Bodyweight exercises

How to train with your body weight

Bodyweight exercises need little or no equipment and work anywhere. They are not only for beginners: a strict pull-up or a pistol squat challenges strong lifters too, and push-ups with a load similar to the bench press have produced similar strength gains in studies.

Since you cannot add plates, you progress differently: first you add reps, then, where there is one, you move to a harder variation. Muscla plans bodyweight exercises with 8 to 15 reps (pull-ups 5 to 10). Where its plan has a harder step for an exercise, the next block brings it once you reach the top in every set, for example from push-ups with your hands raised to push-ups on the floor to push-ups with your feet raised, or from the chin-up to the pull-up. Exercises without one, like the pull-up itself, stay at the top of the range until the block ends.

The pull-up bar is the one piece of equipment worth buying. It opens up pull-ups and chin-ups, the best bodyweight exercises for the back and biceps. Without a bar, the inverted row under a sturdy table or bar trains the upper back.

Beginners in Muscla start pulling with support, on a machine or with a band, until the free pull-up is due. Abs exercises like the dead bug and the reverse crunch round off a bodyweight session.