Bodyweight Exercises for Beginners

Here are some easy bodyweight exercises that can be done at home, at the park, at the hotel, or at your office.  If you can find a table, chair, monkey bars, or heavy objects and some room to move around, you're good to go.

This post is intented for beginners who doesn't have any weight lifting experience or for those who can't train at a fitness facility for whatever reason but need something to do during the holidays (on vacation or at work?).   For serious trainees, join a gym or set up your own proper training space (power rack and barbells) at home would be ideal.

You will get stronger and leaner with these exercises (with diet dialed in, too of course) but don't expect to reach your genetic potential for muscle and might without some heavy weight training.  Pick up the book "Starting Strength" and get addicted to the iron.

Basic Bodyweight Training

All movements can be broken up into 5-20 repetitions to do at a time (per set).  Then rest 2 minutes between sets. Then perform another 5-20 reps until you hit the total targeted # of reps for the day. 

Monday: Push up - 80x/day

If too difficult to perform, try this modified push up version first and work up to 20x per set. After a few workouts, attempt the regular PU starting with a low rep range (naturally) and work up to 100x total in multiple sets (ideally 4-5sets).  Always be progressing (overloading) with these exercises!

Tuesday: Dips - 80x/day

If too difficult, try this first

Wed: Walk (Active Rest) - 30mins 

Don't start jogging until you are less than 20lbs overweight.  My recommendation is to never jog anyways.  Instead, RUN and run fast.  Use BMI to predict how much weigh you should ideally be at for your height.  If you're overweight, you shouldn't be doing any type of steady state cardio work other than walking.  Focus on your diet!  Chronic impact from long distance pounding (esp. for overweight folks) can be very detrimental on the joints.  Most seasoned endurance athletes will testify they've got plenty (and repetitive) injuries and chronically experiencing over-reaching symptoms.

If you've always been active or had some weight lifting experience (and is currently overweight), BMI may not be a good predictor of ideal weight, nor cardiovascular health.  Read this to find out how to set a realistic goal for your current fitness level.

I generally just recommend walking even if you're extremely fit or plays sports.  Walking is the best type of active recovery you can do (next to stretching and massages).  Read this to find out why.

Thur: Chin up - 60x/day  

With chin ups, your palm faces you and grip width should be around your shoulder wide.  Remember, it's call a chin up because the chin actually goes up aboves the bar.  Not nose up or forehead up.  Also, at the bottom position, your elbow should be fully extended to count as a rep.  Without full extension of the arms, chin up becomes a biceps dominant movement.

The picture above is actually a pull up that targets more of your triceps than biceps.  Your performance on a pull up will normally be lower than chin up. 

Keep in mind that if you start kipping, you are cheating.  You are trying to target your arms and back with this movement, not the hip or core.  Beginners may need to kip a little to get it up, but once your back (lats) is strong enough to initate the movement, kipping should be eliminated.  There is a time and place to train like a gymnast and that's at a crossfit facility.

Don't be like this guy...

If the above 2 movements are too difficult, use a chair like in this video.

or progress this way...

Fri: Overhead Press - Do this 50x/day

If too difficult, pick a lighter object or a log to press with (start with around 20lb). If you can easily do 10x/set, increase the weight of the object.   Your shoulder should be sore by the time you have done 30 total repititions.  If not, you are lifting to light.

At the top of the movement, your arms should be fully extended, elbow behind your head, chest up, and your upper body should tilt slightly forward.

Saturday: Sprinting - 10x. Make each rep 4-6 secs

After a good 10min warm up with some light jogging, jumping jacks, rope jump, or burpees, do some dynamic stretching that focuses on leg swings laterally and front/back.  Then start off with a couple 10yard sprints, a couple 20yards sprints, then another couple 40yards. 

Once you can comfortably sprint 40yards without losing much momentum at the last 10yard, you're ready for full sprints.  Make each full sprint under 6 seconds.  If you play sports that involves further than 40yards (soccer, football, etc), feel free to sprint a longer distance.  Make sure you get plenty rest between all-out sprints (2mins rest minimum).   When it comes to explosive movements like sprinting (or any plyometric/jumping/throwing movements), you should focus on quality, not quantity.  This means rest plenty until you're ready for another heavy and explosive repetition.  While resting, don't let your heart rate and body tempturature drop too low, keep moving (walking).

The faster your arms swing, the quicker your legs cycle between strides (this increase  stride frequency).  Also, the stronger your legs are (with proper weight training like squating, cleans, plyometric/explosive exercises) the distance of your strides will increase which allows you to accelerate quicker and run faster.  

Sprint mechanics typically comes naturally for most people.  If for some reason you find sprinting a difficult movement to do or not have the space for it. Try going up hills or stairs a few times. 

For sunday, just rest.  Always pick at least one day out of the week to completely rest.  No light cardio, cycling, zumba, or yoga.  JUST REST.  This way your future workouts will be more productive and less likely to injure yourself.

If you do a simple search on google for "bodyweight exercises", you'll find tons of movements to add to the exercises mentioned above to keep your workout interesting and chellenging.  Just remember that if you're not constantly overloading your body with heavier loads each time, you're not giving your muscles the stimulants it need to get stronger.   This means, the above movements are not meant to replace a proper and progressive training program that focus on lifting heavy weights.   They are only something simple to do in the short term when other more chellenging movements are unavaliable/unaccessible.

When we train, we train with the intention to get stronger, meaner, and mightier.  Do not train with a mindset to simply "stay in shape", once you're past 25 years of age, you cannot afford to train to "stay in shape". 

"Regardless of genetics, gender or age, each of us has tremendous power to improve physique, fitness and health; but very few people fully exploit this power because so few people train in a way that is truly appropriate to them. Circiumstance of life make some decision more likely than others, each person is responsible for his or her own exercise program's results.  You decide which exercises you use, how you perform them, and how often you train.  You decide when you quit a set, when you go to sleep, how well you eat.  You alone are responsible for your porgress in the gym, accept responsiblity for having created the current state of your physique and fitness.  Then assume the responbility for changing what you do no like." - Stuart McRobert

At the age of 58 & pre-diabetic, Kenna managed to lose 30lbs this year.   Now her sugar averages at 80, has more energy, and got a healthier glow of skin and hair.  She continues to chellenge herself daily. 

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Why does your weight goes up and down?

Water Retention Messin' With Your Head?

Rigid dieters often face emotional problems when they don't see positive results every time they step on a scale.  Always weighing themselves for instant confidence boost after a long workout or in the morning.  This is particularily true in many of my female clients who are lean but needs to be leaner. 

When the number doesn't go their way, they go crazy and begin to doubt whether their diet is clean enough or if their 2hr/day cardio is enough.  It usually end up with giving up on their diet, feeling like a loser, and unleash the inner piggy at the buffet line.

This post is dedicated to those who experienced such breakdowns recently and I thought I'd share one of my clients story to demostrate how to move forward.   I've included some good articles to supplement on the topic of flexible dieting, water retention, and the importance of weight training. 

Before I begin, here's the back story.

She's always been overweight but started a regular exercise program a few years back and has finally reached a healthy weight she was comfortable in.  Her program consist of mostly light circuit training.  She has conditioned herself to snack more frequently due to misguided conventional wisdoms while making restrictive portion control a big part of her diet routine.   She often face with hunger issues when she go on a diet but since discovering intermittent fasting with me, she become more in control of how many calories she eat.  Now, she enjoys eating bigger and more satisfying meals. 

Since she leaned out and won a local pageant recently, she decided to step up her game to compete in the miss texas pageant this coming feb (2012).  For the swimsuit portion of the event, she would like to be at at least 15% bodyfat or lower to have definitions on her upper back and abs.  the problem is, she has reached a plateau in her current workout regimen that prevents her from losing anymore fat.

In my previous corrospondance with her, I told her that the bootcamp isn't helping with her fat loss, nor for muscle gain since the movements weren't chellenging.  All she's achieved were glycogen depletion instead of actually stimulating muscle fibers for growth.  To look tone, you need muscle.

Her workouts consist of 1hr morning bootcamps (intervals) mon-thur, cycling and abs mon/wed later in the evening, sporadic intervals on the weekend.   She is finally learning some barbell basics with me 1x a week now.   Her diet is basically your tyipcal ADA low fat, clean eating approach.

This was my email reply to her mental breadown while I'm on vacation

"when you're at your bodyfat % (pretty low for an average female), your bodyweight will go up and down much more drastically than male or bigger females.  Same with how you look in the mirror, water retention will mask any fat loss/body definition you've accomplished up to 4 weeks or longer if you never let your body to take a break and recover.  You could be at a state of 'overreaching'.  The masking of fat loss is possibly water retention.

One possible explaination is that the fat content (fatty acids) has emptied from your fat cells (via caloric restriction/expenditure) but your body is under chronic stress due to excessive cardio and lack of refeeds and your fat cells wants fill itself up with water and hold out as long as they can until you (over)feed them w/ calories/carbs before they reach death. 

like the good ol' days when human had to starve periodically to survive winter (much like dieting) and were forced to migrate constantly in order to forage food (much like cardio).  When they do find food, they feast and the cortisol (one of many hormones that make your body hold on to water) goes away and the body release the excess water weight and they wake up lean and happy the next day.

To get rid of this water problem, you need a massive carbs refeed post workout best on monday and wednesday since those are your highest volume training days.  Then relax next day.  When i say relax, i mean not even light cardio!  Uunderstand the whoosh effect and how relaxing for a couple of days or up to a week (get off training completely) and add a little carbs/alcohol in the mix can help with getting rid of excess water in the system.

How to deal with water retention

http://www.leangains.com/2010/01/how-to-deal-with-water-retention-part.html

http://www.leangains.com/2010/01/how-to-deal-with-water-retention-part_28.html

http://www.leangains.com/2010/03/maintaining-low-body-fat.html

Listen to these two podcasts.  They are about making your diet flexible so you don't go mental next time you see your weight go up.

http://realitybasedfitness.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/podcast-4-lyle-mcdonald/

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/423/lyle-mcdonald-ep-238/

From now on, we will train on monday and/or wednesday then you will eat whatever you crave.  they will be your cheat meals of the week.   About your diet.  Rest days would be like the first diet program I wrote you.   Plenty lean protein and veggies ONLY, couple pieces fruits, and no snacks. I want you to drink tea/coffee/water when you're hungry.  You will only eat 1-2 meals a day (hopefully have them before bed instead of during the day).

Other than mon/wed.  Have your first meal around noon, second at usual dinner time, fruits before bed.  If you MUST snack throughout the day, snack on fibrous fruits - apples, grapefruit, plum, peaches, strawberry.  don't go overboard with bananas and grapes.

Get this at walgreen for your hunger issues.

http://www.ephedrine-diet-products.com/bronkaid.html

and caffeine. http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/pl/caffeine.html

how to apply the E/C stack.

For training, I want you to scale down your bootcamps as much as you can, use diet to achieve negative calorie balance, not strictly via exercise.  Chronic exercise stressor is much more catabolic (muscle wasting) than calorie restriction when you're at a caloric deficit.  This is why marathon runners looks like aneroxics.  Try not to go all out (max effort) when you're asked to perform their exercises.  Focus on strength training only while dieting.

Two weeks before your competition. you will drop bootcamp completely if you wish to step on stage lean. seriously."

That's basically what I told her and now she's got her sanity back and training properly again. 

If you're going through the same thing like her, hollar at me on facebook and I'll help you troubleshoot your struggles