10

Your Body Is Your Gym-Get A Full Body Workout Without Weights


Clap Pushups

 

Garage gyms are more than just the equipment it has. A garage gym isn’t complete without the person using it. And it can mean that there aren’t any weights in sight. Your body can be your trainer and it can be just as good if not better than adding weight at all.

Some will under estimate getting a full body workout without weights because it’s not exciting enough. The repetitious push ups, bikes, or burpees is enough to make anyone’s head spin, and it can become pretty monotonous after a while. However, there are exciting times ahead with using your own body weight as your workout machine.

Before I started using weights, I heavily relied on body weight exercises. I felt like my workouts were sometimes more intense because I wasn’t wasting time to change out a weight or waiting for another set.

So, here are my suggestions on how to get that full body workout without weights.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

HIIT is very popular with people who don’t really have a ton of time to do a long workout but want to get their burn on. These workouts are about 15-20 minutes at high intensity and include several exercises meant to burn you out quickly. Think of this as a way to measure your muscular endurance. How many push ups can you do without stopping? How many air squats can you do before your legs give out?

Pushup TiabattaI would roll up Tabatas (here’s a link to a good video that explains it well) into HIIT as well. Tabatas are where you do :20 workout and :10 rest, and that is one set. You choose the exercise and follow the format for as many sets as you want. I’ll usually go four sets, and if I do it right, I’m smoked. One of my favorite Tabata workouts is to do four sets of push ups, where on my :10 rest I stay in the high plank position. It breaks me off every time, and usually by set four I’m doing maybe 3-5 push ups at that point compared to 20 or so on the first set.

Oftentimes I’ll do multiple exercises Tabatas So I’ll do four sets of push ups, then air squats, then supine bicycles. I’m usually exhausted at that point and am looking forward to stretching. But, if I’m really ambitious that day I’ll do that sequence again. Make sure to hold at the bottom when you rest for squats!

Garage gyms are great for HIIT. Usually garages are small, so lots of running, long jumps, or walking lunges are awkward to do. But HIIT will keep you in one spot most of the time while you burn yourself out. It’s a huge win for you!

Yoga

Yoga

OK, you think I’m nuts. But, have you ever been to a Yoga class? I’ve been to a few and I was drenched in sweat every time. I couldn’t do half the things the Yoga instructor was doing! Super impressive.

Pull out your mat. Pull up a Yoga video on YouTube and go to town. Some of those 60 minutes videos are brutal. The added benefit to this is that you’re stretching your flexibility (literally). Mobility is key when taking care of yourself, and why not do that with a good deep Yoga workout.

Burpees, Burpees, Burpees

I’ll say it one more time….BURPEES! These will break you off. Start from standing, go to a push up position, do a push up, then come back up to standing and end with a jump. That’s it. You’ll be surprised about how tired you’ll get. To make that even harder, you can do two push ups. I just stick with one, as burpees are already hard enough.

Do a burpee challenge. See how fast you can do 100 burpees. I guarantee it’ll take you some time, unless you’re some burpee guru or something. It takes me about 15 minutes or more to get to 100. Now THAT is a solid workout! The best part is that 15-20 minutes isn’t a lot of time either, so take that win upstairs to the shower.

Combine burpees with other exercises like squats or core. If you do it right, you’ll be plenty sore after that full body workout.

Core Exercises

Eight-Minute Abs

I’ll be first to admit that I despise core work. I’ve rarely found it enjoyable until a co-worker introduced the eight-minute abs concept to me. You want to do eight continuous minutes of core exercises without stopping. The concept here is for you to choose eight core exercises and do them in succession. Don’t forget to write them down before starting your workout!

When my co-worker and I did this together, she was still moving strong. Me on the other hand, I was as broke off like an Antarctic iceberg. She smoked the daylights out of me! And it was only eight minutes. Anyone can do anything for eight minutes. Unless, it’s continuous abs.

So, What Do I Do First?

First things first, what do you want to accomplish? Do you want to get in overall shape? Do you want to strengthen your core? Do you want more muscle endurance? Once you answer that question, the items listed above will help tailor your workout to what you want.

Remember, your garage gym is your spot do create whatever you want. Your workouts are yours to do. I wish that Michael Jordan could work out for me, but the reality is that I have to do it on my own.

Second, once you know your goal, build your workout plan. You don’t always need weights to get a great workout. But it’ll help you out better when you have a plan. I’ll write more later on how to develop a good workout plan. For now, don’t get caught up in the I-have-to-have-weights mantra. There are plenty of things to do without weights.

Finally, monitor your body. Doing body weight exercises is a great way to get in touch with yourself. You’re mindful of every burn, ache, pain, and fatigue. So, embrace that. Body weight fitness will help you be your best self despite the fact you don’t always have access to weights. If anything, you’ll be more mindful of your form, which will prevent you from injury later on.

Alright Garage Gym Goers, what are your favorite fully body workouts without weights? Leave a comment below, and thanks for reading!


Bobby

10 Comments

  1. Hello, i’m Xavius. There’s a cool structure to the set up of your content and images; but there needs to be better sentence structure. I think another great topic to inform your audience about is stretching. Overall, I like your page. I would love to hear back from you also.

    • Xavius! Thanks for your input. I’ll look at the sentence structure, and look at doing a post of stretching.

  2. I totally agree, I do calisthenics for three years and since then I don’t use any equipmet. Eventhough I don’t go to the gym I feel stronger and my body shape looks much better.

    • That’s great! Yeah I started workout without weights and I had a lot of muscular endurance too. Keep it up!

  3. Thanks for the ideas. I don’t have the time to go to a gym often enough and am often too lazy to spend an hour or more at home working out, so I like the idea of doing HIIT for 20 minutes hard out…… When I say I like it I mean it will be good for me and also fit into my time schedule.
    You are right about yoga. I have done some classes and it is really tough! I am often blown away by how strong some of these yogis are. They can manage their body weight so easily and with such grace. I love it, and will be going back for more.
    Cheers.

    • Absolutely Andrew! I like to tell people to go easy on themselves. A little goes a long way, which then develops into a habit. Let me know if you want for tips on how to get started.

  4. Hi Bobby.
    Great content buddy!Ilove it because I too am passionate about fitness. Great value comes along with your message and i totally agree with everything you say. You should definitely share your tips about stretching so that we can benefit more from your website.
    Thank you for the great content!!

    • Thanks for your comment! I’ll do one on stretching for sure, and I’ll add in things about warming up and cool down. That’ll be in the near future!

  5. What a nice post you wrote! I really enjoyed reading it and I could not be silent about your post so I decided to leave my comment here and say Thank You! For sharing this quality post with others.
    Actually this is exactly the information that I was looking for information about the body workout plan and when I landed on your website and read this post, it answered all my questions in details.
    So I’m happy that you decided to write about this topic and share it with people. It’s very useful and can definitely be used as a great source for everyone who is interested in this topic.
    I will come back to your website again for sure and I’m looking forward to reading your new posts.)

    Thanks!

    • Thanks so much Ali! It’ll be exciting to hear from you in the future:) I’m glad that that you got some good information.
      I feel like we all put barriers in front of ourselves when it comes to working out. We think about getting up, getting dressed, then what workout should I do, then do I need equipment…etc. So I’m hoping to distill that a little more and make it easy for everyone to just get up and do a little workout.
      Let me know if you have suggestions on what you want to learn! Thanks for your comments!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Leave the field below empty!