Body weight training: benefits, basic techniques & workouts

You can train the whole body and achieve great fitness benefits without using any equipment. All you need is your own body weight, correct technique and a workout program. Well, you have your body weight with you everywhere you go, now let me introduce you to 5 basic body weight exercise techniques and 5 body weight workout programs. Don't be fooled - these workouts may only use your body weight for resistance but they are guaranteed to be a challenge and achieve results!



Benefits
Body weight exercises provide a range of fitness benefits - some of which cannot be achieved using exercise machines you find in your typical gym. These benefits include:

• Functional application: body weight exercises closely resemble everyday movements. For example, sitting up from lying down (sit up) and standing up from a chair (squat).
• Core strength development: body weight exercises require constant core activation to maintain body position and posture throughout the movement.
• Unrestricted movement: body weight exercises allow the working joints to define their own natural movement path, undefined by an exercise machine.
• Flexibility development: body weight exercises allow a full range of motion for all working muscles.
• Reduced injury risk: body weight exercises are obviously limited to the resistance provided by the weight of the body. This is a safe training resistance when using correct technique.
• Convenience: body weight exercises can be performed anywhere with no equipment, requiring very little space and no set up.

Basic Techniques
Push ups, body rows, squats, sit ups and burpees are introduced in the attached video with quick and easy technique instructions. Scaled down variations of these exercises are introduced if you are just getting started. Progress to the full unscaled exercise as soon as you are able.

Workouts
The 5 basic body weight workouts below appear in no specific order. Work through these workouts as fast as you can comfortably while maintaining correct technique for all exercises and resting as required. Record your time for each workout and look to progress by improving the time it takes to complete. Start with the minimum recommended number of rounds and increase to the maximum as your fitness and recovery improves.

You can combine these basic body weight workouts with our skipping workouts for even more of a challenge, introduced here: Skipping: benefits, basic techniques & workouts. Skipping workouts can be used as a warm up and/or cool down for the body weight workouts or in between rounds.

Allow a minimum of one rest day before repeating and don't repeat if you are still feeling muscle soreness from your previous workout. There is more information on muscle pain and soreness here: Overcoming your fear of exercise (part 3): pain & soreness. Have fun!

Workout 1: 10 push ups 10 body rows 10 squats (3-10 rounds, rest between rounds if required)	Workout 2: 25 squats 20 sit ups 15 push ups 10 body rows (2-6 rounds, rest between rounds if required)
Workout 3: 10 burpees 10 body rows (decrease each exercise by 2 down to 2 reps then increase by 2 back up to 10 reps) 1-2 rounds, rest between rounds required)	Workout 4: 3 push ups 3 squats 3 body rows 3 sit ups (increase each exercise by 3 up to 15 reps) (1-2 rounds, rest between rounds if required, start second round at 15 reps and decrease by 3 down to 3 reps)
Workout 5: 50 squats 40 sit ups 30 push ups 20 body rows 10 burpees (1-3 rounds, rest between rounds if required)