Subtitles section Play video
-
What's up guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM.
-
We're going to continue our series today of our 8 Best Exercises.
-
This time covering the 8 Best Bodyweight Exercises you can do.
-
And we're going to mix it up guys, it's not just strength training exercises but conditioning
-
as well.
-
If you want to be an Athlete, you've got to train like an Athlete.
-
We're going to combine both strength and conditioning to cover each of these 8 exercises.
-
And guess what?
-
We're going to cover your whole body too and the only piece of equipment that you'll need
-
to manipulate your own bodyweight for a few of the exercises is a single Pullup Bar.
-
Guys if you don't have one already, invest in one. 10 to 15 bucks is well worth your
-
development here.
-
So let's get it started. The 8 Best Bodyweight Exercises you can do.
-
Alright let's kick this list off the right way, with the old classic Pull Up.
-
There's no way that we can get through an 8 Best Exercises list without including this
-
one
-
because it simply is one of the best things you can do for your upper body and it is a
-
great Bodyweight option.
-
Now let's say you are not getting enough out of a Pull Up. Or you're looking for something
-
more advanced or more difficult,
-
we can involve more muscles in the exercise by simply switching our grip.
-
And the thing here guys you will see, the common theme with all these exercises is there
-
are certainly ways to modify
-
to make these exercises more of a regression to make them easier or make them a progression
-
to make them harder.
-
And being able to master that is the key.
-
Because you never want to get stagnant with any of your upper body exercises or any of
-
your Bodyweight exercises period.
-
So here if I switch my grip up to what we call the Commando Pull Up.
-
Now I've got a Core involvement because my body wants to twist in one side as soon as
-
you take this over under grip.
-
You can't let that happen.
-
We're going to let our Core kick in and actually help us to stay stable while we Pull Up to
-
each side of the bar.
-
Of course a little bit extra Forearm involvement here, a little bit of Biceps, never a bad
-
thing here when we're trying to Amp Up the intensity of the exercise.
-
Let's stick with that theme though, as we move to number 2. Let's get those Biceps a
-
little bit more involved.
-
And of course let's get that Core a little bit more involved too just by flipping the
-
grip all the way over to what we call a Chin Up Knee Up.
-
And you can see as I do this exercise, it's two parts. The first part is getting my head
-
up over that bar through a natural Chin Up.
-
Which we know that positioning will work our Biceps a lot more than it would in a normal
-
Pull Up positioning.
-
And of course, let's involve those Abs as well by finishing with the Knee Up.
-
Guys a great way to get more out of your Bodyweight Exercises and Training is to put more in them.
-
And you can see this exercise gives us that opportunity.
-
Add a few more muscle groups, make the movement a little bit more complex but you're going
-
to get the rewards that you're looking for, much quicker.
-
Ok, let's throw the equipment away altogether and shift to the other half of our body, our
-
Legs.
-
And by far one of the most difficult lower body exercises you can do is a Bodyweight
-
exercise and it's a the Slick Floor Bridge Curl.
-
And you can see, all you need to do is put on a pair of socks, find some kind of a slick
-
floor. Which here I'm using tile, you can use a wood floor.
-
Anything that you can actually just slide your socks on and you've got one of the best
-
Glute Hamstring developers in your arsenal.
-
The great thing about the Slick Floor Bridge Curl is you're actually training your muscles
-
to work the way they're supposed to work.
-
You don't ever want to have your Hamstrings trying to work without the help of the Glutes.
-
You see far too often, when the Hamstrings have to do all the work, that's when you get
-
a Hamstring injury.
-
Let the bigger stronger Glutes kick in and this exercise forces you to do that by holding
-
your Bridge up high and then initiating the Hamstring Curl.
-
Of course we can't neglect the front side of our legs and this exercise gives us an
-
opportunity to make sure we don't.
-
This is our Levitation Squat.
-
The Levitation Squat is actually a really good exercise for those particularly those
-
that have a hard time maybe even attempting a Pistol Squat.
-
The Pistol Squat puts our leg out in front of us which makes it a lot harder for us to
-
even balance.
-
It's not necessarily that you don't have the single leg strength to execute it, but you
-
might not have the single leg strength combined with the balance to execute it.
-
Now, can you progress yourself to a Pistol Squat? By all means, Yes.
-
And you can actually self spot yourself by hanging on to a bar when you perform it, until
-
you build the adequate strength and balance to do it.
-
But I'm going to tell you, I still love the Levitation Squat. It makes my knees feel a
-
little bit better
-
and I'm able to actually push and get a little bit more out of every single rep and therefore
-
for me, I put it right at the top of my list.
-
Ok, you knew that no Bodyweight list would ever be complete without some variation of
-
a Pushup.
-
Right, we know that we're going to have to target our Chest with some type of Pushup
-
because that really is the best option outside of Dips.
-
But we're trying to limit the equipment here, right, I always said only a Pull Up Bar.
-
The bodyweight Pushup that I like here is the Divebomber Pushup because if you perform
-
this exercise correctly you're not just targeting your Chest,
-
but you're actually heavily targeting your Shoulders, your Chest and your Triceps at
-
different ranges in the motion.
-
See when you first start your descent, you're actually working a lot on your Shoulders and
-
when you get down to the bottom of the rep
-
you're really maximizing your Chest and as you come back up and out, you're really contracting
-
the Triceps as you get a little bit of extension back behind your body.
-
You can make this even more difficult and more rewarding and even target, either the
-
Triceps or the Shoulders a little bit more,
-
by simply performing as I'm showing you here, a one and a half rep style of the exercise.
-
So come down into the front, if you want to work your Triceps and instead of coming all
-
the way back up, head back up for one more half a rep and then come back up.
-
Or if you want to work your Shoulders a little bit more, just simply stay at the top range
-
of the motion for just that extra half rep
-
and you'll be able to give your Shoulders just that little extra that they might need
-
to start making them pop even more.
-
Speaking of Shoulders, there's actually a way that we can work them and still get in
-
those conditioning benefits that I talked about earlier in the video.
-
And the perfect example here is a Mule Kick.
-
This exercise is incredibly demanding, trust me, if you haven't tried one, try it.
-
What happens is you've got to support your entire body weight, whatever that might be
-
and push your legs up towards the ceiling.
-
Every rep is basically a version of a dynamic or explosive Shoulder Press with your Shoulders
-
still in contact with the ground.
-
So instead of trying to push the Dumbbells up and away from you, you're trying to push
-
your body up and away from the ground.
-
And definitely a challenging exercise and one you should try and talk about the conditioning
-
benefits?
-
Do this for a minute straight and I'll tell you, your Heart will be pumping and you'll
-
likely be breaking a serious sweat.
-
Of course one of the most classic conditioning exercises you can do when you're talking Bodyweight,
-
is a Burpee.
-
But a Burpee alone is boring. We can do a lot more guys, if you want to train Athletic,
-
again challenge yourself to do more things.
-
Challenge yourself to do things in not just the sagittal plane, up and down but make yourself
-
more athletic by involving some rotation.
-
And the version I'm showing you here of the Burpee is certainly a way we can do that.
-
This is the Side Kickthrough Burpee or just a plain old Kickthrough Burpee.
-
This is a bitch but I love it, because it will get those lungs burning in no time, I
-
promise you.
-
And again, it's combining a great amount of athleticism to do it.
-
Yeah, there's some coordination involved here too but I promise if you just practice it
-
a couple times,
-
you're going to master this exercise and in doing so, get control of one of the best conditioning
-
bodyweight exercises that you can ever do.
-
Ok, last but certainly not least, let's break out the Pull Up Bar one last time and ratchet
-
up the difficulty level just a little bit more
-
for one of the most rewarding upper body Bodyweight exercises that you can do and that is the
-
Front Lever.
-
The Front Lever is going to demand two muscle groups work together that don't normally prefer
-
to work together and that is the upper back and the Core.
-
See you can do this because we know that the Core is going to have to provide the stability
-
to fight that force of gravity that's trying to bend you in half every single time you
-
lift yourself up.
-
And oh by the way, the only way you're going to be able to lift yourself up is by having
-
the adequate strength in your upper back to perform what is essentially
-
a Straight Arm Pushdown without weights to get your body up and against that force of
-
gravity.
-
This is absolutely one of the best exercises that you can do and it's one that commands
-
respect because everybody knows, it's pretty damn hard to do.
-
Don't be discouraged if you can't do it.
-
You can always break out an assisted band to try to anchor your feet in until you've
-
built up the strength to be able to do the exercise fully.
-
But still, whatever way you wind up doing it, it's still a great exercise and one of
-
the best to add to your bodyweight exercise routines.
-
Alright guys, so there you have it, 8 exercises to prove once again, that Bodyweight training
-
does not have to be inferior training.
-
As a matter of fact, our ATHLEAN XERO Program, we're going to throw away the Pull Up Bar,
-
give you all new ways to work your back and your Biceps without it
-
and not to mention, combine strength and conditioning always and give you progressive ways to help
-
you to build muscle.
-
That is available guys, at ATHLEAN XERO @ ATHLEANX.COM.
-
In the meantime, if you found this video helpful, make sure you leave your comments and thumbs
-
up below.
-
And remember, Bodyweight training, you can change the way you do exercises just like
-
we did with the Divebomber Pushup to elicit all new responses from those movements.
-
You can change the way you group exercises together. You can change the progresses and
-
you can regress if you have to.
-
It's all about how you put the exercise together that determines what you get out of them.
-
Alright guys, I'll see you back here again soon.
-
Let me know whatever else it is that you want to see and I'll do my best to bring it to
-
you here three times a week.