Body as a Barbell

Building on my last post, some may feel a bit unprepared for exercise because they don’t have a trainer, a gym, or a bunch of equipment. While I would always recommend using a trainer, even just sporadically to tune up your program and form, you don’t need a fancy gym or equipment to get started.

Body as a Barbell

Body-weight exercises can be tough if done right so you can forgo equipment, at least for a while. Basic progression would follow a bilateral start and move toward a unilateral end. This would be something like starting with a basic squat, moving to a split squat (both feet on the ground), then to a rear foot elevated split squat, and finally a single leg squat. 

Squat progression - body-weight bilateral squat

Squat progression - split squat
 

Squat progression - rear foot elevated split squat

Squat progression - single leg squat

We can also play around with biomechanics to adjust intensity. Take a push up for example, we start on the knees (short lever), move to the toes (long lever) but elevate the hands (weight biased toward the feet which is easier), then hands on the ground (re-distributing your weight more evenly between feet and hands for increased intensity), and finally elevate the feet (weight biased toward the hands increasing intensity even more).

Push up progression - half push up

Push up progression - full push up, hands elevated

Push up progression - full push up

Push up progression - full push up, feet elevated

Another element we can incorporate to increase intensity is explosive movement. Any plyometric exercise is going to be more challenging than it’s standard counterpart. Jump squats are more taxing than standard squats; plyo push-ups are much harder than standard push-ups and so on.

Jump squat

 

One last consideration for controlling intensity is rest period. I generally do body-weight workouts in a circuit so time between exercises will have a big effect on intensity. For the beginner we would want at least a 1:1 work to rest ratio if not something closer to 1:2. A 1:2 ratio would be something like 30 sec. on/ 60 sec. off, moving to a 1:1 ratio (30 on/30 off) as conditioning improves. As you become more advanced the rest period becomes shorter until you reach a 2:1 ratio (30 on/15 off). The most challenging option would be to move straight through your circuit taking only enough time to switch exercises and resting between sets.

Tabata is a term that may come up with this type of exercise, which is a 2:1 (20 sec. on/10 sec. off) ratio workout done for 8 continuous sets at max effort. There are many ways to do tabata though the original was done on an airdyne bike creating a 4-minute set (20 sec. on/ 10 sec. off x 8). 

Airdyne bike, if you have access to one try Tabata

I generally do tabatas as a circuit because I feel that you perform better reps when other movements are spliced in. Imagine doing push ups in this work to rest ratio for 4 minutes straight. I don’t think it would surprise anyone that the last few rounds get pretty ugly form wise, which isn’t ideal.

The one catch to bodyweight workouts may be the pulling exercise. If you don’t have access to a pull up bar or something strong enough for inverted rows then some sort of implement will be required.

Inverted row

What This May Look Like

If we base our body-weight circuit off of movement patterns (remember last post?) we’d start with push, lower body, pull, and core. We then build off of this base, which might look something like the following:

1.    Push up, squat, pull up, plank

2.    Push up, split squat, mountain climbers, inverted row, renegade row (plank while alternately pulling one arm off the ground in a rowing motion)

3.    Cycled split squat jumps, push up (with feet elevated), single leg hip extension, mountain climbers, inverted row, Renegade row

4.    Cycled split squat jumps, push up (with feet elevated), heiden (speed skater), single leg hip extension, mountain climbers, pull up, renegade row, burpee

Turn any of these into a tabata and you’ve taken it to an even higher level of intensity. If #4 is done as a tabata it will effectively be 32 minutes of near continuous work that already includes challenging explosive exercises, definitely not for the faint of heart or lung.

         The take away from all of this is that keeping in shape doesn’t have to be a huge production that requires tons of equipment and time. I guarantee that option #4 above, done as a tabata, will be tough for even the seasoned athlete and it only takes a half hour. So unless you’re an endurance athlete, sacrificing intensity for duration is a mistake. You will get in better shape with something like option #4 above than you will simply doing cardio for an hour. Less time, better results, what's not to like?