

That could mean doing pushups on your knees, burpees without the jumps, or even jumpless jumping jacks (taking steps out to the side and still moving your arms, but without the jump). "To help make sure you get a good workout in, I recommend using a guide - whether it's an exercise video, a fitness app or a list of exercises your fitness instructor recommends," says Salinas.Īnd, if you're new to body-weight exercises or have exercise limitations, it's okay to modify the exercise.

Doing a full-body workout is as easy as picking five or six different body-weight exercises, performing each one for at least 30 seconds - and then repeating that circuit of exercises a few more times. There are tons of different body-weight exercises, which means plenty of variety and plenty of ways to target just about every muscle group in your body. "From pushups and squats to burpees and planks, doing circuits of body-weight exercises can become a full-body workout that can help you burn calories and build muscle." "Body-weight exercises are an effective way to build strength, endurance, flexibility and balance - making for a very effective workout," says Salinas. It's surprising how much muscle it takes to lift your body.Īfter struggling through a few pushups, it's pretty easy to see that your body weight is a perfectly fine substitute for those weights you used to pile onto the bar at the gym. How many pushups can you do? If you haven't done one in a while, stringing together even just five pushups may be way harder than you remember. Here's what I learned: Your own body weight is a great piece of exercise equipment Salinas helped me understand that once you know what makes a workout effective and can get an exercise plan together, at-home workouts can certainly be as helpful as what you're used to doing in the gym. "Without a fitness class or access to weight machines, we can sometimes feel limited by our own creativity, left wondering what to do next or whether or not we're doing enough. "Working out at home can seem a bit daunting," says Kristin Salinas, athletic trainer at Houston Methodist. My new routine looks a lot different than my old one, though, so I've been a little skeptical about whether the workouts I do at home are really as effective as the ones I used to do in the gym. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down my gym for a few months, I was already dipping my toes into the world of working out at home.
