The Best Bodyweight Strength Exercises on Earth

It is a common misconception that you can only tone your muscles using bodyweight exercises. This makes sense to some extent. Putting on serious muscle requires lifts and movements that exhaust you completely in 4 to 12 reps. Many bodyweight exercises are just too easy to exhaust the muscles that quickly, so they just end up giving you a little toning and nothing more. However, there are a handful of bodyweight exercises that are as difficult as pumping heavy iron weights in a gym. The only problem with these exercises is that some of them are so difficult that most people cannot perform them when they are just starting out. To address this issue I have included not just the exercise but also an easier “cheat” version you can do to help you build up to the full exercise. Without further ado, may I present you with the best bodyweight exercises on Earth:

(1) Handstand Push Ups

This is a brutal exercise. Even after two years of doing every kind of shoulder press exercise at the gym I could only do two of these. Now I can do ten. I don’t even bother with shoulder presses anymore when I go to the gym. They are a waste of time.

HOW: To perform a handstand push up, get on your hands and knees facing away from the wall. Now shift your weight onto your hands and walk your legs up the wall until you are doing a handstand. To do a rep bend your arms until your head is nearly touching the floor and then bring yourself back up.

CHEAT: The further your hands are from the wall the easier this exercise will be because it puts less weight on the shoulders and starts to incorporate your chest. You can also go less far down for a rep or just see how long you can hold the handstand. Just holding the handstand and then very slowly letting yourself down will work the shoulders quite well.

(2) Pistols, a.k.a One-Legged Squats

I could not even do one of these bad boys when I started. The exercise puts your entire bodyweight on one leg and goes through pretty much your legs’ entire range of motion. It also have the added benefit of isolating the legs from one another so one does not do all the work.

HOW:  Stand on one leg, extending the other leg and your arms out in front of you for balance. Slowly lower your body down to the floor. Go as far down as you can and then come back up. That is one rep.

CHEAT: The simplest way to make this easier is to put your other leg down to assist the load bearing leg. You can also do it in front of a chair so that you do not go down all the way. The hardest part to perform is the lower part of the exercise, so not going down all the way will make it much easier. You can also position yourself so that you have something above you that you can use to pull yourself up when your legs cannot.

(3) Pull Ups

Despite being a bodyweight exercise, the pull up is a core exercise in the regimen of many bodybuilders. It is compound, multi-joint exercise that incorporates a multitude of muscles in your back, abs, and arms. Doing exercises that incorporate large groups of muscle get your body to release growth hormones which are critical for building muscle. Once the exercise gets too easy you can switch to one-armed pull ups, which will never become too easy.

HOW: Find a bar or ledge you can hang on. With your palms facing away from you, grab onto the bar and pull yourself up until your chin touches the bar. Slowly let yourself down.

CHEAT: If you can find a bar that is low enough to the ground that your feet can touch it, you can use your legs to assist you in the part of the pull up you cannot do. Alternatively, you can have a buddy help push you up by grabbing onto your feet.

(4) Rear Anchored One-Legged Squat Lunge

Not sure if there is any official name for this exercise. It is similar to a lunge but considerably harder. There is something about the angle of the exercise that I really love. My left knee usually hurt with leg exercises particularly squats. For some reason it does not hurt at all with this one, not to mention my legs are always sore the next day. Once you get good at this one you can start carrying heavy objects like books in your hands while doing it.

HOW: The exercise involves standing on one leg and resting your other leg behind you on a chair so that it is bent at the knee and the top of your foot is resting on the chair. You then bend down until the resting leg’s knee touches or nearly touches the ground. It is sort of like a lunge but your load bearing leg bears more load.  It helps to have something you can grab for stability.

CHEAT: Have something to grab for stability and use this to help pull your body up.