Bodyweight Exercises 1

Bodyweight exercises, or in more fancy terms calisthenics is the simple art of using your own body weight as resistance in exercises. These exercises require minimal equipment, and this article is your basic guide to get started. 

Calisthenics can target any muscle group provided that you perform the correct exercise with the correct form, making your body your very own gym. Before I go over some common calisthenics exercises, let's take care of the most famous push-ups to which I have dedicated an entire article, so check that out for different variations and progressions of the exercise. Now here are some common calisthenic exercises to begin with:

The tricep dip or the tricep bench dip as the name suggests trains your triceps and is known to be one of the best exercises to train the triceps. It involves holding onto two rods and lowering your body 

Push ups is one of the most common exercises that can be used to target a variety of muscles with slight changes in form. There is a whole other article dedicated to this exercise covering some such variations. 

The wall sit is a great exercise to target your quads. It involves leaning against a wall and sitting on an invisible chair at a 90 degree angle. Starting out, you can do the same exercise at larger angles and for shorter times, which can be gradually changed as you progress. Wall sits are largely a mental game, so I recommend you have your favorite songs playing at really loud volumes to distract you from the pain as you do this exercise.

Planks are another exercise with a large amount of variations each training different portions of your abs. To perform the simple plank ensure your body is in a straight lines as you lie on the ground held up by your elbows and toes. Hold the position for as long as you can, and do your best to distract yourself from the pain.

Cardio is the easiest to do without equipment, just a simple jog, high knees, mountain climbers and a whole of other exercises can meet all your cardio needs.

So those are some exercises that you can do with nothing but your bodyweight. If you notice, these exercises only train the chest, triceps, abs and leg muscles leaving out the “pull” muscles like the back and bicep. These pull muscles althoughcannot be trained with just bodyweight, using stuff around you as resistance can allow you to even train these muscle groups at home, but that’s content for another blog. Until then, go ahead and give these exercises a shot.