How To Work Out With Bodyweight Exercises

While this question may be about using bodyweight exercises to tone up your body, the principles are still the same even if you use any other form of resistance training. Why is this? Because the factors responsible for "toning" a muscle apply across the board, and what you are looking for is a myth. Let me explain.

Toning is a weird word. It's very subjective. Usually when people ask how to tone up using bodyweight exercises what they really mean is how to make it so that area of the body doesn't look fat. However, sometimes people use the word "tone" with the intention of expressing muscle growth.

Regardless of how you use the word, there are only certain things you can do to a muscle with bodyweight training or any training for that matter. If you want to lose fat off a muscle, then you are looking for a workout that will burn as many calories as possible while still stimulating the muscles enough to maintain their size and strength.

I say this because no magic number of sets and reps will specifically cause a single muscle to lose fat and tone up. Toning up when used in terms of getting leaner is a result of your body burning calories and losing fat all over the body. This then, results in all your muscles looking leaner.

Toning up to make a muscle leaner is a result of expending more calories then you consume on a daily basis until you have used enough of your fat for fuel that you have the amount of leanness you desire.

Now if by toning up you mean building muscle with bodyweight exercises, then I can help you with more specifics in regards to numbers of sets and repetitions. Building muscle mass with any method including bodyweight exercises is a result of putting a load on that muscle that it is unaccustomed to. Generally speaking, going as heavy as you can for five sets of five, four sets of six to eight or even 3 sets of 12-15 will produce an increase in muscle size. This is of course providing that you are eating and resting correctly.

A lot of times losing weight is made out to be way to complicated compared to the reality of what it actually takes. Here is a good cardio workout to lose weight that has only three exercises requiring only bodyweight exercises so you don't need any equipment. If you string them together in the ways I'm going to tell you, they are scientifically proven to significantly increase the amount of calories you burn over traditional long cardio done for the same period of time.

The following workout is intended to be quick and done anywhere at any time, without any preparation. If you prefer a group environment or atmosphere and are tired of normal cardio workouts at the gym then I'd suggest Muay Thai classes or kickboxing. You'll sweat your shorts off.

First here are the bodyweight exercises:

1 Up Two Back Jump Squats - This one will have your legs burning right off. This one will put the explosive work into the mix and put in enough "suck" to make the next two exercises quite brutal.

Mark of a distance by doing a single broad jump as far as you can and then take off about a foot of distance. Mark a line where you took off from and one about a foot back from where you landed.

Stand with your feet on line one, squat down and put both hands on the floor between your feet, which are in a wide stance. From here, explode to line two in one leap. Then without touching the ground with your hands, take two smaller jumps back to arrive where you started at line one. Do this repeatedly like I will explain in a moment.

Up Down Jumping Jacks - Jumping jacks don't require too much explanation so I I'll skip that. The way I want you to tweak it is to start going lower and lower towards the ground by bending your legs as you do the jumping jacks. When you can't go any lower, start coming back up. Then once you reach full standing height again, start heading back down. It will feel weird in the bottom position. Turning your toes and knees out so you look like a Ukrainian dancer feels much more natural than knees and toes forward.

Knee High Running - You've probably seen this one a ton in Army recruiting videos. You basically run on the spot but exaggerate the knee height by bringing your knees up to waist level. You can either lock your elbows at your sides with your hands out in front to slap your knees or you can just swing your arms like when you sprint. Both are challenging in different ways.

As an added bonus, if you want to really crush it on the last round, exchange the knee high running with jumping double knee touches. These are also talked jumping knee tucks.

There are two ways to do this that are super effective at really ramping up your metabolism and I'll give you one right here now.

Do each exercise for 30 seconds each and then after the 90 seconds is done you will rest for 60 seconds before doing it 4 more times. So basically 5 rounds of 3 exercises with 90 seconds rest between rounds.

This is high intensity interval training and it works amazing. Now of the course the real secret to losing 2 pounds a week with bodyweight exercises is not really the workout itself although it plays a big part. The real secret is making sure you eat high quality foods, cut out the processed chemical foods and eat only what you need to perform and not excess calories.

Speaking of home workouts, here is another article I did of a good home workout using Calithenics to get ready military basic training.

What do you do when you are away from the gym and you want to work your back? Most times a bodyweight exercise like chin ups or pull ups are recommended for back in this case. But what if you don't have a pull up bar? What do you do then for a back exercise?

This is actually a pretty easy one to fix and I'll give you three scenarios and fixes to make sure you can find a great back exercise to do that will give you a kick butt workout.

Case one: Create a pull-up bar

Here are some ways to make a pull up bar. First and easiest is to buy a door way pullup bar. It will save you time and they work well.

If that is not an option then you can cut two chunks of 2x4 and screw them flat side in to the wall. Then measure the door frame, cut a piece that size and screw it onto the support pieces you just put in.

Another is use two big C-clamps and tighten them up to the basement floor joists. They will act as handles you can use to pull yourself up and your head will go between the floor beams.

Case two: Find a substitute for a pull-up bar.

If you can't make a pull-up bar then find something else that will substitute for the king of all back bodyweight exercises. Go find a playground. There will be more than enough things to hang from there. Another is tree branches. If you have no playgrounds and no trees, then find a stair case. You need one that has an open back. They are usually made of steal and found outside commercial buildings. You can hang off the back and do your pull-ups there. Last ditch effort are heavy framed doors. If they are sturdy, you can open it and chin off it. Your body will slide up and down it and it will feel different than a normal pull-up but will still work awesome. Normal weak doors won't work. You'll probably bust the hinges.

Case three: Alternate bodyweight exercises for the back.

If none of that works then you probably aren't that committed but we'll push along with some more choices just in case you wanted a little more variety any way.

If you can get a long beach towel or rope then you're set. Put a knot in the middle. Open a door and put that knot on the other side of the door. Close the door. What you have now is two handles sticking out of the top of your door and anchored in. From this you can do the row exercise for your back. If your towel or rope is short, then open the door again and loop it around the door handles so that when you hold both ends you will be looking at the edge of the open door. From here you can squat down and row your bodyweight towards the door while rocking up onto your toes.

So no matter where you are you can always rock your back or any other bodypart using bodyweight exercises and variations.