AT HOME BODYWEIGHT WORKOUTS
Gyms are amazing in that they have tons of equipment. There are cardio machines, free weights, weight machines, specialty equipment like sleds and things like that, and more. But never forget that you can get a great workout with nothing but your body. Perhaps some monkey bars or chinup bars, parallel bars, and similar equipment, but your body can give you all the resistance you need.
Of course I have nothing against weights and equipment. Obviously I do believe in using it, but I also always make time to add in bodyweight workouts into my routine. So how do we go about structuring a routine? Rather than giving specific exercises and programs, we just have some categories of exercises and make sure to put them in each of your bodyweight workouts. Here are the categories.
1. UPPER BODY PUSH - Here are your pushups, parallel bar Dips, and similar exercises
2. UPPER BODY PULL - Here you have your chinups, rows, and other pulling movements
3. SQUAT - Squats and knee bending movements here. Thus includes things like Bulgarian Split Squats as well
4. BENDING - In weight training, Deadlifts are the primary bending movements. However for bodyweight training, we have full body extensions, burpees, and other exercises like that.
5. WALKING - Walking, running, step ups, and walking lunges all first in this category
6. CORE CONTRACTION - Crunches and certain knee raise movements work here. Bear in mind that straight leg raises and traditional situps are useless for ab training. Only by shortening the distance between the pelvis and ribcage can you train the abdominal muscles.
7. CORE STABILITY - Planks and variations is the name of the game.
8. CARDIO / METABOLIC EXERCISES - These are big movements that train the whole body getting the heart rate up and raising the metabolic rate. Plyometric exercises, burpees, Boxing and martial arts are some examples.
When putting a program together, there are many options. I can't go over every variation here, but the basic methods are
STRAIGHT SETS - The most basic workout. One set followed by the remaining sets of the sane exercise
SUPERSETS AND TRISETS - Two or three exercises done back to back
CIRCUITS - More than three exercises done back to back. Be careful to not do ridiculously long circuits. Ice seen some programs that have 20 or more exercises in a circuit. This only allows you to do each exercise once which is insufficient.
AMRAP - As Many Rounds As Possible. Take a few exercises and do as many rounds as you can in a 10 to 15 minute period. Use 2 groups of exercises.
EMOM - Every Minute On The Minute. This can be done with either straight sets, supersets, ot circuits. Use a timer that beeps every minute. There are a lot of free phone apps available for this. When it beeps, do your reps. You've got the rest of the minute to rest. Then you go again when you hear that beep.
TABATAS - These are timed sets. The original Tabata method was to do 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. This was done 8 times. You can use other timings as well and also use circuits. Generally it's a 2 to 1 work to rest ratio. 30/15, 40/20 work well.
And there you go! Your crash course on bodyweight training! Let me know if you have any questions about it and use your "built in gym"!