what's up guys, hey these eight bodyweight exercises are going to help you to maximize your muscle strength gains.

 At home

 The best part is no equipment is required let's get into it right now. one of the questions that I've been getting asked a lot lately is hey Jared I'm working out more from home what are some of the best bodyweight exercises, that I should be doing if I don't have any equipment available so I put together a list of eight foundational exercises that I feel like should be a core for any home.

Fitness program

Fitness program and that's what I wanted to share with you today we're gonna hit everything with this video I'm gonna share upper body core and lower body exercises, but I also want to share with you different variations on the exercises to make them harder or easier depending on your specific skill.

Level

Depending on your specific fitness level I will give you set and rep recommendations for each of these exercises but that will be after.

That being said

Let's get into these exercises we're going to get things started here with mine.

  My personal

 all-time favorite bodyweight exercise is the push-up great exercise for your chest for your shoulders and your arms but then secondary you also need to keep your core tight we're working the stomach we're working the glutes and we're working the quads to maintain proper form the main cue that I'm going to give you on the push-up is make sure you go all. Way to the full extension that means I want your elbows to be straight at the top of the rep most people shortchange this rep by not going to full elbow extension at the top and trust me you're leaving gains on the table if that's the case now the cool part about the push-up is even though it's a bodyweight exercise you can vary how difficult it is by the.

Dmount of pressure

under your hands so to make it easier I recommend a wall push-up as you can still engage. your core your glutes and your quads while you're doing it or to make it harder simply kick your feet up onto an elevated surface this will put more weight onto your hands and make the push-up more.

 Difficult 

whether you go easier or harder make sure you go all the way to full extension in your triceps to maximize that exercise, now if push-ups are my favorite pushing body weight exercise pull-ups are my favorite pulling bodyweight exercise. if you don't have anywhere in your home where you can do a pull-up conveniently you can grab a pull-up bar they're super cheap online and it's a great investment if you're going to be working out regularly.                                                                 Home I've got a link to one of my favorite pull-up bars down in the description to this so make sure you check that out but honestly, there's no better way to activate a ton of back muscles at home. we're working the lats we're working the rhomboids we're working the lower traps we're also getting a ton of biceps activation as we do the pull-ups now if we're looking to make it easier if you can't do that full pull-up I recommend an inverted row instead now this is easily done between two chairs you can use a broomstick or a mop or something like that's going to allow you to pull up and towards it and to activate those.

Back muscles

with the inverted row bringing your feet closer to you bending your knees is also another way that you can make it easier if you're looking to go the other way and make that pull-up. harder



   The easiest way to do that is to vary your tempo my go-to is to slow down the eccentric meaning you can raise yourself at a normal rate but to make it, harder make that eccentric or make that.

Lowering phase

nice and slow is a great way to make the pull-ups even more difficult moving down to the core my favorite core exercise is probably the plank or at, least some variation of a plank exercise let me tell you why it's a great way to activate just a ton of core muscles all at once we're working on stability with the plank we're getting the rectus abdominus muscle we're also getting the deeper core layers activated with this, but then we're also turning on quads and glutes and chest and shoulders and shoulder stabilizers as well so a standard plank is a great of kind.

Middle of the road  

 Exercise if you're looking to make it easier simply bend your knees dropping down to your knees shortens the lever arm and lessens the demand placed on your muscles if you're looking to make it more difficult my go-to is to vary your base of support simply put if we can add some marches so, if you alternate marching left foot right foot while keeping your legs straight while keeping your core tight it's a great way to actually make those.

  Blanks are even more difficult 

now while we're talking about core don't forget that it's so much more than just the muscles in the front you need to work on the muscles on the side you need to work on the muscles in the back.

and those are my next two exercises in



order to hit those obliques those external and internal obliques those muscles are going to resist lateral flexion to do that at home without any equipment. let's drop down into a side plank now in this posture your obliques have to resist that lateral flexion to keep your body in a nice straight line if the lateral plank or the side plank is too difficult simply bend your knee all of a sudden now we drop down onto our knee and elbow the same principle applies to the plank that we just got done doing it shortens that lever arm decreases.

Demand on the muscle   

 Now if you're looking to go the other way and make it more difficult one of my favorite ways to do that, is to add a hip dip to the side plank if the internal and external obliques are lateral flexors of our core a great way to work that is with lateral flexion this is what we introduce when we add the hip dip to the side plane as a physical therapist one of the most important areas that I strengthen is the body exercise.

The posterior chain     

  That's the lower back the glutes and the hamstrings in my opinion the best bodyweight exercise to do this is going to be a single leg bridge that motion comes primarily from our glutes those powerful hip extensors should be working the hardest during this motion but we also have to stabilize with our lower back and the hamstrings are also turned on during this motion now if, the single leg bridge is too difficult to go ahead and just drop your other leg down all of a sudden now we can do a regular glute bridge same principles apply the focus should be on contracting your glutes to raise your hips towards the ceiling if you find the single leg bridge too easy a great way to take it to the next level would be to add some sliding hamstring curls to that bridge. the same principle applies you're going to come up into the bridge but now I want you to do it on a slick surface you can either have some dish towels under your feet or socks work well but what you're going to do is pull your heels up towards your glutes activating the hamstring muscles just enhancing those contractions and taking things to the.

 Next Level


Moving on to number six this has got to be my favorite lower body weight exercise and that is an air squat squats are such a great exercise because they are so functional it's going to train our lower back our glutes and our quads to all fire together in an incredibly functional movement pattern now if we need to make squats easier all we need to do is add some support from your upper body the easiest way to do that is to hold on to something in front of you you can see that I'm doing them here on my squat rack but at home, you can simply do these on a counter I recommend a kitchen sink as that's a nice firm surface that you can hold on to use your arms to help to pull yourself up to an upright posture and position now to make bodyweight squats more difficult at home one thing that you can do is vary the time under tension while you're doing those squats one of my favorite ways to do that is to add some pulses to your reps. you'll see here that as I go down and then come back up I don't come back up all the way only about halfway and then drop back down into the squat and then come back up all the way that would be one complete rep what we're doing here is simply increasing the time under tension to that muscle by not allowing it to come all the way up in the rep if you've never tried a pull squat before trying it out now my list of body weight exercises wouldn't be complete if I didn't add some form of lunge in there for your lower body probably one of my favorite ways to train your lower body because it is the unilateral meaning I'm only lunging onto one leg at. 

A time                


This is a great way to identify and target any asymmetries in strength and size that you may already have you can see here that I'm simply performing alternating lunges if you're looking for a way to make that easier my go-to is a reverse lunge instead of a forward lunge typically that puts a little bit less stress on your knee joint. it's a little bit better tolerated by most people the other thing that you can do is vary the depth of your lunge typically the lower you go the more pain can occur in your knee and the more muscle strength is required to lift yourself out of that deep lunge position and so that would be the easier version so do a reverse lunge and don't take it quite so deep now if you're looking for a more difficult version my go-to is the Bulgarian split squat I know it's named squat but honestly you guys. what about this is not a lunge to perform the Bulgarian split squat you're just going to put your trailing leg up on a surface behind you now what this does is similar to the push-ups it's going to put more pressure onto that forward leg typically you can also go through a greater range of hip flexion and knee flexion with this which is going to kick on the glutes and the quads even more effectively throughout the exercise. now if you're looking for the best bodyweight total body exercise one that combines some component of everything that we've talked about until now look no further than you guys know what I'm gonna say it's coming here it comes the burpee no other exercise is going to combine as many different muscle groups through as much different motion as your standard burpee does now here's the thing with burpees there are about a million different ways that you can perform them. for this video let's call the intermediate level not going down into a push-up and not jumping at the top as I'm demonstrating in this video right now if you want to go easier what you can do is simply slow down the progression and break it down into each part if you go slower and if you don't add as many plyometrics to it the burpee all of a sudden becomes easier now conversely if you're looking to take that burpee to the.             

   Next level 


          There are a lot of different things that you can do to it the easiest is to increase the speed it's to add the push-up at the bottom and it's to add the jump at the top no bodyweight exercise list. would be complete if it did not include the burpee there now what is my rep and set recommendations for each one of these exercises? well as I mentioned previously it's going to vary based on your personal.

Fitness level

what I would recommend is you should be able to get at least 10 but no more than 30 reps of each one of these exercises, and you should be able to do that for three sets if you can't do 10 reps you might consider going to the easier version of the exercise. if you can do 30 or more reps you might consider going to the harder version of the exercise and again I would encourage you to do that over three sets. if you guys are looking for more great body weight exercises and body weight workouts that you can do from home here are two videos that you might find useful also if you haven't done so already I'd love for you to subscribe to Kona titan do that at this circle button right here and I can't wait to see you again right here on tone and titan you.