Here's One Bodyweight Exercise Workout For Strength and Explosive Leg Power

If you'd like to develop great upper-body strength and explosive leg power, using only bodyweight exercises, then the workout featured here is tailored for you.

Even though this workout has only 3 exercises, I think you'll still find it a challenge, especially if you're new to bodyweight exercises. The chin-ups and superman push-ups will both help to give you a strong upper body. The power phase of the burpee will help give you just that-explosive leg power.

The exercises you see here are taken from the new bodyweight exercise report.

As a note, be sure you have a clean bill of health before doing any physical exercise.

Let's get right in.

For this, you need a chin-up bar, or something you can grab, wrap your fingers around, and hang from.

Extend your arms above your head, reach up, and grab the chin-up bar using a reverse-, close-grip. That is, a reverse-grip so that your elbows are pointed away from your body, and a close-grip so that your two hands are within 6-8 inches of each other.

You should be hanging in the air now. Bend your knees and curl your legs if they're touching the ground.

While hanging in the air, pull your body up, and go all the way (or try to go all the way) until your chin is above the bar. (Don't rest your chin on the bar.) Then, slowly lower yourself all the way down. (I emphasize all the way down because I've seen people do these without going all the way down, so it's like they're only doing half chin-ups.) If there's still a significant bend in your elbows when you go down, then you're not going all the way down.

Now, having said that, you may think that if you're new to this, you can modify this to suit your abilities and ignore having to go all the way down. Don't. That's a big mistake because then you'll get used to doing half chin-ups, then when you attempt to do full chins, you may be discouraged because you're not able to do even half of the full-length chins. If you're new to this, set a strong foundation rather than a weak one-better to do 2 or 3 full length chins and develop a strong foundation, rather than 6 or 7 half-chins and develop a weak foundation.

And this advice can apply to a lot of the exercises you do. Instead of sacrificing the full movement so you can do more reps, use the full range of motion, and do fewer, but stronger reps.

The Superman Push-up

Now let's get you a strong upper body by looking at superman push-ups.

If you know how to do standard push-ups or press-ups, then you have a basic understanding of this.

There are 2 major differences that make superman push-ups what they are:

1.Superman push-ups engage a wider variety of muscles, from your arms to your abs to your stabilizer muscles.

2.Instead of your hands out to your sides, your hands are way out in front. This is actually why they're called superman push-ups, because you have your hands out in front of you, very much like Superman does when he flies.

You begin this exercise by getting down into the push-up position.

But instead of having your hands at the sides, move them out in front of you, as though you're Superman flying.

Now, do a push-up.

Challenging, isn't it? Remember not to hold your breath.

Here's a pointer: When you're getting used to this exercise, you may find it easier to place your feet flat against a wall. The superman push-up is much more of a forward-and-back exercise than the standard push-up (you'll know what I mean when you try it). Placing your feet against a wall will help prevent you from sliding.

As you get stronger, try doing this without having your feet against a wall.

These are a 5-count, or 5-part, exercise. (Make sure the ceiling is high enough: you'll be jumping with your hands toward the ceiling in the last part of the exercise.)

Here, you can see photos of me doing the burpee and other bodyweight exercises.

Okay, start in the standing position.

1. Now, drop into a croutching postion with your hands on the floor...

2.Then shoot your feet out behind you, so that you end up in the standard push-up position.

3. Do a push-up...

4.Quickly pull your legs back into the squatting position with your hands on the floor.

5. Jump from the position above...back to the starting position below...

Keep in mind, as you get to remember these 5 steps, you're doing this fast. It's as much an aerobic exercise as it is a strength- and endurance-building one. Also, as far as keeping the rhythm goes, you can actually think of this as a 6-count exercise, since the push-up/press-up phase can actually count as 2 movements (the down and the up). So this is how it counts:

"One..." down into your croutch

"...two..." shoot your legs into the push-up/press-up position

"...three..." down (push-up/press-up phase where you lower your body)

"...four..." up (push-up/press-up phase where you're pushing yourself up)

"...five..." snap your legs back into your croutch

"...six" jump up with you hands and arms fully extended, reaching for the sky.

Oh, Before We Move On...

When I was writing this article, I saw a guy doing something that I think you'd really like to try, especially if you want to develop great leg power, incredible cardiovasuclar endurance and a strong heart.

And it's appropriate that I tell you about it here because what he was doing is a a portion of the burpee I just showed you.

Okay, it was this: he just kept shooting his legs out, and snapping them back into the croutching position.

That is, he started in the croutching position, shot his legs out, and then right back in.

Out, in, out, in.

Over and over he went.

Try that sometime.

This Tumblr page has 3 great bodyweight exercises.