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Develop Strength and Resilience through Bodyweight Training

Bodyweight training is the exercise of the entire body to promote muscle movement and enhance perseverance. Which workout plan is best suited to boost your strength and resilience? There are numerous benefits associated with the use of bodyweight as resistance when it comes to building strength. These benefits can be increased by doing compound exercises like push-ups, lunges, and pull-ups. Some exercises and combinations work the upper body and core, arms and shoulder, and lower back and abs more comprehensively to increase overall strength levels.

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Benefits of Bodyweight Training

Stronger muscles: When you use your bodyweight as resistance, you'll also be using your own muscles to do the work. This means that you'll be able to work on building muscle, and getting stronger. Strength is the capacity to exert or endure force. It is important for everyone - whether it's helping you pick up heavy boxes or simply moving from point A to point B more easily.

Prevent injury: Using your bodyweight as resistance gives you a certain degree of freedom when it comes to avoiding injuries. For example, if you're lifting weights, you might be tempted to push yourself too far, simply because you want to lift more weight. However, this could lead to a serious strain or other injury. By using your own bodyweight as resistance, you can modify your movements in any way that is necessary to avoid injuries without having to deal with heavy weights.

No equipment required: You can get a great workout using bodyweight training, so all you have to do is find a place to work out, and you're ready to go.

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Core Exercises

Push-ups work the shoulders, chest and triceps, while planks work the whole core - back, front and sides - at once. Sit-ups target your abdominal muscles. Here are some tips for doing these common exercises correctly:

Push-up: Keep your elbows at shoulder-width.

Plank: Keep your abs tight and look straight ahead.

Sit-up: Keep your back straight. Your feet should be shoulder-width apart, and you should feel tension throughout each muscle of the stomach area (between the abdominal muscles and the back).

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Upper Body Exercises

Pull-ups are perhaps the most common upper body exercise, and they work nearly every muscle in the upper body - biceps, latissimus dorsi (the muscles that run down the back of the arms), chest, shoulders, triceps and brachial biceps (the muscles that run down the outer part of both arms). Pull-ups are a great way to work on your strength endurance and vascularity (which is the ability of blood vessels to maintain their elasticity under stress).


Here are the guidelines for doing pull-ups:

  • Make sure that your shoulder blades are stacked together when you're pulling up. This will make your back more stable, and will help you get farther in the pull.

  • Keep your elbows close to your sides throughout the movement - this will make it easier to lift yourself up by using momentum rather than straining your shoulders, and will also increase the effectiveness of the exercise.

  • Don't let your body sag when you're pulling your chin up. This will decrease the effectiveness of the exercise, and can actually lead to injuries.

Dips are an excellent way to work on your shoulders, triceps, and biceps. They are also a great cardio exercise since doing dips will help you burn more calories than doing planks for the same number of reps.

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Here are some tips for doing dips correctly:

  • Rather than raising yourself from a seated position with your arms straight out in front of you, raise yourself from a kneeling position. This will make it easier on your shoulders and back.

  • Squat with Shoulder Press (warm-up) (1-5 repetitions per exercise). This sequence involves one upper body move followed by a core move.

  • Begin by standing with feet shoulder-width apart in a squat position and hold arms at shoulder height with palms facing inward.

  • Engage your core so your abdominals are flexed and tighten the muscles in the thighs for stabilization.

All these exercises are performed as singles or as a sequence of no more than 5 repetitions. Injuries can occur when performing these sequences with excessive volume (more than 15 repetitions per exercise), and thus, the goal is to avoid injury while pushing your limit in each move. For all exercises, you want to remain focused on proper form as well as engage your core. Remember to breathe and pause between each exercise. Spend a few moments in between exercising muscle groups to prevent fatigue from taking over. Calisthenics is about fitness and challenge - not only mental but physical challenges. The fundamental philosophy behind calisthenics - working within the limits that challenge you and make you stronger.

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Lower Back and Abs

Bridge (beginner) (1-5 repetitions per exercise): Lie on your back with legs straight and toes pointed up with knees bent. Engage your core so your abdominals are flexed and tighten the muscles in the thighs for stabilization. Raise your left arm to start position then roll over to get into a bridge position, hold for 2 seconds, push back up, and repeat to the end of the set.


Backward/Forward Leg Lift (5-10 repetitions per exercise): Grip bar in front of hips w/ body facing forward then lower body backward keeping back straight until hips are just off the floor, then reverse movements to finish. Repeat 10 times with each leg.


Kneeling (left) Leg Lift: Hold ankle and lift left leg straight out behind you as far as possible, keep back straight and core engaged, hold 15-30 seconds then rest for 15-30 seconds then repeat 5 times.

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Strength is not always the result of lifting weights, but strength does exist in your body weight. Various exercises described in the post do not involve any equipment. These drills are primarily geared toward boosting your muscle strength and resilience. Fitness is essential to achieving optimal health. When one practices the aforementioned workouts, you get the opportunity to trigger your body to burn fat and enhance their capacity to go by the day’s activities with minimized exhaustion instances.

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