Thursday, 3 October 2013

5 Bodyweight Exercises You Should Be Doing

Handstand or Pike Push-Ups

In my opinion, one of the hardest bodyweight exercises is the Handstand Push-Up. This exercise is great for shoulder and upper back strength.  However, if you have a shoulder injury or cannot perform this movement, perform Pike Push-Ups.

Broad or Vertical Jumps

Maximal jumping can develop your glute muscles like no other exercise. Robert Griffin III jumped 10 feet in his Combine Broad Jump test. Where are you at?

Push-Ups

Herschel Walker does 2,000 Push-Ups a day. How many can you do? If you can't do at least 20, you have some upper-body functional work ahead of you.

Pull-Ups or Aussie Pull-Ups

The military fitness test counts 20 to 25 Pull-Ups as a perfect score. No exercise promotes functional upper-body strength better than pulling your own body up. If you cannot perform a regular Pull-Up or Chin-Up, begin with an Aussie Pull-Up. To do this, position yourself diagonally under a Smith machine rack and pull your chest up toward the bar.

Single-Leg Pistol Squats

Unilateral strength is just as important as bilateral strength. When performing this exercise, focus on slowly lowering yourself to a low bench (or ideally a BOSU ball). Aim for five seconds down, then shoot up as fast as you can for power.

No comments:

Post a Comment