If you're on the road as much as my husband is, you may have a hard time keeping a workout routine going. While there's often no shortage of fitness rooms or running trails, the missing ingredient is usually time. When you have a day that starts at the crack of dawn and doesn't end until after a long client dinner, the chances of getting in a workout aren't very good.
The nice thing about exercise is that you don't need any equipment to do it. When I told my husband this, he informed me that body weight exercises are lame. That was all the motivation I needed to prove him wrong.
Below are some of the moves I had him do for a short, simple, yet challenging workout. The key to making body weight exercises challenging is to play around with the exercises, reps, tempo and positioning. For example, adding a side plank to the pushup engages more core and makes the move more intense. Adding short, slow pulses to the around the world lunges (4 pulses per lunge) had him wincing, and I won't even mention what he said about the squat thrusts (add a pushup in there and a jump at the end and the sweat starts to flow). The plank with a knee bend is a great exercise for the core and adding mountain climbers at the end rounded out a decent series of exercises for staying active on the road.
These are just a few examples...what about you? What are your favorite killer body weight exercises? Leave a comment and tell us about them.
More Body Weight Resources
These exercises create masculine squarish muscles in woman and build the waist muscles and triceps unevenly via hypertrophy. Men should do these not women.
This is great! Thanks for sharing these exercises.
To SuperAmanda: these exercises are not meant to be a regular routine (although they could serve as that too) but as a quick and easy to do substitue when being away from home.
Thanks Paige for sharing these- I travel quite a bit and can relate to the situation. I like to watch out fór an opportunity to do pullups too- there is always a suitable tree or door frame around.
These exercises arget the big muscle groups so they help avoid muscle atrophy when not working out for some time.
- Perry
Great workouts. I love that none of them involve any equipment. Our own body weight is enough to get us fit and looking great.
not sure what superamanda means. women don’t have the genes to build muscle mass for one and i find body weight exercises create definition as well as strength.something women lack without doing resistance training of some sort. in fact everybody should do resistance training whether body weight or weights to build bone density and strength. women don’t be afraid of the push up or the pull up. and squats are great lower body toners,the grandfather of exercises.
Thanks, these are very helpful.
I love doing plyometric moves & circuit training, whether at home or away. I told my husband that they would help him get super tone & get conditioned for skiing & mtb-ing; after trying a few, he thought I was crazy! I will try to encourage him to keep at it; he still does the plank once in a while LOL. Theses type of exercises do so much for me…couldn’t live without them.
“These exercises create masculine squarish muscles in woman and build the waist muscles and triceps unevenly via hypertrophy. Men should do these not women.”
These type of comments are exactly the ones that stop women from progressing. The exercises in the post are excellent, and everybody, man woman or child would benefit from them.
I train many people, including my own wife with exercise similar to the ones posted and I’ve yet to have a woman complain about the way they look and feel after a few months following the program (in fact I got a little jealous of the admiring looks my wife ould get while we were out, but thats another story…)
My trainer has me do most of these and they can certainly be very challenging. He adds a plyometric pushup to the squat thrust – sure gets my heart rate going! We also do a V pushup that is great for shoulders when you don’t have any equipment.
I have a love/hate relationship with these exercises…I love them because I know they work…I hate them because they really are hard! LOL
To superamanda, I have been doing these exercises for about three years now and my muscles are anything but squarish and masculine. I also recommend “clock planks” where from plank position you move your feet around your hands like the hands of a clock.
Superamanda hasn’t a clue as to what she’s talking about. I agree with Dave. Folks like her hold women back and keep them lifting three pound weights because they are afraid of “bulking up.” God forbid a woman have an actual muscle!