Mastering Bodyweight Training: Top Tips for Form, Recovery, and Progress

Tips for Effective Bodyweight Training

Proper Form: Preventing Injuries and Maximizing Results

Best practice for all strength training, including bodyweight exercises, entails maintaining proper form. Controlled, smooth movement, maintaining a stable trunk position, and avoiding jerky movements is a must. Consulting a personal trainer may be a great idea for beginners to get feedback on proper form. 

Rest and Recovery: Allowing Your Muscles to Heal

Strength training is a concentrated form of exercise. The training itself stimulates muscle growth, and strength increases. Muscle growth and adaptation occur during recovery. Most people do well training three days a week with at least one day of recovery between sessions. There is some evidence that older (65+) individuals may see no additional benefit from exceeding one day per week of strength training.

Setting Goals and Tracking Progress: Staying Motivated

Exercise plans should be productive. Setting and achieving goals is a great way to sustain motivation for continued adherence. Keep a training diary of each workout, and set a mixture of short-term outcome goals (i.e., what repetitions on each exercise you would like to hit in the next few weeks) and process goals (goals that you directly control the outcome – i.e., resolving to perform specific exercises a certain number of times per week). Hitting goals does wonders to build your confidence and motivation.

Combining Bodyweight Training with Other Exercises

Bodyweight exercises are a great way to build strength but are not your only tool. A bodyweight-only regimen can yield great fitness results, provided you regularly practice exercises for your upper body, lower body, and trunk at least once a week. However, you can also use bodyweight exercises as a fun option to supplement other training.

Incorporating Cardio: Enhancing Overall Fitness

Optimal health requires at least 3 days a week of cardiorespiratory fitness training. You can pick any mode you like, walking, running, cycling, rowing, swimming, etc.  Find ways that you like and can do at least 3-5 days per week. I like a mix of rowing, elliptical, stationary biking, and walking.  Do what is best for you!

Weightlifting and Bodyweight Training: A Balanced Approach

You can also combine bodyweight exercises with equipment-based strength training workouts.  That is what I do. For example, I strength train 3 days per week. I add lunges after squats and bench presses on my day 1 session. I add pullups and dips to my day 2 exercise session after I do barbell presses and deadlifts. And I add planks and crunches to the end of my day 3 workout. I find body-weight work to be a fun adjunct to my barbell training, which keeps me motivated to keep on doing it. 

1. _{Ihalainen, J. K., Inglis, A., Mäkinen, T., Newton, R. U., Kainulainen, H., Kyröläinen, H., & Walker, S. (2019). Strength Training Improves Metabolic Health Markers in Older Individual Regardless of Training Frequency. Frontiers in physiology, 10, 32. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2019.00032}