It’s a shame that every time I see a youngin’ at the gym; they’re either doing some sort of exercise for their arms or doing some sort of crunch for their abs.

Now I don’t have anything against working your arms or abs but what I do have a problem with is wasting time at the gym.

I’m assuming they’re there to change their bodies.

They either want to get bigger or get lean. This is all fine and dandy but doing bicep curls and crunches isn’t going to get them there.

That’s why I decided to write this article on the 6 best body weight exercises you can do either at home or at the gym.

Here we go:

Push ups

Push ups are my favorite exercise for the chest. A lot of people knock it thinking that it has no carry over to the bench press.

That’s where you’re wrong my friend. Push ups are the best exercise you can do.

It’s a whole body movement; even though you’re just pressing. Let me explain:

If you perform the push up correctly it will obviously engage your pectoral muscle (chest) but what most people don’t realize is that in order for your chest to properly push, your back and abs need to stabilize your body. Then in order for your hips to remain in the right position your lower back, glutes, and legs need to be engaged as well, otherwise your hips will sag or pike up.

So now that you understand that push ups aren’t so basic or easy here are a some guidelines to follow when performing the push up.

  • Make sure you keep your hips and shoulders aligned; meaning make sure your shoulders don’t come up before your hips.
  • Keep your elbows close to your body; flaring them out puts un-needed pressure on your shoulders.
  • Keep your hands FLAT on the ground and spread your fingers.
  • Keep your head in a neutral position; tuck in your chin. 

Below is a picture of how to perform the push up correctly

push up 1

*The reason I’m performing push ups on dumbbells is because I have fluid in my right wrist and it doesn’t allow the proper flexibility in my wrist for me to do push ups on my palms.

So as you can see; keep your shoulders and hips aligned with each other. They come down together and up together. You also want to keep your core tight. If you release the tension in your mid section your hips will sag, so make sure that doesn’t happen.

Want to make it harder?

Band Resistance

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Weight Resistance

weight   w

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Inverted Rows

This is probably going to be a new one for some of you.

I’ve come to realize that way too many people concentrate on the muscles they can see and neglect the muscles they cant.

This is unfortunate in more ways than one

How?

Well first off, you have a small back. I don’t know about you but I think having a thick back is pretty bad ass.

It just makes you look like you lift, and if you’re putting in hard hours at the gym you want to make sure people notice.

But most importantly when you don’t train your back you start fucking with structural integrity. Your bones are what structure your body; without them you’d be a pile of skin and muscle.

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So I’ll give you this scenario; you have this guy, lets call him Jim.

He goes to the gym 4 times a week and spends an hour working out. Like most people at the gym he spends 15 minutes warming up on the treadmill.

After the 15 minutes are up he gets off and walks to the bench press.

He starts with the flat bench; warms up with two sets and proceeds to do 4 sets of 12 with 145 lbs.

After the four sets are up he goes to the incline bench and he mirrors the reps scheme of the first exercise. Then again on the decline.

After finishing 12 sets of chest exercises Jim decides to do some back.

He walks to the dumbbells, grabs a 50 and does 10 reps of 1 arm DB rows. He does this again 2 more times and he’s done with back.

Then he decides to do arms, like any normal person would, he starts with bicep curls. He proceeds to do 2 different exercises for biceps and one for the tris

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OK you get my drift?

That might have been a little exaggerated but that’s how some people honestly workout.

They over stimulate the front muscles (chest, abs, biceps) making them tighter. This creates an imbalance between the anterior (front) and the posterior (back) muscles.

Leading to something I see all to often

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Bad Posture

When you neglect workout your back it becomes weaker and your anterior muscles become tighter.

This can lead to a forward head posture, a forward shoulder lean, and posterior pelvic tilt.

Imbalances that you DO NOT want. They can lead to pain; lower back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, etc.

So remember ALWAYS train your back. There’s no reason not too.

I even recommend doing more back exercises than chest.

So below I’ll show you the best exercise to start doing if you’ve been ignoring your back.

Here are some guidelines to follow when performing inverted rows.

  • Make sure you keep your elbows close to your body. You don’t want to flare out your elbows. Again, just like the push up it can put un-needed pressure on your shoulders.
  • Make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top
  • Lower yourself under control

invert   vert

So as you can see from the picture above; my hips and shoulders stay aligned, just like in the push up.

You want to bring yourself up to the bar and really squeeze your back. Then lower yourself slowly.

Try not to use your legs to bring yourself up.

And one more thing to mention is that the closer your feet are to you the easier this exercise becomes. So if you’re relatively weak start with your feet close to you like in the picture above. As the exercise becomes easier straighten out your legs

Want to make it harder?

Chin ups

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Pull ups

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Squats

Ahhh the best damn exercise there is.

I might be playing favorites since I’ve learned to love squats over the recent months but can you blame me?

Not only do squats work your legs; they also hit your upper body pretty hard – making them one of the best exercises you can do.

For the past 3 months I’ve been front squatting for sets of 5 reps and below. I’ve been getting a lot stronger in the front squat and my abs have never been as strong as they are now.

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Obviously front squats weren’t the only thing strengthening my abs since I was also doing other core strengthening exercises but they were a huge part in how I was able to get more out of the core exercises.

If that didn’t make sense let me explain it this way. During the 3 months of switching to front squats I also started adding more gymnastic movements into my routine (front levers, L-sits, hand stands etc).

I started with the easiest variations and slowly progressed into harder ones. I feel that front squats helped me progress in the gymnastic movements which helped me get strong enough to perform dragon flags.

But anyways back to squats. They truly are my favorite exercise and I recommend everyone to do them.

Here’s a great article written up by Smitty on how to perfect the squat form. He really goes into detail on everything you need to know about the squat.

squats  squats 2

I’m not really going to go much into detail since the article did that but I do want you to remember two things. Keep your chest up and don’t push forward making your knees go over your toes.

Want to make it harder?

Kettle Bell Front Squat

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Barbell Front Squat

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Dips

Dips are a great body weight exercise that work more than one muscle at a time.

That being the nature of a compound exercise, makes dips awesome for adding a lot more muscle to your frame.

Sadly I’m seeing less and less people performing dips. Why this is. I have no idea.

It might be because dips are hard?

Maybe people are afraid of hard work?

I don’t know; what ever the reason it needs to stop. Dips are the best exercise to really hit your lower chest and triceps.

I would recommend them over decline bench press and tricep push downs any day.

They truly are a great exercise and if you’re not doing them you’re wasting valuable time at the gym.

So before we get to how to perform the dip I would like to talk about a reason that might be stopping you from performing dips.

Many years ago I used to hate dips. I never did them and every time I tried to do them I could barely move my own body weight.

My shoulders were horribly weak. I call this flimsy shoulder syndrome. If you think you suffer from this check out my article on how to get stronger shoulder and curse your flimsy shoulder syndrome good bye.

Below are guidelines to follow when performing dips

  • If you’re trying to use dips to target more of you lower chest slightly lean forward when performing the exercise
  • If you’re trying to use dips to target more of your triceps make sure you keep an up right position.
  • During the lowering phase (eccentric) make sure you only go down until your upper arm is parallel with the ground. Anything below parallel puts more strain on your shoulders.

dips  dips 2

Make sure to lower yourself slowly and under control. Work up to being able to do 15 reps with body weight. Then and only then should you add weight. Start with 5 or 10 pounds and again practice getting up to 15 reps.

Make sure you earn the weight increase. By earn I mean having full control of the movement. Like I mentioned above; go down under control and up under control.

Want to make it harder?

Weighted Dips

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Ring Dips (TRX Dips)

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Hand Stands

Like the front squat I’ve only been doing handstand movements for the past 3 months. To say that they suck would be an awful lie.

To tell you the truth the reason I never did hand stand movements is because I suffer from a ganglion cyst. Which is a pocket of fluid located right in the center of my wrist.

Being a weight lifter and having this damn cyst in my wrist has been challenging. I had it surgically removed 2 years ago but there was an 80% chance it would grow back and wouldn’t you know it.

Anyways that’s one of the main reason why I never really did handstand holds or any handstand variation.

The other reason is I don’t really like being up side down. Growing up as most of you probably already know I was a little fat boy. I never was the type to go to the jungle gym, run around, play on the monkey bars or do summer sults.

So when I got older I wasn’t used to the movements of being upside down, doing summer sults, or any movements of that nature. So I avoided doing them.

That was until I decided no more bitchassness was to be taken part on my behalf.

Three months ago I did my first handstand hold against the wall and I’ve been doing them ever since.

I started with holds and through the months I’ve been progressing to being able to do handstand push ups.

So here are some guidelines to follow when performing handstands.

  • Bring you feet up against the wall
  • Keep your body tight from your feet all the way to your hands. That means squeeze your leg, squeeze your butt, keep your core tight, and stabilize your shoulders.

handstand holds

As you can see from the picture make sure to keep your body as tight as possible and don’t let you lower back hyper-extend. Keep it flat like in the picture. Hold this possible for 30 to 60 seconds. 

Want to make it harder?

Handstand Negatives

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Lower yourself in a 5 to 8 second count.

Handstand Push Ups

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As you can see I’m still practicing and getting stronger in this movement. I still have a lot of improving to do

So there you have it. The best body weight exercises you can do either at home or at the gym. So now you have no excuses. Hit the gym and kill it.

Talk to you later,

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