Thursday, June 5, 2008

The Bodyweight Benefit

Now, besides sprinting, I haven't really touched on any exercises that don't involve free weights or dumbbells. But let's just assume that you don't have access to these exercise tools. Let's also assume that you don't feel like traveling to the nearest gym, but are just looking for some great workouts to try out at home.
It is not hard to to find plenty of exercises that you can do simply using your bodyweight. You can enjoy incredible workouts that will help you burn fat, and also build great muscle tone.
Bodyweight workouts are for beginners as well as advanced bodybuilders. To this day, some of my most challenging and calorie-crunching workouts revolve around nothing more than push-up and pull-up variations, some full body cardio movements, and some great core and abdominal exercises.
You may have already heard me preach my doctrine about the front squat and how effective I feel it is. It has done a great deal for me and remains my favorite exercise, but what some people don't realize is that this exercise can also be done very effectively without weights. Your bodyweight is enough to make a few sets of squats burn and tone your core like never before.
I have a salaried position on my job and am supervised very lightly, so I have a lot of time to sneak into my office room and do a few sets of squats using only my bodyweight. I simply descend while keeping my body up right which works my core do to with the balance, and raise my arms to an outright position in front of me. As I come back up, I bring my arms back down and repeat the movement.
I usually do about 20 of these. Around 15, I start going very slow. This increases the burn and also makes the last five squats very challenging (even with just bodyweight). Try it a few times, and I'm sure you will agree that squatting using only bodyweight is still very effective in giving you the body you desire.

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