Bodyweight exercises need little, if any equipment to get a great full body workout. It’s something you can do on holiday, in a park, or in your own home. You can keep fit when travelling and can make it as simple or as creative as you want. The great thing about bodyweight training is that it is functional and therefore makes everyday activities easier. I’m a huge fan of lifting heavy weights too, but at the end of the day the basis of everybody’s fitness should be to start off with being able to lift or control your own bodyweight.



Bodyweight exercises can be performed anywhere

If you’re in an office and you have 20 minutes spare in your lunch break or you get in to work a bit earlier, then all you need is a small floor space and you can get going. If you are someone who travels a lot, be it work or pleasure, why not try a session on the beach, your hotel room or hotel gym. You can be as creative with your sessions as you like, so whether that be doing chin ups on the monkey bars in the local park playground, or doing sprints on 
the beach, there’s no limits to places and things you can use to make bodyweight training work. If you are strapped for time and can’t leave the house then maybe look into 
purchasing some basic equipment such a step, or a Swiss ball to add variety to your home workouts and give yourself more options. That being said even if you have no equipment at all you can still get a full body workout in literally anywhere.

Bodyweight exercises can be progressed or regressed

Pretty much every exercise you can think of can be made easier or harder with progressions and regressions. There shouldn’t be too many exercises that are off bounds. Let’s Take a press up for example, stage one for a beginner may be to start off standing up, feet back away from the wall, hands on the wall and pushing your bodyweight away from the wall. From there you can make it slightly harder by taking it down to the floor, with knees on the ground lower your chest towards the floor and then drive back up through the chest 
arms and shoulders until arms are back to starting position. We can then advance to a standard press up, and then on to a press up with feet raised on to a chair or bench, and then finally if you feeling you still need a challenge, then you can try some variations such as clap press ups or single arms press ups. The same theory can be applied to any exercise.




Focus on Time Under Tension

One way to really isolate a muscle is to use time under tension. If we take a squat for example, instead of performing 10 reps as quick as you can with no thought behind it, try lowering yourself down for the count of 4, pausing for a second, focusing on squeezing the 
quads and the glutes, and then standing up to the count of 3, but not locking your legs out at the top. Keeping the legs under tension throughout the whole exercise.  Suddenly 10 reps performed like this using your same bodyweight will feel a lot harder and your legs will feel 
a lot more worked.


Many people use bodyweight exercises for weight loss, they allow us to tone up muscles and improve fitness, strength and athletic performance with no gym memberships needed.