Bodyweight exercises

With no plates to add, progress with just your own bodyweight has to come from somewhere else: leverage, range, tempo, or working one side of the body at a time — not a number stamped on a disc. A lunge gets harder by raising the back foot; a side plank gets harder by lifting the top leg; and dips get harder by leaning the torso forward — that lean is exactly what shifts the load from chest to triceps, two different muscles from the same movement depending on how the body is angled. That same lack of equipment is the one thing bodyweight training offers without any condition attached: lunges, leg raises and the side plank all work in an empty room, with no plate or machine to load. Leg raises and the side plank train the core without flexing the spine, unlike a barbell curl, which depends on an external implement just to generate resistance at all. Leverage, though, has a ceiling: at some point changing the angle stops being enough stimulus, and that's the point where adding outside weight is what keeps progress going. That ceiling isn't a flaw in the method — it's just the honest edge of what leverage alone can do.

Exercises

  1. 1. Dead bug

    core · bodyweight

    The main players are the rectus abdominis together with the transverse abdominis, the deepest layer of the core, which contract isometrically to fix the pelvis and lower back while the arm and leg move.

  2. 2. Lunges

    quads and glutes · dumbbells or bodyweight

    The prime mover is the front leg's quad, extending the knee on the way up, together with that same leg's glute max extending the hip.

  3. 3. Leg raises

    abs · bodyweight

    The prime mover is the rectus abdominis, especially its lower portion, which activates harder here than in exercises that flex the torso toward the legs, like the crunch.

  4. 4. Crunch

    abs · bodyweight

    The prime mover is the rectus abdominis, mostly its upper portion: the crunch flexes the upper spine toward the pelvis through a short range, and that's the part of the muscle that shortens the most over that specific stretch.

  5. 5. Mountain climbers

    core and conditioning · bodyweight

    The main movers of the leg action are the hip flexors, psoas and rectus femoris, driving the knee toward the chest over and over.

  6. 6. Side plank

    obliques · bodyweight

    The prime mover is the oblique on the supporting side, both external and internal, which contract isometrically to hold the weight of the trunk against gravity and keep the hips from sagging toward the floor.

  7. 7. Russian twist

    obliques · bodyweight or plate

    The prime movers are the external and internal obliques, working in crossed pairs: the external oblique on one side and the internal oblique on the other contract together to produce each turn, then swap roles when the direction changes.

  8. 8. Dips

    chest and triceps · parallel bars

    How the work splits between chest and triceps depends almost entirely on torso angle, and that's what sets dips apart from nearly any other pushing exercise.

  9. 9. Bench dips

    triceps · bench

    The prime mover is the triceps brachii, mainly its lateral and medial heads, finishing elbow extension against the weight of the body.

  10. 10. Back extension

    lower back and glutes · roman chair

    The prime movers are the glutes and hamstrings extending the hip from a flexed position — the same job the hip does in a Romanian deadlift, just with no bar holding the load.

Workouts with these exercises

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Other equipment

Exercises by muscle

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