BODYWEIGHT EXERCISES THAT BUILD MUSCLE
With these 8 bodyweight moves we’re going to cover your entire body, including your lungs!
Yes, this full body workout will take your breath away…. literally!
It is also a workout that will build muscle mass and strength, and you’ll see what I mean when you try the exercises!
The only piece of equipment you’re going to need for just a few of these body weight exercises is a $15 pullup bar. If you don’t have one yet, I highly recommend you get one.
I promise it will have a great return on investment in terms of your ability to effectively train at home.
1.) PULLUP OR COMMANDO PULLUP
Whether you have access to a gym or not, the Classic Pullup is one of the best back exercises you can do for your upper body.
Start position is with arms straight overhead grabbing the bar with hands wider than shoulderwidth apart, palms facing away from you.
With core engaged begin to hang from the bar with knees bent and feet a couple inches off the floor. Pull yourself up until your chin clears the bar and then slowly lower your body back down to starting position.
If you feel you’re not getting enough out of the Classic Pullup, or you’re looking for a more advanced option, we can involve more muscles in the exercise by simply switching our grip.
The Commando Pullup is a great pullup progression for an even more intense back exercise with the added benefit of working your forearms and biceps as well.
You can see that the over under grip also forces you to involve your core to help you stay stable as you pull up toward each side of the bar.
This grip also gives us a bit of extra forearm and biceps involvement, which adds intensity and challenge to the exercise.
2.) CHINUP KNEE UP
This exercise hits the biceps and abs equally as hard, as it breaks down the chinup into two parts.
You’ll start standing below the bar and take an underhand grip with palms facing you, hands shoulder width apart. Begin to bend your arms to pull yourself into a chinup while you bring your legs forward and up into a knees up position, as you engage your core.
The first part of this exercise is a normal chinup in which the underhand grip will give you an arm workout because of the biceps curls that are incorporated into the chinup movement.
We incorporate one of the best ab exercises by finishing it out with the knee up portion in the second part.
This is a great example to show that when we’re trying to get more out of a bodyweight exercise, we have to put more in to allow us to hit multiple muscles in one move.
3.) SLICK FLOOR BRIDGE CURL
This posterior chain exercise hammers your glutes and hamstrings, and is one of the most intense bodyweight leg exercises you can do for this area.
In fact, the Slick Floor Bridge Curl is as challenging as most weighted glute/ham exercises you’d have at your disposal if you were training in a gym!
No equipment at all with this one except a pair of socks!
You can do this on any slick surface such as a tile floor or a wood floor.
Start position is lying face up on the floor, feet hipwidth apart, thighs are parallel in a straight line extending in front of you, with shoulder blades and hands on the floor and feet flat on the floor.
With core tight, begin by bending your knees and sliding your feet toward your body into the press up position of glute bridges. Slide your feet back out to return to the start with legs straight.
The great thing about the Slick Floor Bridge Curl is that you’re training your muscles to work the way they’re supposed to work.
The hamstrings SHOULD work with the help of the glutes, not in isolation. And your glutes will definitely be working hard as you try to hold the bridge up while you initiate the hamstring curl portion of this movement.
4.) LEVITATION SQUAT
We’ll be hitting the quads with this next bodyweight exercise.
The Levitation Squat is a great regression from the Pistol Squat, because it’s easier to perform this single leg movement with your leg behind your body, similar to a Bulgarian split squat, instead of in front where balance may be a limiting factor.
It’s not necessarily that you don’t have the single leg strength to execute the Pistol Squat, but you might not have the single leg strength combined with enough balance to be able to execute it. In this case the split squats stance with leg behind the body will be a bit easier.
Begin standing with your feet shoulderwidth apart, and raise the left foot off the ground behind you with left knee bent and perform a bodyweight squat on the right leg. Be sure to take a deep squat to bring your knee to touch the ground. Perform all the reps on this side before you switch legs and repeat the same on the left leg.
Now, can you progress yourself from the Levitation Squat to a Pistol Squat?
By all means, yes!
And you can actually self-spot in the Pistol Squat by hanging on to a bar while you perform it, until you build the adequate strength and balance to do it without support.
However, I still love the Levitation Squat because it’s a bit more gentle on my knees which allows me to push a little bit more out of every single rep.
5.) DIVEBOMBER PUSHUP
You knew that no list of best bodyweight exercises could ever be complete without some variation of a pushup!
This Divebomber Pushup hits your chest, shoulders and triceps equally hard at different points in the range of motion.
You can add the one and a half rep style for an even more advanced challenge for either the triceps or the shoulders.
Start out in a pushup or low plank position with feet shoulderwidth apart on the floor and chest parallel to the floor. Push the chest forward into cobra position not allowing your body to touch the floor, and bend your elbows to return to pushup position and repeat.
When you first start your descent, you’re working your shoulders more. At the bottom of the rep, you’re maximizing your chest, and as you come back up and out, you’re contracting the triceps the most as you get a little bit of extension back behind your body.
You can get more out of this exercise for triceps or shoulders by performing it in a one and a half rep style.
If you want to work your triceps more, you can perform an extra half rep at the bottom.
If you want to work your shoulders a bit more, perform an extra half rep at the top of the range of motion.
6.) MULE KICK
This is an awesome bodyweight conditioning exercise to get your heart pumping and also overload your shoulders.
The Mule Kick is incredibly demanding, because your shoulders have to support your entire bodyweight while you push your legs up toward the ceiling.
Start on all four with hands and feet shoulder width apart. Next, raise your hips and jump your feet upwards by pushing through the glutes and thighs.
Every rep is basically a version of an explosive shoulder press with your shoulders still in contact with the ground. 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.
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!
7.) KICKTHROUGH BURPEE
There may be no more athletic version of the burpee than this one, and that is why I love it!
The Kickthrough Burpee will challenge your upper body, lower body and core while pelting away at your ability to breathe.
Start with arms and legs in high plank position, then kick the left leg toward the right side of your body as you lift your right arm, leg extending as far out to the side as possible.
Repeat on the other side, kicking the right leg toward the left side of the body as you lift your left arm. Perform a pushup, then stand up and jump before returning to plank position. This is one rep.
In this exercise we’re challenging ourselves not just in the sagittal plane but we are also involving some rotation. This move requires some coordination, but once you practice it a few times you’ll get the hang of it.
This exercise is a bitch, but I love it because it will get your lungs burning in no time!
8.) FRONT LEVER
For my final bodyweight exercise choice, I’m including a challenging but rewarding move for the upper body, the Front Lever.
This exercise demands that two muscle groups work together that aren’t accustomed to doing so, the upper back and the core.
The core will have to provide the stability to fight the force of gravity that’s trying to bend you in half every single time you lift yourself up.
And the only way you’re going to be able to lift yourself up is by having adequate strength in your upper back to perform what is basically a straight arm pushdown without weights to get your body up against that force of gravity.
This exercise is very difficult to do, and if you’re not ready for it you can modify by using a band to anchor your feet until you’ve built up the strength to be able to do the exercise without the band.
These 8 exercises prove that bodyweight training does not have to be inferior training. As you can see, with bodyweight workouts you often have the ability to change or modify the exercises to elicit all new responses from the movements. Looking for a complete bodyweight program that helps you build muscle from head to toe? Check out our ATHLEAN-X Programs to see which is the best fit for your goals.
- The typical beginner bodyweight workout is only conditioning-based and do little to build muscle. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
- If you choose the right exercises and ensure they’re working multiple muscles in one move, the benefits of bodyweight exercises include building strength and muscle.
- I’ve shown you what in my opinion are the 8 best bodyweight exercises to help you build muscle and provide a conditioning challenge.
- Many of these exercises contain progressions or regressions to allow you to perform them regardless of your fitness level.
- Some of the exercises like the Divebomber Pushup also provide us with opportunities to adapt them to preferentially hit specific muscle groups.
HOW TO WORK YOUR BACK AT HOME
Effective bodyweight back workouts are not very common, at least not those that don’t require a pullup bar.
People say it can’t be done…
That it’s impossible to get a good back workout without equipment.
That you need to use heavy weight to build muscle in your back.
NOT SO.
I’m about to show you how to hit your upper, middle and lower back with three bodyweight back exercises that together make up one ultimate bodyweight back workout!
No bars, no bench, no nothing!
You’ll see that it’s totally possible to get a great back workout routine, without machines, without without pull ups and without an inverted row.
Before we get started, let me tell you why incorporating bodyweight exercises into your training plan can actually ACCELERATE your back gains.
Like any muscle group, you want to be sure that you maximize the contraction of the key muscles you are trying to work to get them to grow. In the case of the back muscles, many people tend to heave the weights up using momentum and don’t fully use their muscles to move the weight.
When we switch to upper body exercises with no equipment, we can control them better and ensure a proper contraction, which translates into improved gains.
Let me show you the best bodyweight back exercises of all time using no equipment at all!
BEST BODYWEIGHT UPPER BACK EXERCISE
First we’ll target the upper back muscles including the traps, rhomboids and posterior delts, using what I call the Back Widow.
To do this simple exercise, starting position is face up on the floor and bending your elbows on the ground with fists up in the air. Push hard through the upper back to engage the rhomboids, traps, and posterior delts to get your upper body and spine up and off the ground, and pull your shoulder blades in, keeping your knees bent with feet on the floor. Pause at the top, and then return to starting position lowering your body toward floor, and then push yourself up again.
If you need an easier variation, you can do a self spot by incorporating a bit more push from the feet on the floor. If you don’t need the help, maintain the push through the elbows and contract the back muscles to power off the floor.
BACK WIDOW
The pro tip here is to hold the contraction on each repetition, and make sure you get yourself up by using your back muscles and not momentum!
BEST BODYWEIGHT MID BACK EXERCISE
Next we’ll target the middle back and primarily the lat muscle by performing the Sliding Lat Pulldown.
The lats are challenging to hit with no equipment.
But if you look at your surroundings and use some creativity you can get the job done!
For this, all you’ll need is a pair of pants and a slick floor. I’m doing it on concrete which isn’t all that slick, so it gives me even more friction.
Starting position is with your body outstretched lying facedown on the floor with your feet back behind you, and a neutral spine, extending your arms straight out in front of you, hands shoulder width apart on the floor. Engage your core muscles and initiate a complete total body prone pull down. You’ll pull your chest off the floor by pushing your arms up into plank position and then lower yourself back down, belly toward floor, to slowly return to the starting position.
SLIDING LAT PULLDOWN
You can see that this effective exercise very much mimics a pullover or a straight arm pull down, one of my favorite exercises for lats.
To make this more difficult, try to stay on your toes as you extend out to the start position and remain on your toes as you pull down.
If you need a slightly easier variation, you can unweight some of your body by allowing your knees and shins to drag on the ground for the first one third of the move and lift them when you have the strength to lift.
BEST BODYWEIGHT LOWER BACK EXERCISE
Finally we’ll hit the lower back with the Reverse Superman exercise, which will also incorporate a number of other muscle groups.
When working the lower back, it’s important to train it with the muscles it prefers to work with.
It likes to get some help from the glutes and lower body, and from the lats that tie into your lower back.
This Reverse Superman exercise will incorporate all of these muscle groups, and because it’s done with the arms behind the body, you’ll pull your shoulder blades, rotating them back with each repetition. That means the rotator cuff is getting involved, too.
REVERSE SUPERMAN
Start position is lying face down with hands facing up towards the ceiling, elbows tucked into your sides with arms and legs in a straight line. Squeezing your glutes, lift arms and legs simultaneously. Using a rotating motion, pull the shoulder blade in, and as you do so, hands will turn toward the ground.
Aim for a solid two to three second contraction on each rep to really work the strength and stamina of the lower back muscles. Then return to the starting position and repeat.
As you can see, using no equipment doesn’t mean you have no options when it comes to performing back exercises at home. You don’t even have to compromise on the difficulty of the upperbody exercises. In fact, a few of these exercises may even require you to dial them back! Being without access to the gym definitely doesn’t mean you have to give up on stronger healthier shoulders.
If you’re looking for a complete bodyweight workout program that actually helps you to BUILD MUSCLE, look no further! Check our our ATHLEAN-X programs to see which is the best fit for your goals and fitness level.
- Many people think it’s impossible to build muscle in the back with only bodyweight exercises. I’ve shown you that not only is this false, you can actually see better gains by incorporating no equipment options into your back exercise routine, because it is harder to use momentum when you’re doing bodyweight exercises.
- For the upper back, the Back Widow exercise will allow you to hit traps, rhomboids and posterior deltoids.
- The Sliding Lat Pulldown will hit your middle back, and especially the lats.
- The Reverse Superman hits not only low back but also the glutes, lats and even the rotator cuffs, which are weak underactive muscles for many people.
You never really see a weak looking gymnast now do you?
So… What is it about their training that causes this?
I’ll show you right here How Gymnasts Build Huge Muscles! Is it…
A) Time Under Tension
B) Eccentric Loading
C) Bodyweight Training
D) Lack of Energy Leaks
E) All of the Above
F) None of the Above
Find out in this new Bodyweight “Thursday” video!
Build Muscle Like a Gymnast – Here’s How
Depending on who you talk to…
Bodyweight training (calisthenics) is either the absolute best thing you can do.
OR
The worst thing for building muscle. Who’s right? Find out here… Top 4 Pros (and Cons!) of Bodyweight Training…
As you’d expect from me… I’m not going to B.S. you or sugar coat this. I’m going to tell you like it is and let you decide from there.
Calisthenics: Good, Bad or Both?!? Find out Here
If you work out at home or with limited equipment…
You know how hard it can be to hit your back without a pullup bar.
UNTIL NOW!
Bodyweight Back Exercise Here (No Equipment Needed)
That said…
What if I told you that this exact same exercise could help you build your upper chest?
Now THAT’S an awesome exercise!
Chest/back combo bodyweight exercise in action here