I get a ton of emails every week regarding bodyweight exercises. People want to know what are the best bodyweight drills for size and strength.

While, lifting weights will always be the superior way to build brute strength and big muscles, there are several bodyweight exercises that you can choose from to add variety to your workouts or to keep you in shape on the road. My favorites are: Handstand Pushups, One-arm Pushups, Door Pull-ups, One-Legged Squats, Knee Jumps, Headstand Leg raises, and the Mahler Body Blaster.

Lets get into each exercise in more detail:

Handstand Pushups

Imagine an upper body exercise that is the equivalent to the squat and you get an idea effectiveness of the handstand pushup. In addition to making your shoulders super strong, “pump” addicts will love how this exercise blows your arms up.

To execute a handstand pushup, get a few inches away from a wall and kick in to a handstand against the wall. Your legs should be straight up the wall.

Rather than looking straight down, look forward just as you would when doing a barbell military press. Lower yourself under control to the floor and when your head touches the floor, press yourself back up to the starting position. Repeat for 5-10 reps. If you cannot complete one rep, do a static hold and work in some negatives.

One-Arm Pushup

This is a great exercise to build up the pecs. It requires a great deal of stability and will fry the triceps and shoulders as well. Place one arm behind your back and lower yourself to the floor with the other arm. Once your chest touches the floor, press yourself back up.

If you find the standard one-arm pushup to easy apply a technique from strength coach Pavel Tsatsouline, author of “The Naked Warrior”(www.dragondoor.com) and do one-arm one-leg pushups. Hold one leg up in the air as you do a one-arm pushup.

Door Pull-up

Here is a pulling exercise that can be done with just about any door (assuming that the door that you choose is not too flimsy). Open a door halfway and place a towel over the top. Place your hands on the towel and let yourself hang off of the door.

Pull yourself up against the door until your chin is over the top of the door. Lower yourself slowly back to the starting position.

One Legged Squat

Forget about hundreds of bodyweight squats, the one legged squat is the best leg exercise that you can do with your bodyweight. Moreover, it is one of the best leg exercises period. Hold one leg in front of you and hold your arms out straight ahead. Looking forward at all times, lower yourself slowly on one leg.

As you pass the parallel position, flex your butt and stomach as hard as you can and pull yourself down to the bottom position. Hold the bottom position for a second and rise back up to the starting position. If you cannot complete a rep then check out my article on the stair step approach to the one-legged squat.

Knee Jump

Now it is time to work the hamstrings and develop some explosive power. Start the exercise by kneeling on the ground. Make sure that you feet are flat and that you butt is resting on your calves. Look forward at all times. To initiate the exercise, swing your arms back and then forward immediately.

As you swing your arms forward jump from your knees to your feet in one explosive movement. The finish position will look like the bottom position of a squat. Slowly get yourself back to the starting position and repeat.

Headstand Leg Raise

I picked up this exercise from top MMA fighter Frank Shamrock. Fold a towel and place it on the floor. Get on all fours and place the top of your head on the towel. Place your arms out right in front of you and touch the floor with your palms. Now press your palms into the floor and slowly raise your legs off of the floor.

Keep going until you are in a headstand. From there, lower your feet slowly back to the floor. If you cannot do one rep, then hold the bottom position for time with your feet just a few inches off of the floor.

Mahler Body Blaster

Here is an exercise that works just about every muscle in the body and when done in high reps sets of 25-30 will have you huffing and puffing in no time. Start the exercise by standing up and looking straight ahead. Go into a full squat and then do a half roll back.

Touch your feet to the floor behind your head and quickly reverse the motion. Roll forward into the bottom position of a squat. From there jump into the top position of a pushup. Do a pushup and then return back to the bottom position of the squat. Stand up and repeat. Save this exercise for the end of your workouts on the road as a finisher.

Try doing a circuit with the above exercises in which you go from one exercise to the next with short breaks. Do five circuits in one workout and keep the rep range between 5-10 on all of the exercises except for the Mahler Body Blaster. Save that for the end and work up to 25-50 repetitions in on set.

Workout Program

Try doing a circuit with the below exercises in which you go from one exercise to the next with short breaks. Do five circuits in one workout.

Handstand Pushups – 5-10 Reps
One-Arm Pushup – 5-10 Reps
Door Pull-up – 5-10 Reps
One Legged Squat – 5-10 Reps
Knee Jump – 5-10 Reps
Headstand Leg Raise – 5-10 Reps
Mahler Body Blaster – Work up to 25-50 Reps

Attempt these exercises at your own risk, and if in doubt first consult a doctor or a fitness professional!

In my experience as a personal trainer I have found that a lot of issues that people have with mobility stem from stabilisation of the feet and mobilisation of the ankles. This usually leads to stabilisation problems in the knees and mobility problems in the hips.. As you can see, when there is a problem with one link in the kinetic chain it generally has a flow on effect up the chain to another area.

To increase the mobility in these joints there are a number of joint mobility exercises that you can do, and Steve Maxwell has done a fantastic job of compiling the “Daily Dozen” – The daily dozen is a joint mobility program consisting of 12 exercises that you can easily do anywhere, any time and EVERY DAY to increase the mobility in your whole body. If you think of these movements as your daily warmup and try and do them every day for a week or two I guarantee you will feel the difference in the way that your body moves.

The topic at hand today though is Ankle to Knee (A2K) alignment in the specific context of exercising or physical work.

A2K alignment refers to the alignment of your knee and ankle when viewed from the front and from the side. Lets look at these two alignments separately.

The Front: When viewing a squatting or lunging movement from the front, your ideal alignment is that your knee should travel in the direction that your toes are pointed. The reason for this is that your knee is a hinge joint and only has maximum mobility in one direction. To check this alignment you can watch yourself in a mirror face on while you squat or lunge. Ideally your knee will always line up with the direction that your toes are pointing and will not deviate medially (toward the midline) or laterally (towards the outside). These deviations can be caused by flat feet, weak arches, weak gluteus muscles or a number of other reasons, but the important thing is that you can recognise the problem and correct it yourself.

The Side: I don’t recommend turning your head to the side to watch yourself in a mirror but if you aren’t lifting any weight and are just checking alignment it should be ok. Your ideal A2K alignment from the side is that your knee should NEVER ever travel forward over your toes. I try and get all of my clients to lunge UP and DOWN instead of forward and backward, this stops you from transferring your weight forward too much and over your toes. A really good way to remember how to do this properly is to maintain a mid foot balance in your feet with 80% of your weight through your heel and only 20% on the balls of your feet. If your bodyweight (and knee) travels over past your toes your weight will automatically distribute to the ball of your foot. We don’t want this to happen.

In a perfect lunge both front and back knees will be at 90 degree angles, your body will be erect and spine lengthened with your bodyweight distributed equally between front and back legs. There will be perfect alignment of the knees from the front and side, and if you interlace your fingers behind your head and pull your elbows back slightly you will have good crown to coccyx alignment as well.

If you have any questions or would like some FREE advice on how to lunge or squat properly then please contact me.

To say that these guys are slightly crazy and perhaps a little bit stupid is what first came to mind but then (as always) I started to notice how incredibly athletic and flexible they are. The combination of gymnastics, acrobatics, strength, agility, balance and power quite literally blew my mind.

I would love to go along and give this a go and found that the Melbourne Parkour guys will be doing a first timers / basics session at the Melbourne Arts Centre on St Kilda Road on Sunday 11th July at 2.45pm. Who is keen to come along with me and have a play?

Comment on here or text me on my mobile 0420 889 448 if you’d like to come along.