You don’t have to spend money on gym memberships and special equipment to get a good workout. There are plenty of bodyweight exercises that can give your body a real challenge, building up your strength and fitness in the comfort of your lounge room. Here’s how you can use your bodyweight to develop your own fitness plan that can be done any time, anywhere…

Benefits of bodyweight exercises

You can create quite a challenging workout using just your bodyweight. There are so many different moves you can do to work all your major muscle groups, so you can use bodyweight exercises to tone your body all over. And if you increase the speed, you can get a decent cardio workout as well- so your overall strength and fitness will improve.

The main benefit of bodyweight exercises is that you don’t need any expensive equipment, and you don’t have to go to a gym. In fact, you can do these exercises anywhere, at any time, so it’s easy to fit in to your daily schedule when you’re low on time or motivation. For people who are just starting out with strength training, using their body weight is usually more than enough to start with- and for more experienced strength trainers, you can modify the exercises to be more challenging, or add in some basic equipment like kettleballs, hand-weights etc.

How to use bodyweight exercises

Try a few different things to decide on a list of bodyweight exercises that you like, and develop your own routine. You don’t have to do all of them- just pick 5 to 12 exercises and do them all in succession. Start with a warm-up like jumping jacks or jogging in place for five to ten minutes to get your blood pumping. Then do each of the exercises you’ve chosen in 30 second to 2 minute sets, resting only as much as you need to before moving on to the next one. When that starts to get too easy, you can go for a second and third circuit.

Some examples of bodyweight exercises you can do…

(Note: You can easily find videos of each of these exercises on YouTube if you’re not sure what to do.)

• Push-ups
• Crunches
• Planks
• Lateral barrier jump
• Sit-ups
• Russian twists
• Squats
• Hyperextension
• Calf raises
• Leg raises
• Triceps dips
• Jump squats
• Bicycle crunches
• Mountain climbers
• Burpees
• Lunges

Getting the best results

Try to choose a range of exercises that will work all parts of your body. While you might want to focus on ‘problem areas’, it would be good to include a few varied moves that will give you all-over toning benefits as well. To make it even more challenging, you should try adding in a few cardio exercises, like skipping, jumping jacks or jogging in place. If you choose the right mix of activities, you can get a real workout all in the comfort of your own lounge room, with no need for extra equipment.

However, as you get stronger, it’s a good idea to add in some weights or other small pieces of equipment to make sure you’re still pushing yourself. You can buy hand-weights and fitballs fairly cheaply, so invest in a few pieces and give your workout an extra challenge. Take it slow and gradually build up your strength- and soon enough, you’ll find the results really rewarding.