Do you know bodyweight exercises are a good choice for you if you are eager to get into the swing of working out?
In addition, bodyweight exercises are an effective source to start a new workout routine. If you’re fond of finding low-maintenance alternatives to gym equipment and workout machines, these exercises are a good choice. As beginners you can rely on body weight exercises to kick start a new workout regimen.
Types of Exercises and Targeted Areas
Bodyweight exercises are of different types. The type of exercise is defined on the basis of the targeted area that they deal with. For example, if your targeted ea is your chest, you can choose up-down dog flow or push ups to strengthen your chest. If you want to strengthen your core, rely on mountain climbers and leg raises. People who focus on the triceps and biceps found in arms and shoulders tend to do planks with extended arm movements. If you;re an athlete or a runner, you should focus on jump rope, calf raises and jumping jacks. Doing bridge rolls, locus and tiger pose exercises can help strengthen your upper and lower back area. So it’s good to work your entire body for better results.
How to Start a Bodyweight Exercise Routine?
Bodyweight exercises are full of variety. You can adopt any of them according to your needs and targeted area. Although experts suggest having time for a full workout, you can try the routines jotted below for your convenience. The additional advantage of the bodyweight exercises is they can be done in quick sessions.
The first option is to sneak in a few exercises if you have a break in office. You also can choose multitasking such as doing some exercises while you have a face or hair mask. You can adopt these routines for about 20 to 30 minutes a day for a few weeks. Also give yourself a full day rest in between the sessions of bodyweight exercises.
The Best Routines for Bodyweight Exercises as a Beginner
If you’re a regular exerciser and like to get into the routine of working out regularly, these exercises are best for you. You should try these exercises before attempting more advanced forms. You have to follow a circuit type routine to do such exercise, such as:
- Initially perform some light exercises that can help warm your body up. Perform such stretching exercises just for 3 to 5 minutes
- There must be a rest break of maximum two minutes between each workout session.
- Extended Arm Movement This exercise helps you to warm-up and increase the pumping heart rate. To perform this exercise, you should:
- Keep your arms extended out from your sides equal to your shoulder level.
- Stand on your feet with hip-width apart.
- Make a small circle in one direction by moving your arms forward and keep your palms facing down.
- Switch the direction.pulse your arms up and down.
- It’s the time to go back to the initial pose by leaving your arms straight along your sides.
- Repeat each movement for 30 seconds.
Push-Ups
This bodyweight exercise helps strengthen your abdominals, lower back and upper body. The basic push ups are also tried with some variations as well. Once you get expert in basic form, add some variation to improve the results. To perform this exercise:
- Get into a plank position while keeping your chest lifted and knees dropped down.
- Move your chest down while keeping your upper arms moving until they reach parallel to the floor.
- Try the push ups with some variations, such as with straightened legs and aligned knees. These can increase your stamina and strength. Wall push ups are another type of push ups that contain some modifications with limited space requirement.
Tiger
This bodyweight pose helps you build a stronger core that makes a good base for movement in your body. Performing this exercise is not hard. You have to:
- Make a table top position while coming onto all of your fours.
- Exert a little force to place your knee under your hip while placing your hand below the respective shoulder on the floor.
- Keep yourself in this pose and rotate your ankle and wrist joints in both directions.
- Move your elbows and knees towards each other while exhaling out.
- On an inhale return to the starting position.
Leg Raises
This pose helps you realign your spine and provides protection for lower back movements. It also improves your movements by protecting your lower back and realigning your spine. Once you get started with this exercise on one leg, you can get expertise in doing it with both legs simultaneously.
- Get full support by extending your both legs towards the ceiling.
- Now, stop raising one leg, bend it and press it foot into the floor.
- Keep your palms facing down while your arms rest next to your body.
- Start exhaling while exerting a force to place your right leg on the ground.
- Start inhaling while lifting your left leg and put it to the initial position.
- Repeat on the other leg.
Calf Raises
- Exert a strong force to put your whole body weight on the balls of your feet while raising your heel off the ground.
- Return to the starting pose gently.
- Do 10 reps.
- Pulse up and down for 10 seconds while holding the upper position on balls of your feet.
- Hold this position for more than 10 seconds.
- Now you can bring your heels back to the floor as an initial pose.
- Repeat the exercise at least 5 times.
Jumping Jacks
- Spread your feet shoulder feet and start jumping.
- Extend your arms over your head.
- Jump back to the normal position.
- Repeat for 5 minutes.
How to Maintain Flexibility?
You may find a lot of benefits in building your body muscles. But if you make the mistake of creating tightness in your body white doing muscle building workouts you can harm your muscles. Here are some simple but effective tips for you which may help you promote your flexibility of muscles and range of motion of your joints.
Stretch Regularly or Practice Yoga
Practicing yoga poses is a good option for you if you want to loosen up your body. You can lengthen your each muscle by stretching it for a maximum of five minutes daily. This will also improve the flexibility of your connective tissues. Try to forget about all tensions and hurting things while posing yoga. This may help you live deeper in a pose. Reclined butterfly, head-to-knee, and leg-Up-the-Wall are the best examples of stretching yoga poses.
In addition, you can also try a popular meditation technique by lying down, named as yoga nidra. This is a simple yoga pose in which you just lie on your back and listen to your body. You may reap a variety of benefits from this yoga pose, including body relaxation and muscle strength.
Popular Yoga Poses as Bodyweight Exercises
Perform Breathing Exercises
In breathing exercises you just focus on your breathing that helps you to identify where you are holding your tightness or tension.
Get a Massage
Your body gets relaxed after a body massage. So why are you not trying this tip? It is actually a reward to your body for performing well throughout the tough routine of the day. When you work hard throughout the day, your muscle knots limit your movement. A massage helps you improve your range of motion and with improved flexibility by breaking down the muscle knots. These efforts make it possible for you to protect yourself from injuries and continue your workout routine without any hurdles. Most effective types of massage include:
Sport massage.
Deep tissue.
Trigger point.
Keep Yourself Hydrated
Drinking plenty of water is an extra-ordinary technique to maintain your muscle strength and body weight. But it shouldn’t be always enlarged. Actually your body requires water in different quantities at different times of the day. Hydration is the process that makes your body muscles fresh and strengthened. Hydrated muscles work properly. You should drink enough water throughout the day because enough fluid intake can help start to hurt your muscles and drive their flexibility. You can also drink vegetable juice, kombucha or herbal teas to hydrate your body muscles. Some foods also contain a large amount of fluid that can help you keep yourself hydrated.
Do Something that Relaxes You
Your body and mind needs relaxation. Stress is the most affecting element of all that causes tension and creates tightness in your body. Not only your mind but your body also needs some leisure time to boost the lost energy. Putting your body aside time for a physical activity each week can help you relax your body and mind as well. You can try a morning or evening walk, a relaxing warm bath or a light meditation or exercise in a natural environment.
Advantages of Bodyweight Workouts
Motivation is a necessary element to keep you involved in some bodyweight workouts. You don’t need to have strenuous workouts to get benefits from bodyweight exercise but you can try some simple exercises as mentioned above. However, whatever exercise you choose, it doesn’t matter. The important point is to pay attention to the reason for doing bodyweight exercises. Yes. Whether you’re going for a walk, doing cardio or performing some stretching exercises, small steps are needed for a maximum benefit. Being motivated is another important step to cover your journey with patience and step by step.
However, sometimes the delayed results may put you in bad feelings and you feel demotivated. Here you should remember the advantages of bodyweight exercises that can help you stay motivated. The advantages include:
Improved mobility.
Promoted heart health.
Enhanced cardiovascular health.
Quick fat loss.
These benefits indicate that bodyweight exercises are the most effective way to improve your overall performance and body weight. Engaging yourself in regular physical activities is a great tool to boost your energy levels. It also impacts your overall well-being mood positively. These factors arise from an optimal vision in you that urges you to have an improved routine that includes simple bodyweight exercises.
Conclusion
Setting goals for yourself and making plans for sticking to those goals are important factors that affect the effectiveness of your workout routine. Therefore, the experts always suggest to start with small steps and goals that can be achieved easily. Over time, you become able to enhance your stretching force and body strength. These steps make sure that you’ll see the positive and encouraging results very soon.
In addition, if you have a tough and busty working schedule throughout the week, you can do partial bodyweight exercises. Because lacking a larger chunk of time may cause an inactive or sedentary lifestyle leading to an abrupt weight gain and experiencing several serious health issues as well, the most important thing is listening to your body. So do it and what’s best for your body. Perform regular but easy workouts and build yourself slowly. However, talking to your doctor or physical trainer before trying new bodyweight exercises is essential because they can guide you about the positive and negative impacts of a specific workout according to your physical and mental health. Moreover, if you’re taking any medications or any health condition that can be affected adversely by your workout routine, share this to your healthcare provider so that they may guide you to take precautionary measures to stop the interference of such things with your exercise routine.
