"The 10 Best Bodyweight Exercises for a Full-Body Workout"
Published on
What Are the Best Bodyweight Exercises?
When you have no equipment, your body is your gym. But to get the most effective workout, you need to choose the right movements. The "best" bodyweight exercises are compound movements—they engage multiple muscle groups at once, build functional strength, and provide a huge metabolic impact.
Whether you're a beginner or an advanced athlete, mastering these 10 exercises will give you the foundation for a lifetime of fitness.
The Top 10 Most Effective Bodyweight Exercises
1. Air Squat: The undisputed king of lower-body exercises. It builds strength in your quads, glutes, and hamstrings while improving mobility and core stability.
2. Push-Up: The ultimate upper-body press. It targets your chest, shoulders, and triceps, and requires immense core strength to perform correctly.
3. Lunge: A unilateral movement that builds balanced strength and stability in your legs and glutes. Lunges are fantastic for improving coordination and fixing strength imbalances.
4. Burpee: A total-body movement that challenges your strength and cardiovascular system like nothing else. It's a highly efficient exercise for improving conditioning.
5. Plank: The gold standard for core strength. The plank teaches you to create total-body tension, which is the foundation of almost every other athletic movement.
6. Glute Bridge: An essential exercise for activating and strengthening the glutes and hamstrings. A strong posterior chain is crucial for preventing lower back pain.
7. Pull-Up (or Bodyweight Row): The ultimate upper-body pulling movement. If you don't have a pull-up bar, bodyweight rows using a table or suspension trainer are a perfect substitute for building back and bicep strength.
8. Hollow Rock/Hold: A fundamental gymnastics movement for building a rock-solid core. The hollow body position is key for more advanced movements.
9. Broad Jump: A dynamic, explosive movement that builds power in your lower body. It's a fantastic way to introduce plyometrics into your routine for improved athleticism.
10. Bear Crawl: A surprisingly challenging movement that improves coordination, core strength, and shoulder stability all at once.
Putting It All Together
Knowing the best exercises is only half the battle. The real magic happens when you combine them into a structured workout. Instead of guessing, you can use our free WOD generator to instantly create a workout using these and other effective movements. Just select "No Equipment" and get started!