101 Bodyweight Exercises to Build Muscle and Burn Fat

Pushups, crunches, and lunges are not the only bodyweight exercises that you can use if you want to build muscle and burn fat. In fact, there are dozens, even hundreds of exercises that you can do at home without cumbersome and expensive weights. You don’t need fancy equipment for butt exercises or any
other body part that you want to focus on.

Bodyweight Exercises Variations

Just with pushups alone, there are over a dozen variations. You can do T-pushups, spiderman pushups, close-grip pushups, spiderman climb pushups, decline pushups, elevated pushups, decline spiderman pushups, grasshopper pushups, pike pushups, and off-set pushups, plus 1-arm and handstand pushups
(for those who are super advanced).

If you have an exercise ball, which I highly recommend since it only costs $20 – or less – at Walmart, you can also do pushups with your hands on the ball or feet on the ball, or combine an ab exercise, like the Stability Ball Jackknife with a pushup to get double the stimulus from each repetition.

Whew, and that’s just for the simple pushup. There are so many more bodyweight exercises you can do at home, and in the TT Bodyweight 6-Month Manual, you’ll get a complete 6 phase program on how to build up your bodyweight strength and conditioning to lose fat while building muscle – all in the comfort of your own home.

Plus, to work your abs and burn belly fat, there’s great news. Research shows that you don’t need to do crunches to get a flat stomach. In fact, crunches and sit-ups can injure you, because of what they do to your low back. So avoid these exercises and use planks, side planks, bird dogs, mountain climbers, and cross-body mountain climbers instead.

And if you have the stability ball, you can do even more advanced bodyweight exercises, such as the rollout and jackknife. In fact, the rollout is probably the most intense bodyweight ab exercise that you can do. But watch out, it will cause 5x’s the soreness of any crunch exercise you can possibly do…but also 5x’s the results, too.

We’ve covered your abs and pushups, but there is one important fact that must be covered to round out your training. The truth is you will need some type of equipment to train your upper back. For beginners, a $10 piece of resistance tubing will allow you to do band pulls and rows.

But for advanced fitness, you’ll need either a chin-up bar or set of straps with handles, such as the Elite Fitness Blast Straps or TRX straps. It is impossible to train your rowing muscles with only your bodyweight. You must have something to row with. The great news is that if you have a set of dumbbells at home, you can simply use those for rows and rear-deltoid raises.

So that covers your back, abs, chest, and arms, but what about your legs? Well, you’ll be doing reaching lunges, split squats, 1-leg RDL’s, stability ball leg curls, 1-leg hip extensions, 1-leg squats, and 1-leg deadlifts, more than enough variety to keep your workouts effective and exciting for over 6 months.