This Is The Only Bodyweight Workout You Really Need (Best Strength Training Routine)

New to strength training? This 15-minute bodyweight-only workout is the perfect routine to build strength, get leaner, and grow stronger at home.

Bodyweight exercises are incredibly effective and simple. They’re functional and great for strengthening the core.

Let’s break down what each of these is, their benefits, and a 15-minute bodyweight workout routine.

These exercises are a great way to maximize your fat burn, increase your core strength, and build your muscle mass!

What Are Bodyweight Exercises?

Bodyweight exercises are exercises that use your own body weight as the sole form of resistance (1).

Think classic bodyweight moves such as push-ups, crunches, and lunges. 

Basically, they are exercises you can do anywhere at any time because you don’t need a gym or virtually any equipment.

These exercises strengthen and sculpt various muscle groups simultaneously. 

They are also less likely to cause injury such as dropping a dumbbell or a barbell onto yourself or overexerting from using too heavy weights.

There are so many benefits of bodyweight exercises (2).

• It’s efficient.
• It combines cardio and strength training.
• It burns fat fast.
• It strengthens your core.
• It’s challenging for any fitness level.

By quickly transitioning from exercise to exercise in your workout routine, you’ll burn fat much faster.

What Is Circuit Training?

Circuit training is combining at least 6 exercises performed in a row with short rest breaks in between either for a set number of repetitions or a certain amount of time (3).

As with any exercise, proper form is imperative, especially when switching between exercises as you strength train.

Like your bodyweight exercises, there are many benefits (4).

• Improves cardiovascular health.
• Build muscle.
• Improves muscle endurance.
• Burns more calories in shorter amounts of time.
• Engages your whole body.

Best Bodyweight Workouts

Let’s cover our favorite best bodyweight exercises used in this 15-minute bodyweight workout.

Don’t forget to warm up before starting!

Squat

• Stand with your feet slightly wider than the hip-width distance apart. Turn your toes out a smidge and gaze forward.
• Extend your arms out in front of you, elbows extended, parallel to the floor.
• Keep your weight in the heels and the balls of your feet. Avoid having any weight on your toes. 
• Unsure? Pick up your toes in the starting position. Place them back down before starting your first rep.
• Engage your core while bending at the knee joints and hips, and lower your seat until your thighs are parallel to the ground. 
• Keep a neutral posture in your spine throughout the entire movement.
• On an exhale, press through your feet as you rise to stand.
• Target Muscles: Your gluteus maximus, quads, hip flexors, abs, calves, hamstrings

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity, try half or quarter squats. For more intensity, a pulse at the bottom of your squat.

Lunge

• Start in a standing position with your feet hip-width distance apart, elbows bent, and hands on your hips. 
• Step your right foot forward. Bend both knees to 90-degree angles. Your left shin will float parallel to the ground.
• Press through your front foot, returning to the starting position.
• Repeat with the left foot. That is 1 rep.

Target Muscles: Your abdominals, glutes, quads, hamstrings, and calves

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity, lower halfway down. For more intensity, add a reverse lunge by stepping back behind you or adding pulses.

Tricep Dip

• Sit in a stable chair with your feet firmly on the ground. 
• Wrap your fingers around the seat of the chair with a firm grip, elbows bent. 
• Slide your feet forward until your glutes are off the chair and your arms are supporting your weight.
• Lower down until both of your elbows and leg joints reach 90-degree angles.
• Press through your arms returning to start.

Target Muscles: Your biceps, triceps, shoulders, and chest

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity, don’t lower down completely. For more intensity, add pulses at the bottom of the motion.

Plank Ups

• Begin in a high plank position with your hands under your shoulders, and toes tucked. Engage your core.
• Pick up your right hand and place your right forearm on the mat. Follow with your left side into a forearm plank.
• Reverse, picking up your right forearm and placing your right hand back under your right shoulder. 
• Repeat with the left hand returning back to the starting position.
• Alternate the side that initiates the movement.

Target Muscles: Core, shoulders, back

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity or if you’re a beginner, hold the plank position or try the superman exercise instead. For more intensity, add shoulder taps between reps.

Side Plank Dips

• Lay on your side with your forearm on the mat, and elbow directly under your shoulder. Spread your fingers wide creating a stable base. Stack your feet.
• Your other hand can rest either on your waist or place your fingertips behind your ear.
• Engage your core, press through your forearm, and lift your hips in line with your head and heels.
• With a neutral pelvis, lower your bottom hip to the ground. Engage your obliques to bring your torso back to neutral. That is 1 dip.

Target Muscles: Your obliques, shoulders, lats, and glutes

Reps/Sets/Duration: 45 seconds per side

Change Intensity: For less intensity, use your top leg as a kickstand by placing your foot on the ground in front of your hips. For more intensity, straighten your bottom arm into a standard side plank.

Ab Crunch

• Lie on your back with your feet on the floor, hip-width distance apart. Stack your hands behind your head. Do not interlace your fingers.
• Engage your core. Inhale. On your exhale, crunch your upper body, keeping your head and neck neutral and relaxed.
• Lower on an inhale.

Target Muscles: Your rectus abdominis and obliques

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity, decrease your range of motion in your upper body. For more intensity, increase your range of motion.

Single-Leg Glute Bridge

• Begin in the basic glute bridge by laying on your back, knees bent and feet planted on the mat. Straighten your arms by your sides, palms down.
• Straighten your right leg above your right hip joint, foot flexed. 
• Press through your left foot and engage your lower body as you lift your pelvis in line with your head and knees. With control, lower your hips back to the starting position.
• Complete your desired number of reps before switching to your left side.

Muscle group: Your hips, hamstrings, thighs, glutes

Reps/Sets/Duration: 45 seconds per side

Change Intensity: For less intensity, lower your hips all the way down to the mat or bend your knee. For more intensity, a pulse is at the top of the movement.

Inverted Row

• Set your bar to approximately waist height. You can also use rings.
• Lie under the bar, face up. Reach up and grab the bar with an overhand grip, slightly wider than shoulder-width distance, palms forward. 
• You want to be able to maintain a straight line from your head to your heels with extended arms.
• Squeeze your glutes and shoulder blades as you bend at the elbows and pull the bar to your torso. 
• Once you’ve reached as high as you can go, pause and squeeze your back muscles.
• With control, lower your torso back to the starting position. Begin the next rep.

Target Muscles: Your core, glutes, upper body, specifically your lats and back

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity, don’t focus on touching your chest to the bar or move the bar higher, especially if you’re a beginner. 

Focus on proper form and row to the height applicable for your level of fitness. For more intensity, play with switching your grips. As you progress, you can move the bar lower.

Burpees

• Burpees are a full-body exercise that will test your coordination and increase your heart rate in no time!
• Begin in a squat position. Standing with your feet a bit wider than your hips with your toes slightly pointing out. Gaze ahead. 
• Keep your weight in the heels and balls of your feet. Engage your core.
• With control, slowly bend your knees, lowering your glutes towards the ground until your quads are parallel with the floor.
• Place both palms on the ground underneath your shoulders. Shift your weight forward as you jump your feet back into a high plank position. Complete 1 pushup.
• Then, on an exhale, jump your feet back to the outside of your wrists.
• As you rise, press through your legs and jump, reaching your arms over your head. Land with bent knees. This is 1 repetition.
• Target Muscles: Essentially, your entire body. Specifically, your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves in your lower body, your abdominals, and obliques in your midsection, and your shoulders, chest, biceps, and triceps in your upper body.

Reps/Sets/Duration: 60 seconds

Change Intensity: For less intensity, skip the push-up and/or jump. For more intensity, add mountain climbers after the push-up. You can also increase the number of push-ups in each rep.

How-To Do This Bodyweight Workout Plan

Start with a proper warm-up for your entire body such as 3 to 5 minutes of cardio.

Perform each of these exercises in the order above for the suggested time specified for a 10-15 minute bodyweight circuit workout. 

Take a short break in between each exercise, no longer than 30 seconds.

Note, you can take longer rest periods if needed.

Repeat the circuit as many times as you’d like depending on your fitness level and time available.

Make time for a proper cool down of stretching and foam rolling. 

Final Word

Bodyweight exercises used in a circuit training workout sets your entire body on fire to burn fat and make your body leaner. 

A bodyweight workout is efficient, challenging for any fitness level, and improves your muscle endurance.

This 15-minute workout of the best bodyweight exercises can be performed anywhere, like your living room, with minimal equipment needed. So what are you waiting for?

References:

1. Fitday Editor. “What are Bodyweight Exercises?” Fit Day. https://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/body-building/what-are-bodyweight-exercises.html
2. D. Smith. “13 Legit Reasons to Start Bodyweight Training Today”. Greatest. 12 Aug. 2015, https://greatist.com/fitness/start-bodyweight-training.
3. P. Goulding. “What is Circuit Training?”. Nuffield Health. 19 Sept. 2019, https://www.nuffieldhealth.com/article/what-is-circuit-training.
4. “10 Health Benefits of Circuit Training”. Health Fitness Revolution. 11 July 2021, https://www.healthfitnessrevolution.com/10-health-benefits-of-circuit-training/.