Body weight workout successes ?

I have been taking classes at my gym, 50 minutes each, about 4 times a week. 2 of them use weights, the other 2 use bodyweight only. I took before/after pics, and it made a HUGE difference in my tummy after only 1 month. Just gotta do something and stick with it long enough

Hmm, what is your goal? I was skinny and added weight and muscle mass doing yoga - pushups and arm balances and lunges lunges lunges, planks, etc. My daughter does a run and then at the park does box jumps onto the picnic table and pullups on the bars, and hanging leg lifts and stuff, it keeps her very fit, maybe you could work out a routine like that? Find a park that has a par - course or just use the playground equipment.

Spliner1969 wrote: »

...otherwise it's all push ups, pull ups, rows, squats, crunches, all body weight. The gains probably aren't as good as they would be if I was weight training with weights 3+ times a week, but I can tell you that the results have surprised even me. I'm in better shape after a year of it than I have been my entire life. I never wanted to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger anyway, I just wanted to be strong enough to do 10 pull ups, 10 push ups, run a mile, and I have far far surpassed that. I think in the best shape of my life in high school I did 1 pull up just to pass gym class lol.

You can accomplish a lot with body weight training. It's also free. I did buy a pull up bar that installs in a doorway, and it hinges down to do inverted rows, which helped a lot to get me to the point I could do pull ups. Beyond that though it required no equipment.

First off, good for you for surpassing your high school fitness where physical activity was often mandatory. It sounds like you've made great progress in your adult self-guided fitness journey. Aces to you!

Second for OP, she's totally right about accomplishing a lot with body weight training. I totally agree to invest in a pull-up bar too. I've seen huge gains in my back and overall posture working pull-ups. Training for a Spartan race over the last several months I did a lot of body weight training--I'm thinking burpees here. I never saw definition in my serratus anterior muscles until I started working push-ups and burpees even when I was trying my best to target these muscles with weighted exercises. They're stabilizer muscles so sometimes you just have to figure out what the purpose of that muscle is to really get down to how to best exercise it. So in that sense, body weight training is perfect to help achieve a balanced look.

And as far as cardio not changing you, you might consider incorporating something more like plyometric exercises. These types of movements will recruit more power and be intense at times but are great to throw in between your sets of body weight exercises. For example, maybe you do push-ups to failure then pop up and do a few box jumps. Take a quick breather and repeat this set a couple times. Basically, combine the strength with some shorter, yet intense cardio instead of your typical endurance cardio and you should start feeling and seeing results.

Feel free to add me or message me if you need more ideas! Good luck!

Ejm189x wrote: »

I bought a bar at the weekend!! Omg had no idea how weak i was :-o looking forward to getting stronger and seeing results from it tho Thanks for the plyometrics advice and i may well be bothering you soon for more ideas *thank you*

Great! Sounds like you're ready to hit it. If you want a really wild tip--do a burpee right by your bar so that when you jump, you'll jump up to the bar and move directly into a pull-up. That will cover your plyo and build your pull-up strength.