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Bodyweight Exercises for Women to Do at Home

Posted by Admin on Monday, March 29, 2010 - 04:40 AM

For women, it isn't always possible to get to a gym. Working out at home doesn't have to mean you have to lack intensity. Bodyweight exercises for women which can be easily peformed at home. They are also a good alternative when looking for a short intense workout when you don't have equipment.

We all know the basic body weight exercises, or at least I think we do. Here’s three exercises that everyone should know - pushups, situps, and pullups. But if looking for a more challenging workout you may want to incorporate some other body weight exercises into your exercise routine.

When designing a body weight exercise routine you need to be familiar with some lingo. Here is some terminology that you should be familiar with. A rep is each time you perform an exercise. A set is a group of reps. So a rep would be a single push up and a set would be eight pushups. If I write 3×10 then it means 3 sets of 10 reps. So you would do 10 reps, take a break, do another 10 reps of the same exercise, take a break and do another 10 reps.

Before jumping straight into exercising, make sure to warm up before the workout by doing some nice stretching exercises. During the workout, take 30-60 second breaks between each set. You may want to increase or decrease your reps depending on your level of fitness. Whatever your fitness level make each set count!

Here’s a nice little home bodyweight workout for beginners. Try it three days a week. The exercises in this workout are suitable for beginners, it will allow you to develop strength and progress to more challenging exercises. If you don’t know how to do the exercises then Google is your best friend.

Pushups - 3×15
Pullups - 3×15
Bodyweight Squats - 3x15
Supermans - 3×20
Benchdips - 3×15

This full body bodyweight workout routine will target the chest, triceps, abs, back, biceps, thighs, glutes, and quads, so you really hit a lot of muscle groups. Make sure to do a 15-20 minute cool down after the workout by jogging or walking on the treadmill.

After your workout, you should get some lean protein and carbohydrates. When carbs and protein are combined it helps transport the protein to the muscle, to assist with recovery. Something along the lines of skinless chicken breast and brown rice will do fine. Alternatively, you could have a post workout protein shake.

And that is it! Try it out and see how you feel. You may be sore after the first day, but it’s common and will always happen to people that are just starting out. If you find the exercises are not challenging enough, its time to start doing some weighted bodyweight exercises! If you want to build muscle and improve your physique, its critical that you focus on progression with your body weight exercises and workouts.

Have other questions? Find more information on How to Gain Weight for Women