns into a busy week and suddenly your routine is out of whack and you’re playing catch up with your fitness. 

One way to up your game is to add bodyweight exercises into your routine. Bodyweight workouts have many benefits; one being that you can knock these out at home or in the gym. Adding a 30 to 45-minute sweat session into your day will leave you feeling more productive and optimistic about the way you look and feel.

Benefits

There are a number of reasons that bodyweight workouts should be a part of your fitness regimen. So, let’s discuss a few of the top reasons for bodyweight reps.

• Less injury: Quality over quantity is an old adage that applies nicely here. The damage done to your body and muscles from poor form is a waste of your time. If you can’t Squat correctly loading up a bar with weight is only going to lead to injury.

“Master quality bodyweight form before anything else!”

• • Functional Muscle: Professional athlete’s training goals always include building functional muscle mass. Simply building bulk is a performance inhibitor for these athletic phenoms, so functional muscle is a key to success. 

• Training Barriers: Constantly loading your muscles with weighted lifts, can lead to roadblocks known as training plateaus.  Essentially, you reach a point where you feel tired and simply can’t reach new PRs. Switching to lightweight or bodyweight exercises for a few lifts, or even a few weeks allows your muscles time to repair. You’ll be back to weighted gains in no time! 

It’s also worth noting that the lighter weight movements can show us where our form needs work, while also letting our muscles repair and prepare for another cycle of heavyweight lifts. This all adds up to future gains and PRs!

• Convenience: If you travel a lot you’ve experienced hotel gyms. Some are better than others but most lack the amenities of your local muscle factory. If you’re prepared with a few bodyweight routines for that extended stay business trip, you don’t have to worry about losing your flex while on the road.

The same principle applies for those days when you just can’t make it to the gym. Hit a bodyweight routine at home and have time for dinner, a date or the club.

Upper Body

If you’ve spent any time doing push-ups, you’ve probably varied your hand positions and felt how a wider hand stance versus a narrower hand stance can change the difficulty of this simple workout. If you haven’t, we will explain why this, along with some other upper bodywork, will get your arms, shoulders, and back looking vascular and chiseled. 

• Ring row: If you’ve never worked out with rings or resistance training straps like the TRX System, you’ve been missing out. This simple tool allows you to do a ton of upper body variations such as rows by hanging from the handles by your hands and pulling upwards. This looks like an upside-down pushup.

A TRX system resembles two straps ending in handles that hang from a bar or doorway allowing for press and pushing movements from varying angles. The user can then decide the level of difficulty in each rep by varying their angles and the bodyweight applied. 

• Push-ups (variations)

• Reverse: The reverse push up hits your triceps, shoulders, upper back, and core, making for a great way to cover multiple muscle groups. Start from a seated position, keeping your feet flat on the floor and your knees bent. With your hands placed about 6 to 8 inches behind your hips, elevate your hips from the floor. Working from this starting position, bend from your elbows lowering your butt to the floor, then push yourself back up.

• Chair/Bench Dips: If you’re looking for a tougher version of the reverse push up, you can achieve a deeper and more difficult lift from the edge of a bench or chair. Begin in a seated posture with your hands gripping the bench or chair outside of your hips. Lift your posterior and walk your feet out so that you are in a hovering seated position in front of the chair. From this position, you can bend at the elbows and mimic the reverse push up with a deep dip.

• Diamond: The narrower your grip, the tougher the push-up. Bring your hands all the way together below your chest, forming a diamond shape between your thumb and pointer fingers, to up the intensity. This push-up will activate your core and engage the pecs, tris, and bis. 

• Wide Versus Narrow: Wide grip push-ups will hit your pec minors and the deltoids. Just watch out, poor form on wide grip push-ups will put unnecessary stress on your shoulders. A narrow grip (hands pressing from directly below the shoulder joint) will hit the back, shoulders, triceps, and lats.

• Pull-ups (grip variations): If you have a pull-up bar at your disposal, great! This work out is probably the best way to work out your lat muscles (those awesome looking wing muscles that give your torso that V-shape). Don’t be concerned if you aren’t banging out sets of ten right away. Like any new lift, it’ll take a little time for you to strengthen the muscles that get your chin over the bar. Often, a 

TRX can achieve a similar but less than vertical version of the pull up which is great for developing the same muscle group used for pull-ups.

As these become easier, switching to a wider hand grip can make for a tougher variation.

Lower Body

• Plyometrics: Plyos as they are often referred to by workout junkies and athletes, are a collection of high tempo footwork routines that are sure to ramp up your heart rate. Plyos are usually completed in timed sets and include some common activities such as squat jumps, split squat jumps, and the feared burpee. 

A good starting interval is anywhere from 10-15 second sets and should be completed 3 times with 3 activities. In other words, 9 total sets divided by 3 activities. 

• Split Squat Jump Plyo: Start in a shallow to medium lunge with one foot ahead and the other behind, both flexed at the knee. When your timed interval begins, jump vertically into the air swinging your arms up to help propel you skyward. Try to land softly sinking into a split squat with the starting leg position reversed. A few sets of this will get your HR up and quads burning.

• Lunges: Lunges, like squats, require proper form. Keeping an upright back and maintaining a stable leg position is a must. All too often guys start doing lunges or reverse lunges with weight vests or dumbells before mastering their form. Poor form is a sure-fire road to knee pain and a roadblock in your fitness. 

To perform a lunge, stride forward to a wide (but not overstretched) position bend at the knees. Your rear shin should be paralel to the ground while the knee on the same knee should be hovering above the ground. The front should leg should make a 90-degree angle. From here, stride the back leg forward to full height and then repeat forward with the opposite leg.

Mastering your form with forward, reverse, and lateral bodyweight lunges will increase strength, mobility, and flexibility!

• Squat (variations)

• Deep vs Shallow: There is a functional benefit of working squats at different depths and foot stances. Beginning by establishing the correct squat form is essential. So, let’s break down the basics. Begin by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. From here, start to squat, allowing your knees to move outwards slightly, while your hips gently move back. Once your hips have dropped past your knees, take a brief pause and begin to ascend back up into a tall standing position with full hip extension. 

• The box squat is a good way to begin. By focusing on dropping your butt to a box slightly lower than your knees and then lifting out of that position with the same squat form described above, you strengthen both your glutes and hips. If you feel pain doing this without weight, you probably need to focus more on form. You definitely shouldn’t be running to get under a weighted bar if there’s any pain in the bodyweight version.

• Bulgarian Split Squat: This simple variation of the squat is an ass-kicker. Placing your foot on an elevated platform or bench behind you while your other leg is in a standing position in front, flex downward with your knees until you’re in a lunge. Your quads, hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes, and back all get into the mix. 

• Pistol: The pistol squat is an advanced movement that requires both strength and flexibility. This deep, single-leg squat is an awesome way to develop stability and strength in your legs if you are capable of quality reps. If it’s a struggle to get through one, wobbly pistol squat, you probably need to work on some of the intermediate steps to get through a quality rep. 

The first thing to focus on is your ankle mobility. Find an angled surface to place your foot flat against and flex the knee forward. This stretches the calf muscles and the ankle joint. 

Next, take some time to practice how it feels at the bottom of the movement. This can be done by lowering yourself into the bottom of a single-legged squat with one leg outstretched, with the assistance of a TRX, squat rack post or any other stable object that can make the movement easier. 

From here, practice how it feels alternating each leg out in front, resting with both feet planted and knees flared out to the sides.

Now that you’ve worked on the basics, strength is the final barrier between you and a pistol squat. If you have the strength, begin in a tall standing position with one leg straight out in front of you. Now, sink into a deep squat pausing briefly before returning to the top of your stance. Reset and repeat.

Core

Many bodyweight workouts work your core without you even realizing they’re doing so. The next day you wake up to find that your abs are sore and you can’t remember doing anything core specific. This is because many bodyweight activities involve stability work. 

With that in mind, doing a little extra core in order to further carve out that epic 6 pack doesn’t hurt. With the exception of the pain experienced during the reps, of course!

• Plank (variations): The standard forearm plank, as well as its variations, are completed in timed durations. For the standard plank simply rest on your toes and forearms keeping a flat back and your core engaged.

• Try a walking plank by switching your hands between a standard and forearm plank. Just be sure to keep your back stable. 
  • Single leg planks hit you legs by alternating left then right foot raises while forcing your back muscles to work a little extra. Try holding each single leg pose for intervals of 10-30 seconds each side during your longer set. For example, you could fit 4 sets of 15 seconds into a 60-second forearm plank set.
  • Bringing your knee to your inner elbow or outer elbow also makes for a tough variation. 

• Hanging knee raise: This core set requires a hanging bar. One with a backrest is recommended. Hang with your legs straight down and roll your legs up at the hip joint keeping them straight out (no knee bend) until they make a 90-degree angle. The full extension of the body in between reps is important here. This will get you shredded!

• Bridge Kick: Begin seated on the floor with one leg straight and the other bent, lift up from the floor with the bent leg and kick the other into the air from a bridge position. The combo of the bridge and kick will make for a tough core set.

This should be a great starting point for a full bodyweight workout at home! Hopefully, we’ve opened your eyes as to just how productive your time between work and play can be. 

Now, with your fitness plan taken care of, it’s time to make sure you’re looking just as good in your shirt and tie as you are out of them. Check out some of our top suggestions for looking fresh with that new fitness[HERE].

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