Bodyweight Exercises for Massive Strength, Endurance and Abdominal Conditioning!

As you will know by this stage of the game, I am a hard core advocate of using bodyweight exercises to build strength, endurance, superb abdominal and total body conditioning.

Bodyweight exercises begin with your basic push-up and squats, and then move on to a higher and more intense and effective levels. They are the ideal complement to any fitness regime and are suitable for all from the most out of shape beginner, to your Gold Medal Winning Olympic athlete. Think Olympic rings, or hanging rings for pull-ups, the horse etc

In a break from the norm, bodyweight exercises combine both the ability to develop phenomenal strength and endurance simultaneously by challenging you with workouts that hit every part of your body, thereby boosting your heartrate so that you are working both your lungs and your muscles.

Consistent practise of bodyweight exercises will shred the fat from your body, and make you lean and muscular, especially around the torso.

You will recognise some of these exercises, but I suspect were never shown any particularly useful routines or programs that are necessary to give you a total body workout.

Why not test the following routine, and see what it does for you. It could be the beginning of a new you.

Begin with a few deep breaths -

1) Squats - stand with your feet shoulder width apart, and squat down as though sitting on a chair, pause at the bottom, and rise powerfully. Remember to look up and forwards during the motion to ensure proper alignment. Aim to perform 20-30 repetitions,

2) Push-ups/ press-ups - assume the standard push-up position and go for 20-30 repetitions. If you feel that this is difficult, bring your knees to the floor and do the assisted press-up.

If you feel that this is too easy, do your press-ups super slow ie count 4 going down, and 4 going up, and go to exhaustion. This is guaranteed to shake up your normal push-up routine.

3) crunches - lie on your back on the floor, and curl your upper body from the floor using abdominal strength only. As you curl down, gently lower your back shoulders and then head to the floor, and then curl back up again, incorporating a neck workout into the routine too. Again aim to do 20 repetitions.

Do this set of exercises 3 times, and remember to enjoy - the harder you work the more you'll enjoy it!

Finish with a couple of minutes of light stretching.