The 7 Best Bodyweight Moves for Full-Body Strength at Any Age

As a fitness educator with years of experience helping people transform their bodies, I've seen firsthand how simple bodyweight exercises can create remarkable results. My name is Joy Puleo, M.A., NCPT, and as the Director of Education at Balanced Body, I specialize in helping people of all ages build functional strength. If you've been looking for an effective way to get stronger without expensive equipment or gym memberships, these seven powerful moves will give you everything you need to build a stronger, more capable body.

Why Bodyweight Exercises Are So Effective

Nothing changes without tension! To create change and build muscle, you need to challenge the body by creating overload or tensioning the structure, and it is the tension that leads to the desired adaptations, muscle strength, and endurance. Bodyweight exercises in all positions, such as planks, push-ups, and side planks; Standing exercises, such as squats, lunges, and heel raises; and supine exercises, such as ab curls with legs raised and bridging are excellent movements that create overload via the tension of our powerful mover muscles such as abs, glutes, hamstrings, quads, pecs, shoulders, and lats.

What makes these exercises particularly effective is that the body position in relationship to gravity challenges specific muscles, creating whole-body toning and strengthening. For example, with the push-up, the body is roughly parallel to the ground. As the body lowers toward the ground, the work to maintain the plank posture is challenged as ground forces transfer from the upper body through the core to the legs, creating full body tension and overload. The closer to the ground the body goes, the harder the push away from the floor becomes, and the more force the body must overcome, the more strength and endurance that is created.

Another reason bodyweight exercises are an excellent way to maintain and build strength… You can do them anywhere, at any time, and virtually at zero cost!

The 7 Best Bodyweight Moves for Total-Body Strength

My favorite bodyweight exercises, which can be done anywhere at any time, are Plank based exercises, including the Push-Up and Dynamic Side Planks; Standing exercises, such as Squats, Lunges, and Heel Raises; Bridging and Supine abdominal exercises, which require an ab curl against the moving limbs, my favorite of which is a Pilates exercise called Double Leg Stretch.

Plank – Pecs, anterior delts, traps, rhomboids, spinal extensors

• Starting in an All Fours position with the hands under the shoulders and knees under the hips.
• Extend your legs and either balance on your toes or tuck your toes under and allow the ball of your foot to find the floor.
• Arms are either straight or, for added challenge, you can bend your elbows and press your forearms into the ground.
• Your posture is important here, your head, your ribcage, your pelvis through the legs to the heels should create a long, straight line. Maintaining this line is important to how the forces transfers from the upper body, through the core, to the legs.
• Holding this position, for anywhere from 30 seconds up to 2 minutes, is an excellent way to create overload and whole body challenge.
• This is an isometric exercise, a static hold exercise. Studies are showing that isometric exercises build strength and endurance relatively quickly.

Push-Up – A dynamic version of a straight arm plank

• From the straight arm plank position, bend the elbows and lower the body toward the ground.
• Maintain your long, straight body line as you lower.
• Straighten the arms to return to the starting position.

Dynamic exercises change the body's relationship to gravity while also moving multiple joints, such as the shoulders, elbows, and shoulder blades. This increases muscle strength around moving joints, changes the way forces are put into and need to be responded to, and teaches the nervous system how to coordinate movement relative to gravity.6254a4d1642c605c54bf1cab17d50f1e

Side-Plank – Works obliques and side body muscles

• Sit side facing and place your hand on the floor, or for more challenge, your forearm on the floor. Your hand or your elbow should be just under your shoulder.
• Lengthen out your legs and either stagger your feet, one in front of the other, or stack them one on top of the other for an added balance challenge, and lift your hips until the body is in one long line.
• For the isometric version, hold for anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds.
• For the dynamic version: Lower your hips toward the floor, with control, then press into the sides of the feet and the forearm/hand and lift the hips to return to the side plank position.

With these plank exercises, the most common mistakes are breaking the body line at the hips by lifting the hips toward the ceiling or by squeezing the glutes and tucking the hips under and arching the lower spine.

Squats – Glutes, hamstrings, knee flexor muscles, quads

• Stand tall, with your head, ribcage, and pelvis all in line with one another and separate your feet roughly shoulder width apart.
• Bend your hips, knees, and ankles as you sit back, as if you were sitting in a chair.
• As you lower, your torso may tilt over your thighs, but it is important that you maintain the body line.
• Lower as far as you can while maintaining the body line.
• Stand back to upright. Make sure to stand up as tall as you can before you descend again.
• For more challenge…hold when in the squat position for anywhere from 30 sec to 1 minute for an isometric challenge…or longer if desired. From the hold position, pulse within a small range of motion, creating more of a dynamic challenge.

Lunges – Glutes, hamstrings, knee flexor muscles, quads

The lunge is directly related to walking and functional reciprocal leg motion.

• Stand up tall, creating one long body line, head, ribcage, and pelvis aligned and over the legs, which are straight.
• Step forward, bend both the front and the back knee, and lower toward the ground.
• Keep the body upright and the body line straight as the body lowers.
• Straighten the legs to return to the starting position.
• For more challenge…hold when in the lowered lunge position anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds. From the hold position, pulse within a small range of motion, creating more of a dynamic challenge.
• For more balance and functional challenges, start with legs together, step forward, lower, and step back to start.

With both squats and lunges, there are a few common mistakes:

• Sacrifice the body line for a deeper squat or lunge
• Lower spine arches or the pelvis/hips remain high as the torso lowers.

Heel Raises – Calves, ankles, and feet. Balance and coordination

• Standing tall, with legs straight, press the floor away with your toes as you lift your heels.
• Lower with control and repeat.
• For an added challenge, stand on a step with the balls of your feet on the edge of the step. Lower the heels below the level of the step and then press the balls of your feet into the step as you lift the heels.

The biggest mistake here is being so focused on balance that you do not really move through a full range of ankle motion. Stand by a countertop or inside a door frame for just enough support that you have a full range of motion.

The second biggest mistake is to focus only on the heel raise phase…but the slow, controlled return is key to training balance and strengthening intrinsic muscles of the calf, ankle, and feet.

As simple as this exercise is…it is essential to feet, ankle, and calf strength.

Bridging and Double Leg Stretch – Core and posterior chain

Bridging (straight back)– Glutes, hamstrings, spinal extensors

• Lie on your back, with knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
• Maintaining the straight line of the spine, hinge the hips toward the ceiling.
• Shoulder blades maintain contact with the floor and show care not to arch your lower spine.
• At the height of the bridge, you are a diagonal line from your knees to your hips and lower spine.
• With control, lower the hips back to the floor.
• For an added challenge, from the top of the bridge, hold for 30 seconds and pulse up and down within a small range of motion.

Bridging (articulated spine) – Glutes, hamstrings, spinal extensors

• Lie on your back, with knees bent and feet flat on the floor.
• Tilt your pelvis, and it is as if your pelvis was a wheel. Keep turning the wheel back in space until the pelvis and lower spine peel off the floor until you are in the bridge position.
• With control, lower the hips back to the floor.
• For an added challenge, from the top of the bridge, hold for 30 seconds and pulse up and down within a small range of motion.

Most common mistakes include arching the back in extension at the top of the bridge and lifting your hips by first squeezing the glutes. Your glutes will activate because of the movement, you do not need to squeeze them to make this happen.

Double Leg Stretch – Core and total body integration

I LOVE this exercise… It is a Pilates mat exercise and an excellent one at that.

• Lie supine on the floor.
• Bring your knees into your chest, hug your shins, and lift your head, neck and shoulders into an ab curl. You will stay up in the ab curl position for the whole exercise.
• Inhale and open your body position by sending your arms out in line with your ears, framing your head and lengthen your legs out and away from your pelvis/hips. The legs can lower only as far as you can keep your lower spine stable.

Three common mistakes:

• Arms reach overhead and behind the ears, putting strain on the neck and upper shoulders.
• Spine arches as the legs reach out… legs too low.
• Not staying up in the abdominal curl throughout.

How to Organize These Exercises Into a Weekly Routine

These exercises should take you no more than 20 minutes if you do them all and can easily become either a morning or evening routine. 2 to 3 times a week should produce noticeable results quickly. There is enough variation and options that would allow you to add challenges over time.

Another great option is to add them to your daily tasks…For example, when at the sink or in the kitchen, try using the counter as a way of doing an incline plank and do your push-ups here. On the incline, you will likely be able to get a deeper range of motion, which is an excellent way to create balanced shoulder strength. As for squats and lunges…do 5 to 10 squats and lunges after going to the restroom 2x a day. Believe it or not…this will go a long way to incorporating squats and lunges into your routine.

What Results Can You Expect?

If you do all these exercises, you will experience:

• Better posture and general spinal strengthening
• Stronger, leaned,r and more toned legs and glutes
• Stronger, more toned arms.

Best Advice for Beginners of Any Age

• Start slow and do not overdo it at first
• Pay attention to the form
• If anything hurts, particularly a joint such as your shoulders or knees, stop, check your form, and decrease the range of motion. If the pain persists, stop and check with a professional.
• Be consistent, and change is an equation of tension over time…being consistent will be what ultimately creates the change, so do not give up.
• Believe that the smallest move can create the biggest change.