Wish to build a strong and lean body without machine intervention?

If this is what you feel then you should feel glad that there are some exercises do not need you to visit the gym at all. Bodyweight exercises are an elementary and effective way to work on your strength and flexibility. A lot can be achieved through them, without any machine intervention, in home workouts.

Here’s a list of 20 simple bodyweight exercises that will help you work on your body resistance.

1. Tuck Jump

Stand with your knees in a slightly bent position. Now jump as high as you can and while doing so, bring your knees toward the chest and extend your arms out. Land with your knees bent slightly and quickly jump in the same manner again.

2. Bear Crawl

This exercise is as much fun as it sounds. Start on the hands and knees, rise onto your toes and slowly bend forward using the right knee and the right arm, followed by the left. Continue with the exercise for 9-10 reps.

3. Mountain Climber

Starting on your knees and hands, move your left foot forward directly under your chest while keeping the right leg straight. Keeping your hands fixed on the ground, jump and switch legs.

See complete steps here.

4. Plank

You don’t have to literally walk a plank. With your face down, lie with your forearms on the floor and clasped hands. Extend your legs from behind your body and rise on the toes. With your back straight, tighten core and hold this position for about 60 seconds.

See complete steps here.

5. Lunge

Probably the easiest of the lot. Stand with your feet apart and hands on your hips. Put the right leg forward and lower your body to bring the right knee close to the floor, bent at 90 degrees. Go back to the initial position and do the same with the left leg.

See complete steps here.

6. Lunge Jump

Stand with your feet close and lunge forward using the right foot. Jump up, extending your arms forward while keeping the elbow slightly bent. While you are in the air, switch legs and land with the opposite leg forward.

7. Clock Lunge

Do a traditional forward lunge, take a step towards the right and do it again. Complete a semicircle with a backward lunge, then return to the initial position.

8. Squat

Stand keeping your feet parallel and start crouching by bending your knees and hips till the thighs are parallel to the floor. Press through your heels and return to the standing position.

See complete steps here.

9. Calf Raise

In a standing position, rise up on the toes, keeping your knees straight. Hold for a while and then come down. Repeat as many times as you can.

See complete steps here.

10. Standard push up

Tighten your core while keeping hands apart and flexing feet at a hip distance. Bend your elbows to touch the chest to the ground and push back up.

See complete steps here.

11. Donkey Kick

Start with the push up position. Tighten the core while kicking both legs into the air with bent knees. Land gently.

See complete steps here.

12. Superman

Lie face down, extending arms and legs. Keep your torso still and simultaneously raise legs and arms to form a curve.

See complete steps here.

13. Diamond push-up

These are push ups in a diamond shaped hand position, trying to touch the thumbs with index fingers.

See complete steps here.

14. Arm Circles

Time to go back to school. Stand with arms extended at your sides. Make clockwise circles for 30 seconds. Then move counter clockwise.

15. L Seat

Sit with your legs extended and flexed feet. Place your hands on floor and lift the hips off the ground, holding for 2-5 seconds.

16. Flutter Kick

Lie on your back with arms on the side. Extend your legs and make quick pulses with legs. Keep kicking for a minute.

See complete steps here.

17. Crunch

Lie on the back with bent knees and flat feet. Place your hands behind the head and peel the shoulders and head off the mat. Hold briefly, lower the torso toward the mat.

See complete steps here.

18. Bicycle

Lie with bent knees and hands behind the head. Bring the right elbow towards left knee with the knees in toward the chest. Continue with alternate sides.

See complete steps here.

19. Segmental Rotation

Lie on the back with bent knees and let the knees fall to the left gradually. Hold for five seconds and repeat on the alternate side.

See complete steps here.

20. Rotational push-up

Start from the push up position. Rotate your body to the right and extend right hand over the head, forming a T with torso and your arms. Do a normal push up on returning to the starting position.

Hope you enjoyed the post. Now, get on with these bodyweight exercises and let us know how you felt. To learn how these exercises will benefit you, read this article.

For complete list of exercises, visit our Exercise Resource.

Last Updated: July 16th, 2014
Next Scheduled Update: Sept 16th, 2014