The Best Bodyweight Workout of All Time

The Bodyweight Gauntlet has four main movements:

1. Push Ups - any variation

2. Strict pull-ups - all holds and variations

3. Squats - Ass Only To Weed!

4. Burpees - chest to floor with an upward jump

Do a three-minute set for each exercise, keeping track of all repetitions.

For a beginner, this can get brutal very quickly. When a person works overtime, they will quickly see the differences in strength and overall condition.

I do not recommend an absolute beginner to take this on. Typically, I have complete beginner progress on each of the four basic movements to build a solid base of body weight strength and conditioning before letting go of them on the body weight glove.

HOW IT WORKS

This routine requires a park or playground with climbing frames and lots of open space. You'll be doing classic (though not mandatory) bodyweight exercises like bear crawling and crab wandering that you probably haven't tried in your days at summer camp. As you will recall, they are not easy - especially for a grown man well north of 100 pounds. They take a lot of work from your heart, lungs, and core. Later, the parallel handrail breaks your grip and your forearms. The sprints fry your legs.

DIRECTIONS

Do the pairs of exercises (labeled A and B) as supersets so that you complete a set A and then a set B before resting. Repeat until all sets are complete. Note that the parallel handrail runs as a straight set - do a set, rest, and repeat the process. This workout can be combined well with option A for body weight. So if you want to incorporate both of them into one workout week, do A first, get a day of rest, and then do B. (You can also add option C, which will appear next.)

OPTION C.

When you combine exercises, you can train more muscles at the same time. With these hybrid movements, you can use six exercises in a workout that actually only dictates three.

HOW IT WORKS

This workout can be combined with the previous two for a three-day program per week in the order listed. Or combine it with one of the two previous workouts and alternate them throughout the week.

DIRECTIONS

Do the exercises as regular straight sets and complete all the sets for one exercise before moving on to the next. If you can't do 10 reps for a given set, do as many as you can without failure (finish the set with a rep or two in you), then rest for a few moments. Continue when you can do the remaining reps.

OPTION D.

OK, we admit it, sometimes the chances are really bad that you will exercise. You may be stuck with no weights or straps, only to find that you forgot to pack your suspension trainer too. There's nothing to wear, so you can't work your back or even improvise with the objects around you. We're not sure what kind of place this would be without a prison cell (and if you're there, hey, we're not judging), but we can give you great workout there too.

HOW IT WORKS

All you need is something to step on, be it a park bench, large rock, or chair. However, if you don't have anything elevated to step on, you can replace the stepup with a lunge. To target your back, which normally doesn't work without at least one bar to pull on, we use the "blurpee" made famous by fitness expert Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Body. The wider foot position used in the blurpee requires more work from the lats to pull the hips and legs forward as the body comes back from the push-up position. (The additional "l" in blurpee stands for "lats".)

DIRECTIONS

Do the exercises as regular straight sets and complete all the sets for one exercise before moving on to the next.