If you find doing endless crunches particularly torturous, you’ll be pleased to hear there are alternative exercises that will build core strength without being nearly as unpleasant. Meet the Pilates roll-up. It may not be as well-known as the crunch, but the roll-up is arguably even better at building strength in your core.

In the roll-up, you gradually move from lying on your back to sitting with your spine curved forward and your arms reaching forward. It’s performed slowly and with control, meaning there’s no momentum and you can’t help your abs by pulling on your head or neck. 

Although it’s hard work, I find the mindful movement can make it feel almost meditative, as you focus on peeling your spine off the mat. 

The slow and steady pace required in this exercise means your core muscles spend more time under tension. Studies such as this one published in the Journal of Physiology suggest that the more a muscle is loaded with tension to the point of fatigue the greater the protein synthesis, which can lead to muscle growth.

“The roll-up is one of my favorite exercises to do and to teach,” says Pilates instructor Millie Shiers, who teaches mat and reformer classes at Core LDN. “Practicing the roll-up can improve the flexibility of your spine and increase your abdominal strength. The roll-up also teaches your body how to control spinal articulation.”

How To Do The Pilates Roll-Up

Lie on your back with your legs extended and together, and feet flexed (toes pointing up to the ceiling). Extend your arms up with your palms facing your feet. As you exhale, lift your head and chest, slowly peeling your spine off the mat and reaching your arms forward. As you do so, slowly peel your spine off the mat. Once you’re reaching as far forward as you can, take an inhale to pause, then exhale and use your abs to gently roll down again, articulating your spine back onto the mat.

“Focus on squeezing your legs together and sliding your ribs towards your hips as you roll up,” says Shiers.

Roll-Up Modifications

If the full roll-up is too intense, there are plenty of ways to make it easier as you develop the strength to do the whole movement. “You can modify the roll-up with props to make it more accessible,” says Shiers. “One way to do this is to wrap a band around your feet and hold either end of the band—the band acts as an extra abdominal muscle. Another prop you can use is ankle weights to give you a bit more support in anchoring your lower body to the mat.”

“I also like to teach modified versions of the roll-up without props,” says Shiers. “For example, I will get clients to practice both halves of the roll-up separately—the forward flexion and then rolling down—until they can smoothly lift their body with no momentum.”

To fully master the roll-up, there are clever cues to help you do it as effectively as possible. “In Pilates, we love to make exercises as challenging as they can be by ensuring you properly connect to your muscles,” says Shiers. “To really feel the roll-up, think of pushing your heels away from you and drawing your ribs back in the opposite direction. This opposition will help you connect to your abs.”

The push-up is one of the most common bodyweight exercises programmed into full-body and upper-body workouts, but it’s not a movement most people can do without building up strength first.

Thankfully, this is relatively straightforward to do once you know how. “Building up the muscles necessary for a push-up involves targeting the chest, shoulders, triceps, and core,” says Amanda Place, personal trainer and founder of Sculptrition.

You can do this by using other exercises to develop the muscles used to perform the movement combined with practicing easier push-up variations, such as a negative push-up where you only perform the lowering portion of the movement as slowly as you can, an incline push-up where you place your hands on a raised platform, or a push-up on your knees.

“Aim to practice push-up variations and related exercises at least three to four times per week,” says Place. “Consistency is key to building strength and muscle endurance. Track your progress and gradually increase the number of repetitions or the difficulty of the exercises as you get stronger.”

Here are four strength exercises Place recommends to improve your ability to perform push-ups or help you achieve your first one. It’s also worth familiarising yourself with our expert guide to proper push-up form.

1 Plank

“Planks help strengthen the core muscles, which are crucial for maintaining stability during a push-up,” says Place.

Lie on your front, brace your abs and lift your body off the floor, supporting yourself on your forearms and the balls of your feet, with your elbows under your shoulders. Keep your body in a straight line from your shoulders to your heels.

2 Dumbbell bench press

Lie on your back either on the floor or on a bench, with your feet on the floor, holding dumbbells by your chest, with your upper arms at a 30°-45°angle to your torso. Extend your arms to press the weights up, then lower under control to the start.

3 Overhead triceps extension

Stand or sit on the end of a bench holding the head of a dumbbell in both hands above your head with your arms fully extended. Keeping your elbows pointing forward and your upper arms still, bend your elbows to lower the dumbbell behind your head, then extend your arms to return to the start.

4 Cable flye

Attach D-handles to the high anchor points on a cable machine and stand in the middle of the weight stacks. Move forward until there is tension in the cables and your hands are out to the sides at shoulder height with a slight bend in your elbows. Adopt a staggered stance and engage your core, then bring the handles in front of you. Pause, squeeze your chest muscles, then return to the start under control.

How’s your posture? Did you catch yourself slouching as you read that? If there’s room for improvement you should try barre. Barre is a challenging style of workout that combines ballet-inspired movements with Pilates-style strength work. It’s a tried-and-tested combination for improving your posture.

Qualified barre instructor Gen Greensted runs online barre program The Barre Coach and offers classes from her studio in Cobham in the UK. As well as explaining how barre can help with posture, she has also shared a five-move barre workout with Coach so we can all work on improving our posture.

“Barre workouts focus on alignment, balance and core strength, all of which play important roles in improving posture,” says Greensted. “The emphasis on controlled movements and maintaining a neutral spine helps strengthen these muscles while also promoting flexibility and mobility—all components of good posture.”

Five Barre Exercises For Posture

If you want to see changes, you’ll need to do workouts like this one regularly. “I’d aim to incorporate posture-focused workouts like Barre classes into your routine two to three times a week,” says Greensted. “With this level of consistency, you’ll start to notice you are standing taller and moving with more ease in day-to-day life in as little as four weeks. Beyond the physical benefits, improved posture can have an amazing impact on your mental and emotional well-being, giving you a greater sense of confidence.”

1 Barre-style bent-over row

Reps 10-12 each side

Stand with your feet hip-width apart holding a pair of light dumbbells (1-3kg). Step one foot back to adopt a staggered stance for a little extra glute work in this exercise. Hinge at your hips to bring your chest forward, keeping your back flat and core engaged. Bend your elbows and pull the dumbbells towards your ribcage, squeezing your shoulder blades down and in towards your spine. Lower the weights with control and repeat. Make sure you switch legs and repeat the exercise if you opt for the staggered stance.

“This is great for targeting your upper back and core while working on shoulder blade stability,” says Greensted. “It helps counteract the effects of sitting for extended periods.”

2 Barre-inspired Superman variations

Reps 10-12

Lie face down on a mat with your legs straight and arms stretched out in front. 

Keeping your neck in a neutral position (chin very slightly tucked, looking down at the floor), slowly lift your arms and legs a few inches off the floor, engaging your back, glutes and core. Hold at the top, squeeze your shoulder blades down and in towards your spine as you bend your elbows and pull them towards your feet, your hands passing the top of your head. Extend your arms in front and lower your arms and legs to the mat. You can progress this exercise by holding a resistance band, held shoulder-width apart in your hands.

Come up onto all fours and perform a few cat/cows (spinal extension and flexion) after you’ve finished this exercise to get some movement back into your spine.

“This exercise is all about strengthening your lower back, core and glutes, all key muscle groups in improving posture,” says Greensted.

3 Static lunge with chest opening

Reps 10-12 each side

Kneel on your mat then place one foot on the floor in front of you and your weight slightly shifted forward so your front knee is over your ankle. Hinge forward from your hips so your chest moves closer to your front thigh and tuck the toes of your back foot under. Bring both hands to the side of your head with your elbows pointing forward and round your shoulders slightly.

Take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, push up through your front leg until your back knee comes off the floor into a lunge and open up across your chest by pulling your elbows wide. Return to the start with your knee on the mat and repeat, moving slowly and with intention.

“This exercise is amazing for building total-body stability as you’ll have to work hard to find your balance,” says Greensted. “You’ll build glute strength, core stability and work on opening across your chest and reducing any forward rounding of your shoulders.”

4 Four-point leg extensions with resistance band

Reps 10-12, then 10-12 with reduced range, each side

Begin on all fours with your shoulders over your wrists, hips over your knees and your pelvis in a neutral position. Secure your long resistance band to the floor under both hands and loop the middle part around the back of one flexed foot. Inhale as you hover your knee off the mat. Exhale, engaging your core and squeezing your glute as you extend your leg back, finishing with your heel in line with your hip.

Repeat this exercise for the 10-12 reps, then perform the same movement but reduce the range of movement by half, so you’re extending your leg, then bringing it only halfway back, completing another 10-12 reps. Then switch legs.

“This exercise is great for shoulder and core strength and stability while building glute strength and working on hamstring flexibility, all of which are important for improving overall posture,” says Greensted.

5 Four-point arm and leg extension

Reps 10-12

Start on all fours with your shoulders over your wrists, hips over your knees and your pelvis in a neutral position. Place one hand on the side of your head with your elbow out to the side and slide the opposite leg back until it’s extended with your toes pointed, touching the floor.

Take a deep breath in and lift your back leg while drawing the opposite elbow a little higher towards the ceiling. As you exhale, slightly round your back and pull your knee and elbow in towards your core, engaging your core muscles as you do so. Inhale to return to your extension.

“This exercise is all about stability,” says Greensted. “It helps build core and glute strength, while opening your chest and helping reduce forward rounding of your shoulders.”

Whether or not you’ve tried yoga, you’ve probably come across a move known as downward-facing dog. It’s often used in the warm-up before fitness classes and it’s one of the best movements for stretching and strengthening your hamstrings, hips and shoulders.

To do a downward dog, begin on your hands and knees, then move your hips up and back, and extend your legs to form an inverted V with your body. 

It seems simple, but it’s a pose that requires flexibility and mobility. Some people will find it uncomfortable to begin with while others will be unable to bring their heels to the floor. 

I asked Helen O’Leary, physiotherapist and clinical director at Complete Pilates, what you can do to improve your range of motion and make the movement more comfortable.

“It is important to realize that it may not be possible for everyone to touch their heels to the floor simply due to their own genetic makeup and what range they have within their skeleton,” says O’Leary.

Even if you’re one of those people, moving your feet closer to the floor in the downward dog pose is a good goal to set yourself, in order to get the most out of the exercise.

“Generally to improve your downward dog, you need to do mobility work around your calves, the backs of your legs and the lower back,” says O'Leary.

O'Leary recommends dynamic exercises instead of static stretching to strengthen and lengthen the muscles in the back of your body. Here are three to get you started.

1 Romanian deadlift

Reps 8-12

Hold a barbell or two heavy dumbbells in front of your thighs and stand with your feet hip-width apart. Keeping a slight bend in your knees, a straight back and the weight close to your body throughout, push your hips back to lower the weight until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, then push through your feet to return to the start. Aim to lower slowly and return to the start powerfully. 

2 Thread the needle

Reps 4-5 each side

Start on your hands and knees. Thread your right arm between your left arm and leg, rotating your torso to reach as far to the left as you can. Bend your left elbow so that your right shoulder reaches as close to the floor as possible. Return to the start then repeat on the other side, alternating sides with each rep.

3 Lateral lunge

Reps 8-12

Stand with your legs wider than shoulder-width apart. Bend your right knee and sit your hips back as you lower to the right, while keeping your left leg extended. Push through your right foot to return to the start and repeat on the other side, alternating sides with each rep. 

If there’s a set of muscles that I think people neglect, it’s the pelvic floor and believe me when I say you want to be training these muscles.

Essentially, the pelvic floor muscles act like a sling, supporting the pelvic organs including the bladder and bowel, as well as the vagina and uterus in women. When these muscles are weak, it can lead to incontinence and even prolapse, as well as other issues.

When the pelvic floor muscles are strong, it can result in improved posture, a speedier recovery from childbirth, less chance of incontinence and even better sex!

“The pelvic floor muscles are also part of our bigger set of core muscles,” says my PT, Will Duru, “so strengthening them can help to strengthen your overall core too and your lower back.”

Although exercises such as Kegels are often associated with women, because hormones, pregnancy and childbirth can affect these muscles, men can also suffer from a weak pelvic floor so keeping them strong is important for everyone.

Will and I did a quick pelvic floor workout recently, and although it looks simple, if you move slowly enough through the exercises, I assure you, you will feel it the next day. 

1 Glute bridge with medicine ball hold

Sets 5 Time 5-10sec

Hold a medicine ball between your legs just above your knees, lift into a bridge position and hold. Press your knees together and squeeze your glutes. 

2 Plank into bear

Sets 3 Reps 10

Start in a high plank position. Keeping your core engaged and back flat throughout, step your feet in one at a time so your knees are bent to 90°, but keep your knees off the floor. Step your feet back one at a time.

3 Toe tap

Sets 3 Reps 10

Throughout, make sure the bottom of your lower back is touching the floor. This will require more core engagement as your foot gets closer to the floor. Move slowly to get more from the movement.

4 Glute bridge with band

Sets 3 Reps 10

At the top of the glute bridge, press both knees out so there is resistance in the band. Then slowly roll your back down, vertebrae by vertebrae. 

5 Kneeling exhale and inhale

Sets 3 Reps 10

The most simple pelvic floor exercise you can do can also be tricky to get right. As you inhale, expand the abdomen and rib cage and take in air, then exhale, and allow your stomach to soften and deflate. Breathe deeply and slowly.

“Breathing plays a crucial role in training the pelvic floor,” says Will. “Proper breathing is a key component of muscle contraction. Through mindful inhaling and exhaling, you can effectively contract your pelvic floor muscles.”

There are so many different exercises to choose from, it can be difficult to know which movements to spend your limited training time on.

That’s why I was intrigued by physiotherapist Sam Caddick’s ringing endorsement of the Cossack squat in a recent Instagram post, so I spoke to him to find out more.

According to Caddick, the Cossack squat is one of the best tests of strength and mobility, as it recruits a wide range of lower-body joints and muscles.

“The reason why I love this drill so much is because it brings in the four mechanics of the lower body,” says Caddick. “These are ankle mobility (dorsiflexion), knee flexion—driving the knee over the toe—as well as working into a deep hip-flexed position and working through the adductors, testing the groin strength and length.

“It’s also a great way of working through the lateral movement pattern, so left to right.”

What’s more, it's also a unilateral exercise, which means you’ll be working on one leg at a time, ensuring both are equally as strong and mobile.

So what’s stopping you from adding it to your leg workouts? Probably the fact that it requires greater mobility than many of us possess, which is why Caddick’s Instagram post is so helpful. Watch him demonstrate several regressions to help you get started.

“To regress the drill, use a band strapped around something [such as a squat rack] to lean back on so you're able to get further and deeper into the motion,” says Caddick. “You can always use your hands to support you on a block to help you get further into the position. Or use a weight as counterbalance which should reposition the torso so you’re able to get deeper into the stretch.”

If you have limited ankle mobility, Caddick recommends raising one heel on a wedge or a block, so you can move deeper into the exercise.

Once the movement comes easily, Caddick has also provided progressions too. “You can straddle wider and you can add additional load in the form of a kettlebell or a dumbbell and hold it in a front-loaded position at the chest.”

If there’s one exercise that feels beyond most gym-goers, it’s the pull-up. It makes sense that they’re one of the toughest moves to do. After all, you’re lifting your entire body weight.

“Consistency, patience, and progressive overload are essential principles for mastering the pull-up,” says Ali Malik, a personal trainer and founder of Fit Labs Kensington.

Our four-week pull-up workout plan for beginners sticks to those principles, but if you’re keen to speed up your progress or lay strong foundations while you wait for a home pull-up bar to be delivered, Malik has recommended a few exercises that will help you strengthen the muscles you need to do a pull-up.

“Incorporate pull-up-specific exercises into your routine at least two to three times per week, gradually increasing intensity, volume, and resistance over time,” says Malik.

“While calisthenics exercises like pull-ups and bodyweight rows are excellent for building functional strength, incorporating weight training exercises like lat pull-downs, rows and deadlifts can provide additional muscle stimulation and variety to your training regimen,” says Malik.

Here, he shares a variation of bodyweight and weighted exercises to help you achieve your first pull-up or improve the number of reps you’re able to do.

1 Negative pull-up

Why “This eccentric phase of the movement helps build muscle strength and control, which are essential for performing full pull-ups,” says Malik.

How Use a box or a step to get into the top of a pull-up position, with your chin above the bar and your hands gripping the bar shoulder-width apart. Lower yourself as slowly as possible until your arms are fully extended.

2 Band pull-apart

Why “Strengthening the muscles responsible for scapular retraction, such as the rhomboids and lower trapezius, is crucial for pull-up success,” says Malik.

How Stand holding a resistance band in front of you around chest height with your arms extended and your hands shoulder-width apart. Move each hand out to either side as far as you can. Pause and squeeze your shoulder blades before returning to the start under control. 

3 Face pull

Why This is another exercise to strengthen scapular retraction.

How Set up a cable machine with a double rope attachment fixed at eye level. Face the anchor and hold the handles with an overhand grip, palms facing the floor, Step back until your arms are extended at chest height and the cable is taut. Pull the handles towards either side of your face, then rotate your forearms to vertical, your elbow should be at a 90° angle. Pause and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Slowly return the handles to the start.

4 Lat pull-down

Why “Incorporating lat pull-downs and rowing exercises into your strength training routine can target the same muscle groups used in pull-ups, such as the latissimus dorsi, biceps and upper-back muscles,” says Malik. “Gradually increasing resistance and volume will contribute to overall pull-up strength.”

How Sit in a lat pull-down machine and hold the bar with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and your palms facing forward. Pull the bar down towards your chest. Pause and squeeze your shoulder blades. You can move backward slightly but don’t swing your torso to generate momentum to move the weight. Return the bar to the start under control.

The push-up is one of the best bodyweight exercises you can do, and possibly the most well-known exercise of all. However, there’s a difference between knowing an exercise and knowing how to execute it perfectly to get the most from the movement, and if you take the time to nail your technique with the push-up you’ll increase its effectiveness.

One of the most important things to pay attention to when performing push-ups is your elbow position, because how much you flare your elbows during the exercise will change the muscles you’re predominantly targeting during the move.

I spoke to Alasdair Nicoll, personal trainer and tutor at The Fitness Group, which provides personal training courses, to get his advice on how to do a push-up and his top tip for elbows position was to think about forming an arrowhead with your upper body.

“You want to make sure that the direction in which the elbows are traveling is right,” says Nicoll. “You don't want them traveling out to the side because that’s going to put unnecessary stress through the shoulder.

“If we were to look over the top of the person, we’d want to see an arrow shape from the head down to both elbows. They should be angling back at pretty much a 45° angle. That would be optimal for prioritizing the chest, and will also help to get a full range of motion through the chest.”

You’ll find more of Nicoll’s tips in our push-up form guide. And once you’ve nailed your technique, dive headfirst into this 30-day push-up challenge and build up to doing 100 push-ups in one go.

The pull-up is one of the best bodyweight exercises you can do, but it’s also one of the hardest. Even getting to the stage of being able to pull yourself up once is cause for celebration, and once you can reel off a few pull-ups in a row there are always ways you can go about improving your form.

To help you out on that front, I spoke to Alasdair Nicoll, personal trainer and tutor at PT-course provider The Fitness Group, for his advice on how to perfect your pull-up technique once you were able to perform a few reps of the move unassisted.

It’s fair to say Nicoll’s top tip was a surprise because it’s to not think about pulling yourself up during the movement.

“Instead of thinking about pulling yourself up, I suggest people think about driving their elbows down into their hips,” says Nicoll. “What’s going to happen is your lat muscles and your upper-back muscles, like the rhomboids and traps, take over.”

When you think about pulling yourself up, Nicoll says, you put more strain on your biceps, but placing the emphasis on your back muscles means you get the intended stimulus from the exercise. “You’re also going to find that you have much more control of the movement,” says Nicoll

You can find more of Nicoll’s tips for the move, plus advice on how to build up to a pull-up if you’re not yet able to do one unaided, in our pull-up form guide. 

Our beginner pull-up plan will also help you build up to doing a full set of proper pull-ups by the end of a 28-day training plan.

Explore our top-rated picks in our guide to the best pull-up bars.

If you spend a lot of time sitting (and who doesn’t?) whether that’s at a desk, in a car or even on the sofa, you may well find your hips are prone to tightness. As I sit typing this, I can feel a niggling discomfort in the front of my hips—a sign I need to stand up and move my hip flexors. While stretching can offer reprieve, Pilates offers more than a temporary fix to this problem.

I spoke to Pilates teacher and sports therapist Chiara Boswell, founder of SW4 Pilates in London, to see what she recommends for tight hips.

“Tight hips are such a plague!” says Boswell. “Most people suffer from it. I see a lot of people with this issue, professionals who spend most of their day sitting, which makes their hips flexors short, tight and weak. At the same time the hamstrings and glutes and deeper muscles at the hips are also getting weaker as we sit on them for so long.”

And it’s not just the sedentary among us who suffer from tight hips. “There are also very active people such as runners and gym-goers who suffer from tightness at the hips, and this comes down to the muscle activation that occurs at the hip flexors,” says Boswell. “Again, these people might be sitting most of their day and then get up and run, those tight quads are not really helping the situation. That’s when Pilates can help.”

You might be thinking, ‘Surely a bit of stretching can fix that?’. I often imagine that a few deep breaths in pigeon pose will sort out tightness in my hips, but according to Boswell, that’s not enough to make a real difference. “Stretching will help you for about 15 minutes but it is not a long-lasting solution, even if you do it regularly,” says Boswell. “To change the tightness at a neurological level—because tightness is a nervous system response—we need to teach muscles to activate differently.”

Even if you work out a lot you may have weaknesses you’re not aware of that can affect your hips. “I’ve had toned and muscular people coming to my classes and shaking with the strain because their body is not used to holding those muscle contractions,” says Boswell. “And they’ve left my classes feeling more supple and mobile.” Something we’d all like to feel, I’m sure.

Pilates Exercises For Tight Hips

1 Single-leg circle

Reps 5 in each direction, on each side

Lie on your back, with your legs extended and arms by your sides. Lift your right foot up towards the ceiling, keeping your leg as straight as possible. Rotate your right leg so that your right kneecap is pointing towards your right shoulder. Try and keep this external rotation for the whole movement.

Slowly circle your leg anticlockwise, lifting your right hip slightly off the mat as your leg crosses over to the left side and resting your hip on the ground when the leg is out to the right. Inhale as you circle downwards and exhale as you circle back up to the start. Do five circles then change direction. Repeat on the other side.

2 Shoulder bridge

Reps 5

Lie on your back with your knees bent, arms by your sides, and feet flat on the floor, shoulder-width apart. Exhale as you tilt your pelvis upwards and roll up through your spine, one vertebra at a time, pushing down through your feet so your body is in a straight line from your shoulders to your knees. Hold at the top as you inhale, and then exhale to roll down. Make sure you’re pressing your arms down into the ground to support your spine throughout.

“This is a great stretch for tight quads and a fabulous activation exercise for the hamstrings, which are often weak,” says Boswell.

3 Lying side-kick

Reps 5 in each direction

Lie on your side with your legs straight and a little in front of the line made by your torso. Prop your head up with your hand and lean on your elbow. Raise your top foot to hip level. Slowly move your leg forward, keeping your lower back in a neutral curve, and pulse once at the furthest point. Reverse the movement and continue backward. Repeat for five reps in total.

Then raise and lower your top leg for five reps for five reps. Finally, add some ronde de jambe, or big circles, keeping your leg straight, for five reps in each direction.

4 Heel beats

Reps 5 breath cycles

Lie on your front with your legs extended, your upper arms out to the sides and elbows bent and your forehead resting on your hands. Keep your head and upper back relaxed. Stretch your legs away from you so they float off the mat slightly. Externally rotate your legs, so your knees point slightly out. Open and close your legs, beating your inner thighs together, keeping the movement small and fast. Inhale for a few beats, exhale for a few beats. Aim to do five breath cycles, then relax completely onto the mat.

Boswell has contributed two more Pilates sessions you may like to try: six Pilates core exercises and Pilates for back pain.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed when you start strength training—there are so many moves and different ways of training. But if you have a few reliable exercises to fall back on whenever you have time to train, the building blocks will be in place for an effective exercise regime.

We asked five top personal trainers from fitness apps WithU and Mvmnt what their best beginner exercises are, plus some tips on how to perform the moves well.

You can use these exercises to put together workouts that will help you get fitter and stronger, and learn some of the foundational movements every exercise plan needs.

1. Squat

Two of our coaches picked the squat as their number one move for beginners: Rory Knight, director of fitness at WithU, and Carrie Baxter, PT at WithU. Here’s why they rate the squat so highly.

Why it’s great “The squat is effective because it utilizes multiple major muscle groups,” says Knight, “plus, it’s a movement that you perform daily, often without realizing, meaning it has added functional benefits. 

“Squats are also easily adaptable depending on your experience. For example, using a chair for support as you gain confidence with the movement, before moving on to an unsupported squat.”

Baxter has another reason why the squat is great for beginners. “With two feet firmly on the floor you don’t have to test your balance, so you can work on building confidence with the move while feeling stable,” says Baxter.

Watch how to do an unweighted squat

How to do it Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart with feet pointing out to the sides slightly if comfortable. Brace your core and push your hips back and bend your knees to lower until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then push through your heels to come back up to standing.

Top tips “If you’ve never performed a hinge movement like a squat before, it’s a really good idea to start with a box or chair to sit back on to help guide your body back and down,” says Baxter. “Start by working to half range, then build up to full range of motion as you master the technique.

“When learning to squat, it’s also important to push your knees out to protect them. Try to feel the movement in your glutes [the muscles in your backside] rather than the quads [the front of your thighs]. The best way to maintain correct knee alignment is to practice bringing awareness to your feet and ensure you’re pushing weight evenly through the entire foot—the big toe, little toe and heel—throughout the exercise.”

“My game-changing tip is to remove your footwear and perform the exercise barefoot,” says Knight. “We have thousands of nerve endings in our feet that enhance the recruitment of our muscle fibers. To create more engagement, think of each foot as a tripod and look to grip the floor with your big toes, little toes and heels. By doing this you should feel stronger, more balanced and connected when you squat.”

See more tips in our explanation of how to squat. 

2. Glute Bridge

The bridge was picked by Jo-Leigh Morris, Pilates instructor at Mvmnt.

Why it’s great “The glute bridge is my go-to bodyweight exercise because it engages the glutes, hamstrings and hip flexors—the stabilizers of the posterior chain [the muscles which run along the back of your body],” says Morris. “The glute bridge is great for beginners because you’re in a stable position with both feet on the floor, so there’s no need to worry about balance. 

“Once you’ve mastered a glute bridge, it’s also a great warm-up exercise before a lower-body workout.”

Watch how to do a glute bridge

How to do it Lie on the floor with your knees bent so your feet are flat on the floor close to your buttocks. Lift your hips so that your knees, hips and shoulders form a straight line. Hold this position for a moment then lower your hips to the floor.

Top tip “The most important thing when performing a glute bridge is that the movement is powered by your glutes via hip extension, and not your lower back,” says Morris. “My top tip to ensure this happens is to slightly tuck your tailbone under, thinking about pulling your belly button towards your spine. This will help you create a neutral spine. Engage your core throughout the exercise as you drive your hips up to maintain the correct posture, target the right muscles and protect your lower back.” Find more top tips with our glute bridge form guide.

3. Dead Bug

The dead bug was picked out as one of the best beginner exercises by Omar Mansour, coach at WithU.

Why it's great “The dead bug is a great entry-level exercise for strengthening the deep muscles in your core,” says Mansour. “It’s accessible for beginners because you’re in a stable position on your back and you can perform the exercise slowly as you learn the technique. 

“The dead bug is also a great way to learn how to brace your core, which is a foundation for strength training which requires core control.”

Watch how to do a dead bug

How to do it Lie on your back with your arms extended and pointing up, and your legs lifted and knees bent at a 90° angle. Squeeze your core and lower one arm behind your head and lower and extend the opposite leg until both limbs are just above the floor. Return to the start then repeat on the other side.

Top tip “The most important thing is to brace your core to ensure you’re working your abs and not your lower-back muscles,” says Mansour. “You can do this by keeping your whole back pressed into the floor throughout. Think about driving your belly button down and checking throughout the move that your back isn’t arching. Breathe out as you extend your arm and leg, and breathe in as you bring them back to help maintain core stability.” Get more tips with our dead bug form guide.

4. Burpee

One of the best bodyweight exercises that people love to hate is the burpee, which is the choice of Faisal Abdalla, PT at Mvmnt.

Why it’s great “While it may not be everyone’s favorite exercise, the reason the burpee is my number one exercise for beginners is that they’re very, very effective!” says Abdalla. “A burpee is a compound full-body movement, meaning you work many of your main muscle groups across your whole body in one go. 

“The burpee is particularly effective for beginners because it’ll build muscle and increase your cardiovascular fitness. Plus, if you want one move that makes you feel like you’ve done a great workout, burpees are it!”

Watch how to do a burpee

How to do it From standing, place your hands on the floor in front of you and jump or step your feet back so you’re in a high plank position. Your hands should be under your shoulders, your arms extended and your body should form a straight line between your neck and heels. Then jump or step your feet back up to your hands, stand up and jump into the air lifting your arms above your head.

Top tip “A burpee is a challenging movement because it’s a full-body exercise that requires coordination, speed and power,” says Abdalla. “To start with, don’t focus on the speed element of the exercise, that will come once you’ve mastered the technique. Start slow, and adopt a rhythm that works for you while you familiarize yourself with the correct hand and foot placement. Once you’ve got this in the bag, you can make the exercise more dynamic by increasing speed and power. This is when you’ll start to feel the benefit!” For help mastering the finer points of the movement, read our burpee form guide.

Recently I asked five personal trainers and coaches from the WithU and Mvmnt fitness apps to share their best beginner exercises, and two of them picked the air squat. That’s not a big surprise because the squat is undoubtedly one of the best bodyweight exercises for people of all fitness levels and a great move for beginners to get to grips with.

More of a surprise was the top tip Rory Knight, director of fitness at WithU, gave to help beginners improve their squat.

“My game-changing tip is to remove your footwear and perform the exercise barefoot,” says Knight. “You have thousands of nerve endings in your feet that enhance the recruitment of your muscle fibers. To create more engagement, think of each foot as a tripod and look to grip the floor equally with your big toes, little toes and heels. By doing this, you should feel stronger, more balanced and connected when you squat.”

The squat is an exercise that you can work on no matter how experienced you are in the gym. Even if you regularly squat using heavy barbells it’s worth doing some barefoot air squats to regain that connection to the ground and ensure the foundations of your technique are sound.

If you are starting from scratch, Knight also recommends using something for support while you learn the movement.

“Use a chair for stability as you gain confidence with the move, before moving on to an unsupported squat,” says Knight.

If you’re keen to improve your form, then our 30-day squat challenge is a good way to stay motivated and give yourself a short-term goal while you practice good squat technique. The challenge builds up each day so that by the end you can do 250 unweighted squats—no mean feat—whether you’re doing them barefoot or not.

If there’s one area of the body it’s worth dedicating an extra bit of TLC to, it’s the hips. They bear the brunt of long hours sitting at a desk, at the wheel of a car or in front of the TV.

That’s certainly the case for me. I often notice that my hips are tight when walking or running, or while doing squats and lunges, plus, I think some of my lower-back pain is caused by tight hips. So I’m trying to incorporate mobility exercises for my hips into my daily routine.

I decided to try a quick and simple routine created by mobility coach Anthony Green. It only takes four minutes, so it was easy to fit into a break from my working day, and it’s only one stretch, done both dynamically and passively on each side of the body.

Dynamic stretches are great for activating the muscles and improving joint movement as well as muscle flexibility. Passive stretching is useful for improving flexibility and range of motion. Doing a combination of the two types of movement, as in this routine, is really beneficial.

Watch Green's Instagram Reel where he demonstrates the movement.

I've tried plenty of hip stretches before, but this one was new to me. As I moved into it I immediately felt a deep stretch in both of my hips.

As advised by Green, I moved in and out of the stretch for one minute and then held it for one minute before repeating on the other side. It certainly challenged my flexibility and my hip flexor strength too, and this is probably more of an advanced movement for people who already have fairly flexible hips. Try some of these other hip stretches if this one is too difficult. As with any stretch or exercise, it’s best to stop if you feel pain and seek in-person advice from a medical professional.

My hips felt looser and more relaxed after this four-minute routine and it felt like this stretch both strengthened and mobilized them, so I'll definitely be adding it to my routine.

Elliot Simmonds is one of the UK’s most successful CrossFit athletes, with three Games appearances and a third-place finish in the team division under his belt. But just six weeks before the 2022 CrossFit Games semi-finals, disaster struck in the form of a torn ligament in his back.

He had to stop training, but still competed, finishing in an impressive 12th place. Groin pain hampered him on his return to training and eventually Simmonds opted for surgery. “I had a full groin reconstruction,” says Simmonds. 

To build himself back to the level where he can compete, Simmonds, a WIT-sponsored athlete, has been working with his coach James Jowsey. “For the last 12 weeks I’ve been doing a single-leg session two or three times per week and a core session two or three times per week to try and rebalance everything,” says Simmonds.

“Here is a selection of exercises from those sessions which I have used to get me back to doing CrossFit movements again. These are all fantastic single-leg movements that anyone can incorporate into their training routine to help iron out any muscular imbalances, and improve your stability and strength.”

How To Do This Workout

The single-leg exercises have been arranged into four supersets and a finisher. However, you should take your ability into account and adjust the sets, time/reps and rest as appropriate. 

“Levels [you will be able to perform at] will vary for each exercise based on an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, so be cautious,” says Simmonds. 

Single-Leg Workout Overview

• 1A Short-lever Copenhagen hold 3 x 20-30sec each side
• 1B Single-leg high knee isometric hold 3 x 30sec each side
• 2A Bulgarian split squat isometric hold 3 x 2 each side with 10sec hold
• 2B B-stance Romanian deadlift 3 x 8 each side
• 3A Single-leg glute bridge isometric hold 3 x 10-20sec each side
• 3B Single-arm bear plank 3 x 30sec each side
• 4A Side plank 3 x 30sec each side
• 4B Hanging single-leg knee raises 3 x 10-20
• 5 Box pistol squat 1 x max reps each side

Single-Leg Exercises Form Guides

1A Short-lever Copenhagen hold 

Sets 3 Time 20-30sec each side

Lie on your side on the floor, side-on to a weights bench. Your lower forearm should be on the floor and your elbow directly underneath your shoulder. Bend the knee of your top leg to 90° and place your lower leg on the bench. Lift your bottom leg and hold it against the underside of the bench. Hold this position, keeping your body in a straight line. Repeat on the other side.

1B Single-leg high knee isometric hold

Sets 3 Time 30sec

From standing, raise your right knee until your right thigh is parallel with the ground. Hold this position, concentrating on staying upright, and avoiding leaning forward or backward. Repeat on the other side.

2A Bulgarian split squat isometric hold 

Sets 3 Reps 2 each side with 10sec hold

Stand facing away from a weights bench or box. Place the top of one foot on the bench behind you. Bend your knees to lower until your rear knee is just above the floor. Hold this position for 10 seconds. Push through your front heel to return to the start. Do two reps, then switch sides.

2B B-stance Romanian deadlift

Sets 3 Reps 8 each side

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, then place one foot slightly behind the other. With a slight bend in your knees, push your hips back and hinge your torso forward. When your hands reach the middle of your shins, push your hips forward and return to the start. Do all your reps on one side, then switch sides.

3A Single-leg glute bridge isometric hold

Sets 3 Time 10-20sec

Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Tilt your pelvis to press your lower back into the floor and, keeping the knee bent, lift one foot. Push through the grounded foot to lift your hips off the floor until your body forms a straight line from shoulders to knees. Hold this position for 10-20 seconds. Lower under control, then repeat on the other side.

3B Single-arm bear plank 

Sets 3 Time 30sec each side

Start on all fours with your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees underneath your hips. Press through your hands and lift your knees off the floor. Lift and extend one arm in front of you. Hold this position for 30 seconds, using your core and glutes to stabilize you. Return to the start, then repeat on the other side. 

4A Side plank

Sets 3 Time 30sec each side

Lie on your side with one leg on top of the other. Your lower forearm should be on the floor and your elbow directly underneath your shoulder. Lift your hips so your weight is resting on your forearm and feet, and your body forms a straight line. Hold this position for 30 seconds, then repeat on the other side.

4B Hanging single-leg knee raise

Sets 3 Reps 10-20

Hang from a pull-up bar using an overhand grip with your hands shoulder-width apart. Pull on the bar slightly and retract your shoulder blades, moving them back and down, so you are in an active position. Keeping the rest of your body as still as possible, raise your right knee until it’s higher than your hips, then lower under control back to the start. Repeat with your left knee. Continue alternating legs. 

5 Box pistol squat

Sets 1 Reps Max each side 

Stand on a 30in box with one foot close to one side and the other foot suspended over the side of the box. Keeping your hips square, bend your knee and push your hips back to lower the suspended foot slowly towards the ground until you’re in the bottom of a squat position (or as close to as you can manage). Drive through your planted foot to return to the start, and repeat until you can no longer perform a rep with perfect form. Repeat on the other side.

To make this move easier, you can use the side of the box to support the foot you’re lowering or reduce the distance you lower your foot.

Sometimes it pays to keep things simple when trying to improve your fitness, and if you’re looking to add just one exercise to your regular routine then Evie Cant, head trainer at F45 Camden, recommends the push-up.

“The one bodyweight move everyone should be doing is the push-up,” says Cant. “Push-ups work the upper body and core—more specifically the chest, triceps, biceps, delts, traps and abdominals, making it a killer all-in-one exercise.”

The reason Cant says we should all be doing push-ups is because even fairly active people don’t tend to exercise their upper body much through a normal daily routine.

“For the person that lives a relatively active lifestyle, walking and standing for part of the day, the lower half of our bodies get used a fair amount, however our arms don’t,” says Cant. “While it’s still crucial to train the lower half of your body with exercises like squats and lunges, adding a few push-ups into your daily routine can make a big difference.”

How To Do A Push-Up

“Start in a high plank position,” says Cant. “You want to have your shoulders over your wrists, arms straight and core engaged. Your back should be neutral, and your bum shouldn’t be high in the air or dropped towards the ground. Start with your legs straight and slowly lower your chest down to the ground. From there, push the ground away from you, returning to a high plank.”

If the standard push-up proves too challenging for you at first then start with the kneeling version of the exercise.

“Bend your knees and rest them on the ground when in your plank position,” says Cant. “The further away your knees are to your arms, the harder it’s going to be, so play around with how far away you can get them. 

“Once you’re finding kneeling push-ups easier, start working on some progressions. One step between a kneeling push-up and a full push-up is to lower your chest to the ground without the assistance of your knees. Once your chest is just above the ground, drop your knees and use them to assist you on the way up which is the hard part. Make sure this is a slow controlled movement and that you are not relying on gravity to drop your chest to the ground.”

How To Make Progress

“When starting out, aim to complete 3-5 push-ups, take a minute or two to rest and then do a further three sets of 3-5 reps with a minute or two of rest in between,” says Cant. “Slowly, you’ll be able to increase your reps to 8-10. 

“From there, rather than continue to increase your reps per set, consider incorporating some more resistance. You can do this by placing a weight plate on your back—though take great caution to not injure your lower back in doing so. Another way you can increase your resistance is using a resistance band. Put one hand in each end of the band and stretch it out over the top of your back.

Need help choosing? Our round-up of the best resistance bands can help.

“You can also have fun playing around with different types of push-ups. There are endless variations, but some key ones are diamond push-ups, single-arm push-ups, and pike push-ups.”

If you’ve even dabbled in CrossFit, you’ve probably come across the handstand push-up—a supreme test of upper-body strength, as well as control, balance and stability. You may think it’s out of reach, but not if you start at the beginning and take it step by step.

CrossFit coach Kayne Goldfinch has posted an Instagram Reel of seven steps which will lead you to the precipice of doing a handstand push-up (and our expert guide explaining how to do a handstand push-up can do the rest).

These progressions are suitable for beginners and are worth working on even if you never plan on kicking up to a wall. Mastering each progression will help you to build the kind of upper-body strength you need to do handstand push-ups.

"These progressions allow people to see where they are at, then gives them a road map to improve,” Goldfinch told Coach. 

The push-up and pike push-up progressions in the routine are as follows:

1. Strict push-up to three weight plates
2. Strict push-up to two plates
3. Strict push-up to one plate
4. Strict push-up
5. Elevated pike push-up to plate
6. Elevated pike push-up to abs mat
7. Elevated pike push-up to floor

Goldfinch says that you should be able to do 10 reps of each exercise before you move onto the next progression. “This helps create good technique and movement patterns,” he says. “It will also make it easier to progress to that next level by having built a foundation of strength.”

Prioritize the quality of your reps, ensuring your chest or head touches the plate, mat or floor, as appropriate, every time. “Keep your stomach muscles squeezed to keep your core tight,” says Goldfinch.

Practice these progressions at least once a week at the end of strength sessions. Aim for three sets of the progression you’re working at, trying to do as many reps as possible. Once you can comfortably hit 10 reps, move on to the next progression.

If you’re ready to get serious with your upper-body training but don’t have access to a weights room, the pike push-up is a powerful bodyweight move that can produce major results. While it looks straightforward, don’t underestimate how challenging this workout can be. It’s one of the best shoulder exercises for stability and mobility, but also one that’s easy to get wrong. 

“The pike push-up has more in common with a handstand push-up than a regular push-up,” says Cody Mooney, a former CrossFit Games athlete and the director of performance for the mobility and recovery app pliability. “That’s because it’s done in an inverted position. You elevate your hips to create a triangle. This shifts the muscle engagement from your chest and triceps to your front delts. With the pike push-up, you can build a lot of strength within your shoulder joint, but you also put it at risk of injury.”  

The pike push-up is not easy, but with the right approach, it can be a great tool for building mass and strength in your upper body. Here is everything you need to know about how to perform this exercise safely and effectively.

Pike Push-Up Benefits

When doing the pike push-up, your shoulders, arms and chest drive the movement, but it’s down to your back and core to hold you securely in place. As a result, this exercise is a great choice for developing body awareness, co-ordination and stability. It is particularly favored by calisthenic athletes, because it helps with developing functional movement patterns needed in more complex exercises. “Practicing pike push-ups allows you to step toward a handstand push-up. It’s a perfect intermediate exercise to teach you how to get yourself into the upright position and hold your bodyweight overhead,” says Raynsford. 

The pike push-up can also help to prevent back pain and postural imbalances. The inverted position places significant stress on your spine, which forces your body to activate various stabilizing muscles in your trunk. This in turn translates into a stronger, more functional core. 

Pike Push-Up Risks

The pike push-up is not for beginners. Even if you’re an advanced exerciser who has mastered the regular push-up, you may find this exercise challenging. Before attempting the pike push-up, make sure you have sufficient upper-body strength and mobility, or you’ll put yourself in a position where the risk outweighs the benefits. You can easily find movements that target the same muscles but are much safer, says Don Saladino, a celebrity personal trainer and Lumen ambassador.  

“If I walk into a class where they’re trying to demonstrate a pike push-up, I bet 80% of participants would not be able to perform this exercise correctly,” says Saladino. “You have to possess a certain level of shoulder mobility, hamstring flexibility and core strength to be able to get into that inverted position, and move your body through the whole range of motion. Otherwise, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” 

So, what’s the best alternative? “If someone is unable to perform a pike push-up, I would advise them to get really good at the plank and the regular push-up. The farmer’s carry is another good option,” says Saladino. 

Moreover, people prone to dizziness, vertigo or those with very low blood pressure may find this exercise difficult. “When you’re upside down with your head on the floor and your hips higher up, there will be a rush of blood to the head. If you do have issues with blood pressure, always talk to your doctor first. You may need to avoid this inverted position altogether, or try to ease into it slowly and gradually, for example by doing decline push-ups first,” says Raynsford.

Understandably, the pike push-up is also not suitable for those battling wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries. “If you do have any pre-existing injuries, speak to a physiotherapist or sports therapist first. Once you are signed off, you can start including more advanced exercises like the pike push-up,” says Raynsford. 

How To Do The Pike Push-Up

The pike push-up can be performed at home without any equipment, but it will help if you have a comfortable mat to work on. To do a pike push-up, start on all fours. With your torso parallel to the mat, press your hands and toes firmly into the floor. Tighten your core, lower back, glute and hamstrings muscles. “Core engagement is crucial with this exercise, so make sure you’re braced throughout the movement,” says Raynsford. 

Straighten your legs and lift your hips until your body forms an inverted V shape. Bend your elbows, making sure they stay close to your body throughout the movement, to slowly lower your head toward the floor. Once your head is just above the floor, pause for a second, then straighten up your arms to return to the starting position. 

“Remember that the pike push-up gets harder the more you elevate your hips,” says Mooney. “If you struggle to achieve a full range of motion, you can either get the hips a little bit lower, or put a cushion or a box on the floor, so you don’t have to go quite as far.” 

Pike Push-Up Form Tips

1. Don’t Round Your Back

What Make sure your back is straight throughout the movement. 

Why A rounded back increases the pressure on your shoulders and traps, which puts you at risk of strain and injury.  

How Keep your core muscles engaged throughout the exercise. To do this, imagine that someone is about to punch you in the stomach. If your core is engaged, but your back is still rounded, that may mean your core is too weak or your lower back lacks sufficient mobility. In order to master your pike push-up stance, you may need to begin by strengthening your deep core muscles (for example, by practicing planks) and increasing the range of movement in your lumbar spine (yoga and Pilates can help with this).

2. Control Your Descent

What Don’t rely on momentum when bringing your upper body toward the floor. 

Why If you don’t control momentum, you fail to engage the muscles in your arms and upper back. This will not activate the correct muscles and will take away a lot of stability from your shoulder and elbow joints. This in turn creates ideal conditions for a painful injury.

How Don’t rush! Perform each repetition in a slow and controlled manner by lowering your body for a count of five. 

3. Don’t Flare Your Elbows

What Keep your elbows tucked in to your sides at a 45° angle.

Why “By tucking your elbows in, you’ll be able to retract the shoulder blades and reduce the pressure on your traps. This allows you to better recruit your shoulder muscles,” says Raynsford. 

How Try one of Mooney’s favorite cues, “Imagine your hands on a piece of paper and as you go down, try to rip it apart. It will allow you to drive your elbows in,” says Mooney. 

4. Modify Your Stance

What Modifying your stance can help you tweak your muscle engagement. 

Why and how “If you place your feet too close together, there’s going to be a lot of balance work involved,” says Raynsford. “So, a narrow stance may be more advantageous if you want to challenge your core. If you’re looking to increase your shoulder strength, a wider stance may be better.”

Pike Push-Up Vs Push-Up

In theory, the pike push-up is a variation of the regular push-up. However, these two movements have more differences than similarities. 

To start with, the pike push-up requires far more upper-body strength and mobility than the standard push-up, especially when performed for high-volume sets. They also target slightly different muscle groups. “Regular push-ups are a lot more chest-dominant than pike push-ups, and they may also require more triceps engagement,” says Mooney. “Pike push-ups, on the other hand, focus more on the shoulders.” 

In addition, the regular push-up is often viewed as a stepping stone to the bench press and other weighted chest exercises. The pike push-up, on the other hand, is often used as a transition exercise to more complex bodyweight movements, such as the handstand push-up. “The inverted position places way more stress on the shoulder than the plank position. It’s mimicking the upright position typical of many advanced calisthenics exercises,” says Mooney. 

About Our Experts

The handstand push-up is an eye-catching gymnastics exercise and the pinnacle of bodyweight shoulder strength. It requires impeccable form, shoulder mobility and balance to execute correctly, but with the right approach, this gravity-defying trick is achievable. 

Handstand push-ups are also not just for show. Practicing them can take your core strength, balance and co-ordination to a whole new level, all while giving you an enormous sense of achievement. They’re also one of the best shoulder exercises for developing upper-body strength and drilling functional movement patterns.   

To work your way up to a proficient handstand push-up, first you need to be capable of holding a wall-supported handstand for at least one minute. That’s no easy feat so we strongly recommend you work on your handstands with a fitness professional. They will show you how to build up to a handstand and guide you through any strength or mobility work you need to improve your form.

Here, we discuss which muscles the handstand push-up targets, explore its many benefits, highlight some pitfalls to avoid, and outline how to nail this complex movement. 

Our guide focuses on strict handstand push-ups, where you keep your body in a straight line throughout, rather than the kipping handstand push-ups commonly seen in CrossFit. The kipping variety, which involves kicking up your legs to generate momentum, is a more explosive move and requires a different training approach.

Which Muscles Does The Handstand Push-up Work?

The handstand push-up is a great example of a compound exercise. It targets your upper body, particularly your shoulder, arm and chest muscles. But to provide stability when upside down, your body also has to engage multiple muscles in your back, core, glutes and thighs.

“It’s especially effective at strengthening the shoulders because it simultaneously targets all three heads of the deltoids, along with several stabilizing muscles, such as the rotator cuff,” says Mitch Raynsford, a certified strength and conditioning coach at digital fitness coaching platform P3RFORM.

The shoulders take the greatest strain, but the triceps muscles, the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor of the chest, and the spine-stabilizing extensors, trapezius and latissimus dorsi muscles of the back are all targeted too. 

“Chest and back engagement is especially important for stabilizing your shoulder joint,” says Raynsford. And your deep core muscles, including the transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, obliques and even your pelvic floor muscles will all be working overtime to prevent you from swaying to the side, tilting forward or collapsing altogether. 

“Your glutes and hamstrings will also be put through their paces too,” says Raynsford. These muscles will be particularly engaged during freestanding handstand push-ups, when the security of a wall to support your legs is taken away. 

Handstand Push-Up Benefits

The handstand push-up is a great exercise for building sculpted shoulders and increasing upper-body strength, but its benefits don’t end there.

To start with, you don’t need any advanced equipment. The handstand push-up can be done anywhere, any time—all you need is a wall or a box, and potentially a training buddy to help you get into position safely.   

Regular practice promotes proprioception, meaning it helps your body improve the perception of its own position in space, while establishing better communication pathways between your brain and muscles and more efficient muscle engagement. As a result, the handstand push-up does wonders for your balance, co-ordination and core stability. 

Handstand Push-Up Risks

Despite the move’s long list of benefits, there are a few potential risks you should bear in mind, especially if you have high blood pressure or are dealing with ailments affecting the ears or eyes.

Practicing this exercise may cause you more harm than good, for example, if you have an ear infection that affects your balance. Having your head upside down may also increase the pressure in your eyeballs, which can be particularly dangerous for people with glaucoma (damage to the optic nerve), according to the American Optometric Association. 

The handstand position also carries increased risk for those with high blood pressure and those vulnerable to heart disease, according to Harvard Health. That’s because pumping blood against gravity requires the heart to produce more forceful contractions. 

Don Saladino, a celebrity personal trainer and a Lumen ambassador, suggests those with especially poor posture should prioritize improving their mobility or flexibility before launching into a high-risk handstand push-up. 

“If someone has poor posture, with a rounded upper back and an inability to externally rotate their shoulders, the only way they're going to be able to get into the position is by overextending their lower back. This can easily lead to an injury,” he says. 

Cody Mooney, a former CrossFit Games athlete and the director of performance for the mobility and recovery app pliability, says the risks to your joints are even greater when adding a kipping movement into this exercise, especially if your hips are tight.

That said, if you have enough mobility, stability and upper-body strength, you’ll be able to do it safely. “I've seen intermediate level CrossFitters doing handstand push-ups with great form,” says Mooney. “It’s all about having the right foundations to put yourself in a good position and then build up from there.”

How To Work Up To A Handstand Push-Up

Mastering the handstand push-up requires thorough preparation, dedicated practice and plenty of patience. “It all depends on the individual: Their overhead strength, abilities and previous training history, but also their confidence and mental resilience,” says Raynsford.

Before you launch into it head first, check if your shoulders can sustain the weight of your body. “If you can do three sets of 10 reps of the pike push-up, that’s a good sign you can progress to handstand push-ups,” Raynsford says. 

Barbell pressing your bodyweight overhead is another good indicator, so long as you have above-average shoulder mobility to match this impressive feat. 

Here Mooney has outlined his three-step plan to build up to your first handstand push-up.

1. Practice the pike 

The first step is about learning how to get in and out of the handstand position using a box. Start in a straight-arm plank position, facing away from the box. Push your hips up and put your feet up on the box. Then, gradually walk your hands closer to the box until your torso is vertical, or “as far as you feel you can go comfortably,” says Mooney.

2. Master the kick 

“Once you’re comfortable being upside down, focus on the kick,” says Mooney. Now’s a good time to rope in a training partner for support. Start by facing the wall. Put your hands on the floor next to the wall, shoulder-width apart. Keeping your arms locked out and shoulders braced, kick your feet up so your heels rest against the wall. “Really focus on stabilizing your shoulders and think about all the muscles working to hold your position,” Mooney adds. 

3. Prime the push 

Once you feel confident in a handstand position, you can start working on the push-up. “Don’t shoot for a full rep straight away,” says Mooney. First, get used to the pressure the move exerts on your upper body. “Start by drilling half-range handstand push-ups, and only progress if you have full confidence in your shoulder mobility.” 

If in doubt, always consult a physiotherapist or a certified strength and conditioning coach. Raynsford also suggests using a thick padded gym mat or large cushion under your head to help break your fall, and insists you always train with another person present to help if anything goes awry. 

How To Do A Handstand Push-up

How To Warm Up For The Handstand Push-up

Warming up is an essential part of any workout, but it carries greater significance for handstand movements. If your body isn’t ready to take the load, you won’t engage your muscles properly, and will put yourself at risk of serious injury. 

To prepare properly, include warm-up exercises that mobilize your neck, shoulders, glutes and spine, such as the child’s pose and downward dog moves from yoga. These shoulder warm-up exercises are also well worth running through.

Resistance bands and cable machines can be particularly beneficial too. “These allow you to maintain constant tension throughout an exercise, helping activate all the stabilizing muscles, like the teres minor and teres major of the rotator cuff,” says Mooney. 

Handstand Push-Up Form

Stand facing a wall, ideally with a mat in position to provide cushioning. Bend down and place your hands about a foot away from the wall, slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, with your fingers spread. Bracing your shoulders and core, powerfully kick up into a handstand so that your heels rest against the wall. 

Once upside down, steady your position by squeezing your glutes. From your wrists to your feet, your body should form one straight line. Carefully bend your elbows to lower the crown of your head toward the floor or mat. Allow your head to lightly touch the floor, then press hard through the heel of your hands to drive back up. Extend your arms fully, breathe, and continue into the next rep. 

Mooney says: “A slow descent is one of the best ways to help avoid injury. Rushing on your way down can strain your neck. Instead of relaxing as you lower, take a big breath in to brace your core and help control your descent.”

About Our Experts

If your lifting program has only one exercise in it, well, you should find a new coach—but is there one super-effective muscle-building move that deserves a place in pretty much any effective workout routine? 

We asked Chris Hemsworth’s trainer Luke Zocchi to pick one, and his answer came as a surprise. 

Long-time admirers of Hemsworth’s physique might have expected bodybuilding staples like the bench press, while fans of the functional fitness offerings on his workout app Centr may have guessed bear crawls or unweighted squats. Neither would be right.

“I’m going to have to say pull-ups, just for injury prevention,” says Zocchi. “I have bad shoulders and, just from hanging, it has got my shoulders out of a lot of pain. 

“As basic as it is, just learning how to do that hanging movement, and how good that actually is for you, is usually overlooked.”

Shoulder health is no trivial matter. One study, published in the Best Practice And Research journal, cited population surveys saying “shoulder pain affects 18-26% of adults at any point in time”.

But strengthening your shoulder muscles, both while hanging and moving through the pull-up, is far from the only benefit of this exercise. 

It will also help you build strength and size in your biceps and the muscles across your back such as the trapezius and lats.

There’s also a lot to be said for mastering bodyweight exercises before progressing to free weights. Zocchi agrees. “Chris and I do a lot of bodyweight movements: chin-ups, push-ups, squats—they’re the base. That’s where you should always start.” 

If you’re new to the movement, buy yourself a sturdy pull-up bar and a long looped resistance band, and follow this pull-up workout plan. You’ll be knocking out a set of pull-ups comfortably in four weeks.  

The standard burpee is rightly known as the king of bodyweight exercises, working multiple muscles groups as well as improving cardiovascular fitness. It is also, however, frightfully hard. Fortunately there is a slightly easier version of the burpee that will provide many of the same benefits without leaving you a broken mess on the floor of the gym. Meet the squat thrust.

Don’t be fooled into thinking squat thrusts are easy just because we’ve called them a beginner version of the burpee. You’re still going to be strengthening muscles all over the body and cranking up your heart rate. The lower-body muscles in particular – your quads, glutes and hamstrings – are called upon, and you’ll certainly feel a squat thrusts session in your core and shoulders the following day too.

The unweighted air squat and burpee are two of the best bodyweight exercises you can do, so it makes sense that combining elements of both creates a brilliantly effective move. The squat thrust is an explosive variation on the squat that adds more cardiovascular benefits and works as a stepping stone to (or mid-set step down from) the full burpee by omitting the jump. 

Squat Thrust Benefits

Don’t be fooled into thinking squat thrusts are easy just because they’re two-thirds of a burpee. You’re still going to be strengthening muscles all over your body and cranking up your heart rate. The move calls upon your lower-body muscles in particular – your quads, glutes and hamstrings – and you’ll certainly feel the effects of a squat thrust session in your core and shoulders the following day too.

How To Do The Squat Thrust

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Bend down and place your hands on the floor. Kick your feet out behind you so that you end up in a top press-up position, then jump your feet back to your hands and stand up. At this point when doing a full burpee you’d explode into the air and throw your hands above your head, but this isn’t a full burpee, so you don’t have to do any of that. Instead drop down and do another squat thrust, and then another. Keep going for as many reps as possible in a minute, or whatever other interval you’re doing for a circuit.

Squat Thrust Variations

Burpee

When you’ve got the squat thrust down, it’s time to take it up a notch with a full burpee. Drop down and perform the squat thrust as normal, but as you stand jump up and lift your hands above your head. Land softly and go straight into the next rep.

Press-up burpee

The next level up from the standard burpee involves doing a press-up at the bottom of each rep. Drop down and kick your feet back into a press-up position, perform a press-up, then come back up and jump, raising your hands above your head. The addition of the press-up will make your upper-body muscles, particularly the chest and triceps, work harder.

Squat thrust to dumbbell press

You don’t have to do press-ups to tax your upper body during a burpee if you don’t want to. Instead grab a set of light dumbbells, ideally with hexagonal weights so they will provide a stable base during the thrusting part of the exercise. Holding the dumbbells, drop down into a press-up position and perform your squat thrust, then when you stand back up press the weights straight up from your shoulders. This works the arms and shoulders, and if you really want to up the upper-body ante, you can always do a press-up during the exercise as well.

Workouts Which Feature The Squat Thrust

You may have mastered your squat thrust form, but unless you’re a fully trained PT it can be tricky to know when to deploy the move. Thankfully, we’ve asked lots of well-qualified PTs over the years for workouts and lo and behold, the squat thrust pops up time and time again. 

The squat thrust features in this series of exclusive Joe Wicks workouts as well as in these cover model abs workouts. You’ll find the exercise features in two of these cardio workout challenges, and in the 10th of our 12 AMRAP workouts. Then the squat thrust is paired with the jump squat in this Third Space workout from trainers at the boutique gym – that’s a particularly spicy combo of leg exercises.

With the right selection of bodyweight exercises you can hit most fitness goals without so much as looking at a dumbbell. In particular, bodyweight exercises are the perfect pick for a lung-busting HIIT workout designed to build lean muscle, and because they typically involve training several muscle groups and joints at the same time, you’ll feel the benefit of bodyweight workouts in your everyday movements and be less likely to pick up injuries.

To ensure your well of bodyweight moves never runs dry, we asked Anya Drozdova, personal trainer at The Fitting Rooms gym, to pick and explain her favourite bodyweight exercises for beginner, intermediate and advanced gym-goers, and we added in a few more for good measure. But first, why bother in the first place?

The Benefits Of Bodyweight Exercises

Bodyweight exercises offer something for everyone

“I am a huge advocate of bodyweight training,” says former Royal Marine turned fitness model Sean Lerwill, “it’s something that’s used a lot in the military. It’s the simplest way to exercise, whether you’re starting your fitness journey or coming back from injury, but even advanced exercisers can benefit massively from incorporating more bodyweight moves into their training programme. It helps master movement patterns, and has tremendous cross-over benefit for weightlifting, sport and everyday life.”

You’re less likely to get injured with bodyweight exercises

“Let’s face it, if you can’t do a perfect bodyweight squat, you have no business going anywhere near the squat rack and a loaded barbell. All you’ll do is make form compromises to allow you to lift the bar, and over time those poor movement patterns will lead to injury. Indeed, it’s far more likely that you’ll get injured using weights than you will with bodyweight moves, because with bodyweight exercises you’re much more aware of how your muscles are moving.”

Bodyweight exercises will help you break through training barriers

“If you’ve hit a strength or size plateau then bodyweight moves are a great way to get off it and start making progress. Take the bench press: if you spend some time working on the press-up and its variations [see below], that will allow you to focus on any weaknesses, strengthen your core, and play around with sets, reps, tempo and rest periods. You’ll give your body the new stimulus it needs to grow bigger and stronger when you go back to the bench.”

Bodyweight exercises allow for fast progress

“With bodyweight exercises there are many small tweaks you can use to make it slightly harder but without the risks of weights. When lifting a barbell or dumbbells, the weight increments are quite steep, but when moving just your body you can change your hand position or feet position, or slow the tempo of each rep, or include a rest-pause at the bottom position. There are all safe, simple tweaks that really do make a huge difference.”

Beginner Bodyweight Exercises

Straight-arm plank

Why “The plank is a simple but effective exercise,” says Drozdova. “You have to learn to keep your entire body under tension while maintaining correct alignment. Not only does it strengthen your core, it works your shoulders, arms and glutes, and is a foundational skill for learning how to control your body.

How “Place your hands on the ground directly beneath your shoulders with your legs extending straight behind you, creating a straight line from your ankles to your head. Look straight down at the floor and squeeze your glutes to tuck your tailbone under. Hold the position for 30 seconds to one minute, or simply for as long as you can while maintaining good form – there’s no point carrying on if you’re sagging in the middle. Look to improve your time by a few seconds each time you do the plank.”

Squat

Why “The unweighted squat is not only a great stepping stone to more advanced exercises but also a great strength and mobility exercise,” says Drozdova. “A young child can easily drop down into a deep squat but over time our mobility is compromised by tightness caused by our sedentary lifestyle. This stiffness can contribute to problems like lower back and knee pain.

How “Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Keeping your back straight, descend by bending your knees and bringing your hips down towards the floor. How deep you are able to squat will vary from person to person depending on their mobility and strength, but the aim is to get your thighs at least parallel to the floor while maintaining good form.”

TRX row

Why “TRX rows can play a big role in maintaining shoulder health,” says Drozdova. “For beginners, they help to develop shoulder, back, grip and core strength.

How “Set the rings to an appropriate height, then grip them and lower your body so your arms are fully extended and your feet are out in front of you with your body forming a straight line, keeping tension throughout your entire midsection. Start the pull by retracting your shoulder blades and bending your arms, and keep pulling until your elbows are behind you. Keep your legs together, knees locked out and core tight.”

Lunge

Why The lunge is one of the best lower-body exercises you can do, and it’s also a move with many effective variations to help you keep progressing. The standard lunge works all the major muscles in your legs, hips and glutes to improve your strength, and it’s an exercise anyone who plays sports should add to their routine. 

How From standing, take a big step forwards and lower until both your knees are bent at 90°. Your rear knee should be just above the floor. Then push back up through your front heel to return to standing, bringing your feet back in line. Keep your core engaged throughout the movement, as well as keeping your back straight and your chin up.

Dead bug

Why In our view, the dead bug is one of the most underrated core exercises there is. It works all of your abs without putting strain on your lower back in the way sit-ups and crunches can. 

How Lie flat on your back with your arms pointing straight up and your legs raised so your knees are directly above your hips and bent at 90°. Brace your core muscles and extend your right arm behind you while also straightening your left leg, making sure you don’t raise your lower back off the ground. Bring your arm and leg back to the start, then extend the opposite limbs.

Donkey kick

Why This simple, if slightly awkward-looking, exercise works your glutes, lower back, hips and core, making it a move that should be a fixture on any bodyweight training schedule. 

How Start on all fours with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Engage your core muscles and ensure that your midsection doesn’t sag or arch as you perform the movement. Squeeze your glutes and lift one leg behind you, keeping the knee bent, until the sole of your foot is pointing towards the ceiling, then bring the leg back down slowly. Do all your reps on one leg, then switch to the other.

Hanging knee raise

Why Of the surprisingly large number of exercises you can do on a pull-up bar, the hanging knee raise is one of the easiest – which is more to do with how most of the other moves are double hard. It’s well worth including in your routine, however, because it works places most exercises struggle to reach – namely your lower abs and forearms. 

How Hang from a bar using an overhand grip with your legs together. Use your lower abs to raise your legs, bending at the knee, until your thighs are parallel with the floor. Lower slowly.

Negative pull-up

Why Prepare yourself for a pull-up (because it’s coming further down this page) by working on the lowering part of the move first. 

How Jump up or use a platform to get into the mid-move position – holding your chin above the pull-up bar with an overhand grip, core braced and legs together. Then lower your body as slowly as you can until your arms are straight. It can also be worth testing your grip strength by holding the dead hang position.

Intermediate Bodyweight Exercises

Press-up

Why “As well as being an upper-body exercise, press-ups work your glutes, core and legs,” says Drozdova. “It is an easy exercise to do anywhere, any time, and once you’ve nailed the basic movement there are many variations to experiment with.

How “Place your hands on the directly beneath your shoulders with your legs extending straight behind you. Keep your core, glutes and legs tight, maintaining a straight line from your head to your ankles. Bending at the elbows, lower your body until your chest comes to within 2cm of the floor, with your elbows staying close to your sides. Press up explosively, fully extending your arms.”

Hollow-body hold

Why “Building solid core strength and learning how to use your entire body as one unit is the foundation for all advanced movements,” says Drozdova. “An exercise like the hollow-body hold is often overlooked at the gym but not only will it allow you to progress to fancier exercises like handstands, it can also fix poor posture and build the kind of strength that transfers to squats, push or pull exercises and even sprints.

How “Lie on your back and bring your arms overhead. Raise your shoulders, hands and feet off the floor to create a shallow bowl shape with your entire body. Make sure your lower back stays firmly planted on the floor. Create tension from your toes all the way to your fingers. Hold the position for 30 seconds to one minute, or as long as you can while maintaining good form. Try to hold it for a few seconds longer each time.”

Pull-up

Why “Pull-ups work your back, arms, core and grip and can be a great stretch when done with the full range of motion,” says Drozdova. “Achieving your first pull-up can be particularly challenging and all the steps leading up to it can be a great goal to keep you motivated. Remember that the difficulty of all bodyweight exercises depends on what your bodyweight is and heavier people might find pull-ups too challenging at first. It is also important to have no pain in your shoulders, elbows or wrists when doing pull-ups.

How “Get into a dead hang on the bar using an overhand grip with your arms fully extended. Start by engaging your shoulder blades into a shrug. From there, pull with your back and bend your elbows until your neck reaches the bar. Keep your body in line and your legs straight.”

• Build up the strength to do a full set with this pull-up workout plan for beginners

Split squat

Why The split squat is a cross between a squat and a lunge, and there’s a case for saying it’s better than both of them given that it targets pretty much all the major muscle groups in your lower body. It works your hamstrings, quads, glutes and calves, and it’s a great move for people who participate in sports, especially runners.

How From standing, take a small step forwards, about half the distance you would step for a lunge. Bend at both knees to lower until your rear knee is just above the floor, then drive back up to standing. Do all your reps on one side, then switch.

Tuck jump

Why This explosive exercise is great for improving the power in your lower body, as well as ramping up your heart rate for cardio benefits, making it ideal for HIIT or circuit workouts. 

How From standing, drop into a shallow squat, then jump as high as you can, bringing your knees up to your chest while in mid-air. Land softly and go straight into another squat.

Side plank

Why This variation on the classic plank works your obliques more than the central abs, so it’s a good way to ensure you’re hitting all the core muscles. 

How Lie on your side supported on your forearm, with your hips, legs and feet stacked one on top of the other. Lift your hips so you form a straight line from your neck to your feet. Hold this position for a set time, and then swap to the other side. You can make the move harder by straightening the supporting arm so only your hand is on the floor.

Burpee

Why One burpee is fine. After three it starts to burn a bit. Any more than that and everyone – everyone – feels a strong desire to adopt the foetal position. Burpees are a hell of a cardio exercise, but they’re simple enough to execute, combining a squat thrust and a jump straight up.

How From standing, drop your hands next to your feet, then jump your feet back so you’re in the top press-up position. Reverse the movement but as you stand up, power straight up into the air. You can increase the demands of the move by dropping your chest to the floor or including a strict press-up in the first part of the move, and/or finishing with a tuck jump or pull-up.

Advanced Bodyweight Exercises

Handstand wall walk

Why “This is an advanced move that will activate your whole posterior chain,” says Drozdova. “The key is to hold a straight line by maintaining tension through your entire body. I think this is great fun – it requires co-ordination and control, and always challenges your body in a slightly different way depending on your hand placement.

How “Get into a handstand facing the wall with your feet resting on it. Tense your core, glutes and legs, and walk your hands away from the wall into a wall plank and then all the way back up the wall.”

Hanging leg raise

Why “This requires total-body strength and flexibility,” says Drozdova. “It works your abdominals and hip flexors, and increases your overhead mobility and grip strength. Additionally, the skill of learning to compress your body is one not often practised but it forms the basis for more advanced movements like the pike to press handstand. Many assume this exercise is easy, but if you try it with someone keeping your shoulders from leaning back and your legs completely locked out as you raise your feet to the bar, I promise it is far more challenging than you think.

How “Hang from a bar or from wall bars. Without swinging, contract your abs to lift your legs as high as you can while keeping your arms and legs straight. Keep the movement slow and controlled.”

Pistol squat

Why “This requires tremendous mobility, balance and strength,” says Drozdova. “Even lifters with impressive barbell squat numbers struggle with this movement because it requires a lot of time and consistent training to get the range of motion and control needed. It is a fun skill-based addition to your training, and keeps your muscles flexible and your body mobile and healthy.

How “Stand with one leg raised, keeping it straight in front of you. Bring your arms out in front of your chest and descend on your standing leg while keeping the lifted leg parallel to the floor. Lower until your hamstring is resting on your calf muscle and then push back up.”

Cossack squat

Why Like the pistol squat, this variation develops your mobility and flexibility as well as your strength. If you’re lacking flexibility you may struggle to perform the move at first, in which case keep working on moves like the side lunge and deep squats to increase your range of motion.

How Start by taking a big step to the side. Keep the weight in your heels as you lower your hips back and on that side, bending your knee over your toes while extending the other leg and lifting your toes off the floor. When you feel the stretch in your straight leg come back up, but don’t return all the way to standing. Instead keep your feet apart and drop down into another Cossack squat. Perform all your reps on one side, then switch.

Elbow planche

Why The elbow planche is as much an exhibition of strength as it is an exercise to benefit your body, but it does improve your wrist mobility as well as testing your core strength. 

How Place your hands on the floor with your fingers pointing either behind you or to the sides. You are going to rest your body on your elbows, so your hands need to be narrower than your hips. Keeping your knees on the floor, pull your elbows in and rest your waist on your elbows. Slowly extend your legs but keep your toes on the floor until you’re confident you’ve found the right balance point and are able to lift your legs so you’re “floating”, supported by your hands with your body resting on your elbows.

Box jump

Why The plyometrics poster-boy move will hammer every muscle in your legs, recruit your core, up your heart rate, and do wonders for your co-ordination and balance. Plus, if you stack the boxes high it becomes advanced very quickly.

How Stand in front of a box with your feet shoulder-width apart and a slight bend in your knees. Lower into a half squat while swinging your arms back, then explode through your legs and swing your arms forwards for momentum to jump on the box. Land with both feet, keeping a slight bend in the knees to absorb the shock of landing. Stand upright and then step off.

There is no shortage of great press-up variations that you can use to work the muscles in your upper body in different ways from the classic exercise, but it’s rarer to find variations that also work the lower body.

The divebomber press-up is one such variation, although it is fair to say that it stretches the legs and lower back rather than strengthening the muscles. The move is effectively a combination of a couple of stretches and a classic press-up, since you start in downward-facing dog position and transition via a press-up to a lower back stretch.

As with all press-ups, the divebomber strengthens the chest, triceps and shoulder muscles, while also engaging your core. The swooping movement means the shoulders work a little harder than in the classic press-up, while the stretches you do during the exercise primarily target the hamstrings, calves and lower back.

The combination of stretching and strength makes the divebomber press-up a useful addition to any warm-up ahead of a weightlifting session, as well as being an effective bodyweight chest exercise in its own right. 

How To Do The Divebomber Press-Up

Start in a standard press-up position with your hands shoulder-width apart. From there pike your hips upwards and move into a downward-facing dog pose, keeping your arms and legs straight with your head between your arms. 

Then “dive” towards the floor as if you were trying to push a ball forwards with your nose, so your chest almost touches the surface as it comes down and through your arms. Lower until your hips and legs are hovering just above the floor, then lift your head and chest up to stretch your lower back. Slowly reverse the movement to come back to the inverted V starting position.

It’s best to move slowly when performing the divebomber press-up even when you are accustomed to the technique. This will ensure your muscles spend plenty of time under tension and increase the benefits of the stretch sections of the move.

If you’re just setting out on a fitness kick, strengthening your core is a great place to start. This will ensure that you have the foundations in place to help you carry on with your chosen type of exercise – whatever it is – in the long term, and build functional strength that carries over into everyday life.

You can get started on your training with these bodyweight core exercises from The Body Coach trainer Leroy Andre Williamson. Williamson is an ambassador for Lululemon, and the company has released its second annual Global Wellbeing Report, which highlighted that exercise can increase a sense of wellbeing.

Squat

“This strengthens your lower body and core muscles,” says Williamson. “Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart and your chest up. Bend at your knees and hips, pushing your bum out like you’re going to sit on a chair. Squat down until your knees are bent at 90°. Ensure your knees are behind your toes. Hold at the bottom for a second with your back straight, then push through your heels to stand back up.”

Plank

“The plank strengthens your body from head to toe, but the real focus is on your core,” says Williamson. “It can help to reduce lower-back pain and improve your ability to perform your daily tasks.

“Place your forearms on the floor with your elbows underneath your shoulders. Engage your core by imagining you’re pulling your bellybutton in towards your spine. Squeeze your glutes and hold your body off the floor in a straight line. Don’t forget to breathe!”

Side lunge

“This lunge variation works your inner and outer thighs to improve your agility,” says Williamson.

“Take a big step out to the side, bend one knee and push your hips back as your other leg stays straight. Return to standing by pushing off the foot of your bent leg. You can do all reps on the same leg and then swap, or alternate sides with each rep.”

Standing mountain climber

“This variation of mountain climbers works your muscles without putting pressure on your wrists,” says Williamson. “It gets the blood pumping and challenges your coordination.

“Stand tall with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms by your side. Bring your right knee up to waist height and reach your left arm to the sky. Return to the starting position and alternate sides, building up speed.”

Bum kicks with row 

“This is great for people who sit down for much of the day,” says Williamson. “The kicks get the blood pumping and fire up the hamstrings, and the added row opens up the shoulders.

“Stand with your feet about hip-distance apart, with your arms held out in front of you. Slowly bring your right heel to your right glute as you squeeze both of your elbows back like you’re pulling a bar into your stomach. Place your foot back on the floor as you reach your arms forwards. Then slowly bring your left heel to your buttocks and pull your elbows back. Keep alternating heels and gradually build up speed.”

Jumping jacks

“Jacks work all the major muscles in your lower body and increase your fitness levels with high-intensity cardio,” says Williamson.

“Stand straight with your legs together and arms at your sides. Bend your knees slightly as you jump your legs out just wider than shoulder-width apart and stretch your arms out overhead like you are a star. Jump back to the starting position and repeat. To make this exercise low-impact, step one leg out, then bring it back to the middle, and alternate.”

The step is one of the more unassuming pieces of fitness equipment. It only takes a glance at a loaded barbell or towering cable machine to know you’re in for a tough workout. But the step? It’s far from daunting.

That just goes to show the old maxim about books, covers and judging works just as well in the gym as it does in a library, because in the right hands you can achieve a whole lot with a low platform.

Shaun T has the right hands. In his six-week training programme Transform:20, available from Beachbody On Demand, the step takes centre stage and is used for all manner of different exercises as you power through 20-minute HIIT workouts designed to burn calories and build muscle.

For those who’d like to get acquainted with the step at a more leisurely pace, we asked Shaun to pick five of his favourite step exercises from Transform:20 for you to try.

“The hardest moves in Transform:20 are the moves that are explosive so you really have to focus on the step,” says Shaun. “My challenge to you is to do these moves as slowly as you possibly can. That way you really can feel them in your entire body.”

Each move is demonstrated by Chip, one of the trainers on the Transform:20 team. Try each of the moves a few times to make sure you have the form down, then you can string them together for a full-body workout.

Linking squat lunge

“My favourite move is the linking squat lunge,” says Shaun. “It’s so dynamic. You’re working your hamstrings, your quads and your glutes all at the same time.”

Table-top shuffle

“My second favourite,” says Shaun. “You are working your shoulders and your abs, and it also tests your agility.”

Parkour

“This involves a lot of core twists,” says Shaun., “It’s going to burn!”

See related 

• Get Faster And Fitter With This Agility Workout
• How To Master Step-Ups
• Cardio Workouts To Get Your Blood Pumping

Peanut butter and jelly

“This has a little bit of power and a lot of control which I really enjoy,” says Shaun.

Hip roll-over to pike-up

“I had a tough time with this move but it is great for a balanced workout,” says Shaun. “It’s really, really dope.”

Aerobic Steps To Buy

If your home gym is currently lacking a step, here are a few options to consider.

JTX Aerobic Step

This step can be adjusted to three different heights, and the non-slip rubber surface on the top means that you get reliable grip even when powering through sweaty HIIT sessions.

Buy from JTX | £99

Domyos Comfort Step

You can use the interlocking legs on this step to adjust the height from 15cm to 20cm, and it can handle a load of up to 110kg. There are storage compartments on each end of the step where you can stash a towel and a water bottle for easy access mid-workout.

Buy from Decathlon | £59.99

TJC Fitness Aerobic Stepper

Those looking for a smaller step should check out this budget option from TJC Fitness, which can be set at either of two heights and is easy to stash in a cupboard or under the sofa.

TJC Aerobic Stepper 2-Level Adjustable Step Board (10cm/15cm), Exercise Step, Aerobic Step Board for Workout Gym Home Yoga Anti-Slip Surface - Blue

Buy now

If you’ve ever taken part in an instructor-led HIIT class, the chances are you’ve done the first part of the inchworm exercise – walking your hands out from your feet into a high plank and back again. That movement engages muscles all over the body and works as a dynamic stretch, which is why it’s such a good addition to a warm-up. It’s a low-intensity move that primes your body for what you’re about to put it through.

All you need to do to level up to the inchworm is walk your feet to your hands, which gives you a bit more of a stretch through your hamstrings than just reversing the move.

However, the inchworm is more than just a good warm-up exercise. If you’re relatively new to the gym, you’ll find it a great move for strengthening a range of muscles including your core, arms, chest and back.

It’s also an easy move to do safely and uses only your bodyweight.

See related

• The Best Bodyweight Exercises For All Levels Of Gym-Goer
• 15 Bodyweight Exercises Everyone Should Be Doing
• How To Warm Up At The Gym

How To Do The Inchworm

From standing, hinge at your hips to reach down and place your hands on the floor in front of you, keeping your legs as straight as possible. Walk your hands out in front of you until you are in a high plank position, with your body forming a straight line from your neck to your ankles. Next take small steps forwards, keeping your legs as straight as possible and raising your hips, until your feet meet your hands. Then stand up and repeat the movement, either forwards again if you have room or turning around and going back the way you came.

A popular alternative to the inchworm is the hand walk-out, where you begin the exercise in the same way as with the inchworm, reaching down and walking your hands out to a plank position, and beyond. Walking your hands past the high plank position taxes your core all the more.

Everyone, and we really do mean everyone, should be stretching regularly. However your job takes its toll on your body, and whatever your favourite activities and types of exercise are, a little bit of stretching goes a long way to helping you stay in good working order.

If you’re a gym-goer, stretching is vital to keep your muscles flexible and to help you to recover after tough sessions. Not only will regular stretching reduce your risk of injury, it will help to improve your performance whether you hit the gym to lift heavy weights, power through high-octane HIIT classes, or gravitate towards the cardio machines.

Below you’ll find five stretches from Cristina Chan, head of recovery at F45 Training, that will help you to ace every gym session. Aim to run through these stretches a couple of times a week, doing each pose for 30-60 seconds.

The Benefits Of Stretching For Gym-Goers

But first, here’s Chan with more about why it’s worth stretching.

It keeps the muscles flexible, strong and healthy

Ultimately, stretching is a preventive measure to reduce your risk of injury over time. A flexible muscle is less likely to become injured if you turn in an unusual way or have to make a sudden move.

It increases your range of motion

Stretching helps improve your range of motion which translates to better mechanical efficiency. A flexible joint requires less energy to move through a wider range of motion. This efficiency displays itself in the quality of your workout and overall muscle movement.

It promotes circulation

Stretching increases blood supply and oxygen to your muscles and joints, allowing greater nutrient transportation and improving the circulation of blood throughout the entire body. Better circulation translates to quicker recovery, aiding the relief of any post-exercise aches and pains.

It helps reduce or manage stress

Our muscles can tighten up in response to both physical and emotional stress. Stretching helps relax tight muscles, while moving intentionally and slowly allows you to take time to breathe, notice your surroundings, pay attention to yourself and decompress. When your breath and heart rate slow down, you become calmer.

It improves posture

Stretching can help encourage proper spinal alignment. A combination of stretching and corrective exercises is one of the most effective ways to reduce symptoms of poor posture in areas including the shoulders, back and hip complex.

The Best Stretching Exercises For Gym-Goers

1 Downward-facing dog

Start on all fours. Push into your hands and raise your hips as you straighten your legs. Bend one knee and then the other to gently stretch the back of each leg.

2 Cat-cow

Begin on all fours. As you inhale, drop your belly and arch your back, but keep your shoulders rolled back, and look slightly up towards the ceiling – this is cow. As you exhale, press your hands into the ground and round your upper back, tucking your chin into your chest and looking down – this is cat. Continue moving, arching on your inhales and rounding on your exhales.

3 Child’s pose

From all fours, bring your big toes together. Sit backwards, taking your hips as close to your heels as possible, reach your arms forward and rest your forehead on the ground. Hold this position.

See related 

• The Best Stretching Exercises That Everyone Should Be Doing
• Loosen Up With This Full-Body Stretching Routine
• Use This Stretching Routine To Cool Down After Your Workout

4 Seated twist

Sit on the floor with your back straight and legs extended. Bend your left leg at the knee, then place your left foot on the right side of your right leg. Turn your upper body so it faces left. Repeat on the opposite side.

5 Bridge

Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Raise your pelvis up as much as you can. Hold and breathe in, then lower your hips as you exhale.

You probably don’t need us to tell you that the pull-up is one of the toughest bodyweight exercises there is. If you’ve ever attempted to knock out a set in the gym, or just pull yourself up and over a wall out in the real world, you’ll know the demands it places on your back, shoulder and arm muscles.

Being able to perform a strict pull-up is a great goal to have and our comprehensive guide to the movement can help you achieve just that. We also have form tips to help you refine your technique, and variations and challenges you can try once you’ve nailed it. But first, a few frequently asked questions, answered.

Pull-Up Benefits

Aside from the sense of achievement that comes with mastering a feat of strength most people struggle with, what are the benefits of hoicking yourself above a bar? To find out, we spoke to Fiona Scott, head of physical performance at Performance Herts at the University of Hertfordshire.

“The pull-up is a compound exercise, meaning it involves more than one muscle group,” says Scott. “This is positive news for anyone wanting to get globally strong. It’s a good way to train if you’re short on time too.” 

By using the muscles in your back and arms, this exercise will help build transferable strength that can improve your performance in the barbell bent-over row, a fundamental strength training move. 

But there are more benefits to performing pull-ups than just building muscle. “They can do wonders for your shoulders,” says Scott. “You’re holding your own bodyweight and you’re also moving through a good range of motion. The shoulder can have a lot of problems associated with it because it has such a free range of movement—the more movement a joint has, the more issues can often affect it. 

“In the initial part of the pull-up movement, you should do something called scap-setting. This is bringing the scapula, or shoulder blade, into a favourable position to perform the rest of the movement.” 

Scott warns that many people miss out on this benefit because they don’t start and finish in a dead hang position, so skip the lower portion of the movement. 

“When you’re at a full hang you’re training the muscles around the scapula (which are often weaker due to our hunched posture in everyday life) like the lower traps and rhomboids. You’re also strengthening the rotator cuff muscles, which many people become familiar with through injuries.”

How To Do A Pull-Up

You probably think you know how to do a pull-up, but refining your technique makes it easier to do and helps you get more from it. Here’s Scott’s expert form guide. 

First, grasp the bar with an overhand grip, palms facing forwards, with your hands just wider than shoulder-width apart. Depending on the height of the bar, you may need to jump up to grab the bar, or if you’re new to pull-ups, a box or step can help you get into position.

“Start in a dead hang, gripping the bar with your arms fully extended,”says Scott. “Then it’s time for scap-setting: pull your shoulder blades back towards each other and down.”

Brace your core and glutes to keep your legs and torso stable, then begin the movement. “Use your lats to pull yourself upwards—imagine you’re trying to pull your elbows into your jean pockets,” says Scott. “Your end point will depend on your shoulder mobility, but usually you should aim to bring your chin at least above the bar.”

Pull-Ups For Beginners

“It isn’t common for people to just walk up to a bar and do a pull-up straight away,” says Scott. “And, unlike other exercises like the back squat where you can start with bodyweight versions before progressing to a barbell, it’s a difficult movement from the off.”

Fortunately, there are techniques that will help beginners develop the strength required to do a pull-up—and develop quicker than they may expect.

“Most people will need to use regression options,” says Scott. The first thing to do is to learn to hang on to the bar. Build up to being able to do a dead hang for 30 seconds—that shows you can manage your own bodyweight. 

“Next up is practising scap-setting. This is where, in that hang position, you pull yourself up a couple of inches just using your shoulders (your arms should remain straight). The cue I use for that movement is to imagine squeezing a satsuma between your shoulder blades, then relax. If you struggle to do this with your bodyweight, you can also perform this exercise on a lat pull-down machine.”

After you feel comfortable with this, use banded pull-ups and eccentric pull-ups (explained in our sections on variations below) to build strength in your back and biceps. 

Our pull-up workout plan for beginners brings all this together in a four-week schedule. All you need is a pull-up bar, and our guide to the best pull-up bars helps you find one.

Pull-Up Assistance Lifts

Try these supportive machine moves to power up your pull-up prowess.

Lat pull-down

This machine move most closely replicates the muscle actions required to do pull-ups. The wider your hands on the bar, the more you isolate your lats, making each rep harder.

Cable face pull

This works wonders for your pull-up ability by not only improving your hunched-over posture from too much sitting but also making you learn how to retract your shoulder blades properly, which is key to perfect pull-up form. Do three light sets of 15 after your back or shoulders session.

Pull-Up Form Tips

For advice on how to perfect your pull-up technique, we spoke to Alasdair Nicoll, personal trainer and tutor at The Fitness Group, which provides personal training courses.

1. Face Your Chest Up

“Start off with your hands one-hand-width outside of shoulder-width apart,” says Nicoll. “Then extend your spine slightly and have your chest high, facing towards the ceiling, as if you’re looking almost directly up, so there’s a natural slight curve in the upper back.”

2. Don’t Think About Pulling Yourself Up

“Instead of thinking about pulling yourself up, I suggest people think about driving their elbows down into their hips,” says Nicoll. “What’s going to happen is your lat muscles and your upper-back muscles, like the rhomboids and traps, take over.

“Whereas when you think about pulling yourself up, often there’s going to be more strain and stress put through the biceps, which isn’t the goal of the pull-up.

“More engagement in the upper back means much more control of the movement.”

3. Use Tempo

“Be really explosive and powerful on that way up, then have a slight pause at the top position for one second, then on the way down it can be two or three, even four seconds,” says Nicoll. “That way you’re really going to be utilizing that eccentric portion of the exercise, making sure that the back is getting a good stretch all the way through.”

Different Pull-Up Grips

Overhand grip

An overhand grip pull-up is the hardest to do, because it places more of the workload on your lats. The wider your grip, the less help your lats get from other muscles, making a rep harder.

Underhand grip

This grip turns a pull-up into a chin-up, and places more emphasis on your biceps, which makes it more of an arms move than a back one. Your hands should be shoulder-width apart.

Neutral grip

A neutral or palms-facing grip is your strongest hand position because it distributes the workload between multiple muscles. Use it initially to start building strength, or even as your final grip for a drop set.

Pull-Up Challenges

When you become a relative pull-up pro, test your mettle with these challenges.

Russian Special Forces challenge

This test stems from the entrance exam undertaken by new recruits to the Russian Special Forces. It’s not for the faint-hearted. You’ll need to perform 18 complete pull-ups without sacrificing form or technique. If that doesn’t sound tough enough, you’ll have a 10kg weight attached to your body—either in the form of a kettlebell, plate or weighted vest.

Dead hang challenge

Select a weight with which you can perform 15 comfortable pull-ups. That may be your bodyweight alone, or you may be able to add 5-10kg via a weighted vest or dipping belt. Your challenge is to hang at the bottom portion of the lift for 1-2min (depending on fitness level). It’s not as easy as it sounds, and to make it tougher, retract your shoulder blades as if you were about to perform an actual pull-up—and hold that position. This is extremely useful for those looking to quickly gain strength on the pull-up.

The 10-set press-up/pull-up combo

Five pull-ups, straight into 10 press-ups. No rest in between. Ten sets. Ideally perform this at the end of your session for a strength and endurance test. It’s a favourite of Combined Strength coach Andy MacKenzie, and while appearing relatively simple at first glance, will lead to a lung-busting finish.

Pull-Up Variations

We’ve put together 13 variations—from the first-time negative pull-up to the ultra-difficult towel grip pull-up—to help progress your pull-up game. Once you can do a set of six to eight reps, move up the scale. Adding an extra pull-up each week is a good rule of thumb.

1. Banded pull-up

How to do it Loop a resistance band around the pull-up bar and place one foot in the loop. The greater the resistance of the band, the more assistance it will provide. 

Why? “This is a way to reduce the load of a pull-up on your muscles,” says Scott. “The band will help you more at the bottom of the movement and less at the top. This works well for most people because they’re weakest in the first phase of the exercise, pulling from a dead hang, and strongest at the top.”

2. Negative/eccentric pull-up

How to do it “Your starting position should be at the top of a pull-up with your chin above the bar,” says Scott. “To get there, you can jump up or use a box to give you a helping hand. Then, slowly lower yourself down to a dead hang, taking between five and ten seconds.”

Why? “We are stronger in the eccentric portion of the movement. So if we can’t do a pull-up, we can learn to control our body through this range of motion and build strength until we can eventually perform one.”

3. Kipping pull-up

How to do it Exactly the same as the classic move, except you swing your legs to generate the momentum to pull to the top of the move.

Why? Practising with this move will build power in all your major back muscles.

4. Close-grip chin-up

How to do it Take a narrow grip with your hands so that your palms are in front of your face.

Why? This variation increases the involvement of your biceps, reducing the load on your back muscles and making the move slightly easier.

5. Classic pull-up

How to do it Grasp the bar with an overhand grip with your hands just wider than shoulder-width apart. Let your body hang straight down with your arms fully extended. Pull up and squeeze your lats until your chin is over the bar, before lowering slowly to the start position without swinging.

Why? Because it's an old-school classic that will work your upper-body like few other exercises.

6. Tarzan pull-up

How to do it Grip the middle of the bar, with both hands almost touching. Pull yourself up and, as you reach the top, twist your body to go up and to the right before lowering and then repeating to the left side.

Why? This requires greater co-ordination during the 'up' move to raise your body to each side, while a strong core is developed to prevent your lower body from swinging.

7. Side-to-side pull-up

How to do it Grip the middle of the bar, with both hands almost touching, as with the Tarzan pull-up, but raise yourself higher, so that your head can clear the bar for each shoulder to touch it on alternate reps. Get good at this tricky move by first focusing on pulling yourself up as high as possible, ideally so that your chest touches the bar. As you get stronger move your head to one side of the bar to get even higher, and alternate sides with each rep.

Why? This variation requires a more explosive “pull” to get you, then keep you, moving to clear the bar. It also means you need greater core control and stability to manage your bodyweight when it’s moving quickly.

8. Pull-up with alternating knee twist

How to do it At the top of the move, draw your knees in to your chest before twisting to the left, then to the right, before lowering slowly to the start.

Why? Your entire core is engaged during the twists, working your abs and obliques, while forcing your muscles to hold you in the 'up' position while you twist.

9. Pull-up with leg raise

How to do it As you reach the top of the move, raise your legs out in front of you until they are parallel to the floor before lowering.

Why? This move will also work your abs and slow down each rep, forcing your back muscles to work harder.

10. Walking pull-up

How to do it With a standard shoulder-width grip, move your legs back and forth in a walking motion as you raise and lower yourself. To “walk” yourself up super-slowly you need to work on your strength. Start with straight pull-ups with knee raises, then fast walking, getting gradually slower.

Why? This is one tough variation, and the slower you raise and lower yourself, the tougher it is. It also requires your core to work harder to keep your leg movement stable.

11. Weighted pull-up

How to do it Secure a weight plate to a belt or place a dumbbell between your legs before performing the move.

Why? If you can do regular pull-ups without too much trouble, the additional weight will shock your muscles into growing bigger and stronger.

12. Round the world

How to do it Pull yourself to the top. As you approach the bar, lift up and to the left before moving across to the right and completing a semi-circle before lowering.

Why? This tough move requires huge strength to hold your body firm while moving sideways and downwards under control.

13. Towel grip pull-up

How to do it Wrap two towels over the bar and grip one with each hand shoulder-width apart. Gripping the towels, pull yourself up to the bar before lowering slowly.

Why? Using towels requires great grip strength and builds forearm muscle power, as well as taxing the whole upper back and biceps.

First question: are you sitting comfortably?

Roger Frampton certainly appears to be, legs crossed on the floor, as we discuss his new book, Stretch: Seven Daily Movements to Set Your Body Free. And that’s because he’s already spent the morning releasing and realigning his spine, hips and shoulders from the rigours of modern life.

Since qualifying as a movement coach in 2011, the 37-year-old has become a mobility missionary, spreading the good word of conscious movement, bodyweight exercises, gymnastics and yoga to his many thousands of followers across Instagram and YouTube. And his influence is growing: his 2016 TED Talk, Why Sitting Down Destroys You, has been viewed over four million times.

In 2018 Frampton published his first book, The Flexible Body, exploring this theme. Now, with Stretch, Frampton has drawn up a seven-step action plan to reverse the damage of our sedentary life and help us regain the fluid movement we took for granted as kids.

We joined him (on the floor, naturally) via video call to learn more about his new book, and asked him for some hip mobility drills to help us get back off the floor.

What are the seven daily movements covered in Stretch?

“These movements focus on the critical areas of the body, specifically the spine, hips and shoulders, as well as your balance, which is essential for overall mobility,” says Frampton. “We also cover common problem areas, like the IT band and hip flexors, which can lead to pain and injury.

“The book includes seven principal stretches, with variations on each, that will help improve everyday movement. Each exercise takes just a minute to perform and there are six levels you can build up to, depending on your flexibility and mobility.”

Is it all beginner-friendly?

“This book is for those just wanting to get started. I want it to resonate with people’s parents and grandparents, and especially for those who sit at a desk for eight hours a day.

“At the same time, it will help anyone looking to get stronger. It doesn’t matter if you’re 25 or 75. Everything in the book is scalable and starts with just seven minutes a day. As long as your body isn’t getting any tighter, you’re making huge progress.”

Can stretching make you stronger too?

“In gymnastics, which is an inspiration for much of my coaching, as you improve in your flexibility the strength movements become easier because you have more range of motion in your body. Whereas if you’re tight, you’re essentially fighting your own body.

“Because gymnasts are so flexible, they make strength moves look basic. For example, with a handstand, if you have flexible shoulders, a handstand should feel like no more effort than just standing. So by stretching regularly, using this book, people will find their flexibility, mobility and strength will all improve.”

In the book you say sitting is as bad for your health as smoking – so what should we do instead?

“There’s nothing wrong with sitting in a chair. The problem is if we’re always in the same position. The same is true with sports, like running, which involve repetitive movements. If that’s all you do it will eventually become problematic. Stretching is about variety and getting the body moving in different ways.”

Try these three tips from Frampton to avoid some of the problems that can come with too much sitting.

1. Imagine you have a tail. To avoid crushing it, you have to sit on your legs, not your bottom. It will naturally help untuck your pelvis and raise your chest for a better posture.
2. Uncross everything. Feet, arms, legs. Constant crossing, because it’s always on the same side, will twist your body into pain points. I know it’s comfortable but it’s a habit that you can break.
3. Finally, and especially if you’re working from home, sit on the floor, sit against a wall, kneel, stand. Mix it up throughout the day so you don’t get locked into one repetitive position.

See related 

• Four Back Stretches And Exercises To Prevent Painful Problems
• Loosen Up With This Full-Body Stretching Routine
• Treat Your Body To This 10-Minute Stretching Workout
• Three Easy Neck Exercises To Help Prevent Neck Pain

Three Essential Stretches For Hip Mobility

Now that we’ve cracked the curse of sitting, we asked Frampton for his go-to hip mobility drills from Stretch.

Remember, this set of stretches is just one of your seven essential daily movements, alongside four for the spine, one for the shoulders and one for balance, but it’s a good place to start if you want to keep your lower back and knees pain free.

“Ideally you should use these stretches after a workout, when you’re warm,” says Frampton. “If you’re doing them first thing in the morning when you’re cold, start light. Aim for around a four or five out of 10 for intensity and build it up over time.

“Aim for a minute on each side, building up to three minutes on each.”

1 Lazy wall stretch

All you need is a wall and a mat or firm-gripping surface to stop you sliding away mid-stretch.

Sit in a very slouched position with your back leaning against a wall and your legs out straight in front of you. Next, bend your right knee so the sole of your right foot is on the floor – you want the sole of the foot to be in contact with the floor at all times because you will use this as leverage. Next, pick up your left foot and place it on your right thigh. For more of a stretch, place the foot on the thigh; for less, lay your ankle on the thigh.

This is your base position. You can then make two adjustments to increase the stretch. Bring the sole of the right foot closer or sit up taller on the wall.

“For maximum stretch over time, work towards getting your lower back closer to the wall. As you progress, focus on lifting the chest to advance the stretch,” says Frampton.

2 Single-leg frog

This move targets the groin, but it can also be beneficial for the calves, hamstrings, hip flexors and quads. We recommend doing it on a mat with your heel and knee cushioned.

To begin, kneel on the floor next to a wall. Extend your right leg out to the side until your right foot is flat against the wall, toes pointing up and heel on the floor. Once comfortable, and really the key is comfort here, wiggle your left knee out as far away from the wall as you can while still remaining upright. You could also hold on to something in front of you, like a chair, and build up to placing your hands on your hips. Push your hips forwards to engage your glutes and increase the stretch.

“On the supporting leg, your heel and your knee should be in a straight line,” adds Frampton. “The toes can be tucked or untucked (pointing straight behind you). As you progress, the distance between the supporting knee and the opposite heel will increase.”

3 Elevated pigeon

This is one of Frampton’s favourite stretches, and he suggests using a sofa, low chair or table with a soft yoga block on top, and a mat or cushion under the knee.

Place your shin on top of the sofa, chair or low table so it is perpendicular to your body, and lower your back knee to the floor. If your raised knee doesn’t lie flat, use a couple of yoga blocks or cushions to support it. Over time it will be able to go lower. The shin of your back leg might rotate inwards because your hip is rotating out to one side. To combat this, squeeze the glute on your back leg. You may also get a bit of a quad and hip flexor stretch at the same time. Keep your body upright and try to relax into this position, then change over to the other side.

“As the heights [of the objects you might use] are so varied, the concept of what we are trying to achieve is most important,” says Frampton. “Essentially, the higher the surface I use, the more challenging the exercise becomes and the stronger the stretch is going to be.”

Stretch: Seven Daily Movements to Set Your Body Free by Roger Frampton is out now (£14.99, Pavilion Books)

Photographs: Sam Riley

Squats and lunges are excellent bodyweight moves, but after a while many of us may feel like we need to add weight to ensure each exercise provides enough of a challenge. Well, before you open your wallet and invest in free weights for your home set-up, or sign up for your local gym, try these variations from trainer Tyrone Brennand.

We recently went on a two-day retreat to try the new Reebok Nano X1 Adventure shoe, a spin on the well-established training shoe. The new version adds deeper lugs on the sole for extra traction and a tougher ripstop upper. Brennand, who’s also a Reebok ambassador, was at the retreat and put us through our paces with his unique combination of HIIT and yoga. We were gritting our teeth and cursing under our breath (sorry, Tyrone) during the lower-body block of the bodyweight session especially, so we asked Brennand for a run-down of a few moves and what made them so deceptively difficult.

Give them a go yourself, but learn from our mistake and make sure you avoid stairs for at least 15 minutes after doing them.

1 Bent-leg reverse lunge

How to do it Bend both legs, keep your back straight and draw your shoulders back. Lift the heel of the leg you will lunge backwards with, then step backwards and lower into the lunge. Return to the start, but instead of placing your foot on the floor, just tap it with your toes, then go straight into the next lunge.

What makes it extra tough “Normally, when you come back to the start you take the tension off,” says Brennand, “but in this move the tension remains in the quad and in the glute. You’re doing up to 20 reps but it’s like one long rep.”

2 In-and-out squat jump

How to do it Stand with your feet together and lower as far as you can into a squat. Jump up explosively, moving your legs out and landing in a wide stance. Lower into a squat, then jump again, landing with your feet together. Keep alternating the position your legs land in.

What makes it extra tough “This is super-tough because it gets your cardiovascular system working,” says Brennand, “and the explosiveness from the jumps increases the intensity. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice form for reps.”

See related

• Do This Leg Workout At Home To Strengthen Your Lower Body
• The Best Bodyweight Exercises For All Levels Of Gym-Goer
• Five Minutes Of Fire Legs Workout Challenge

3 Side lunge with knee drive

How to do it Take a big sidestep with your right leg and lower into a side lunge, bending your right knee and keeping your left leg straight. As you return to standing, drive your right knee up to your chest – you can jump up at the top too for an extra challenge. Then immediately step out again into another lunge. Do all your reps on one side, then switch.

What makes it extra tough “You’re moving laterally,” says Brennand, “with leg exercises a lot of people only move either up and down, or forwards and backwards”

Tyrone Brennand was speaking at the launch of the Reebok Nano X1 Adventure, available 11pm on 7th July at reebok.co.uk, £110

It’s time to turn up the heat on your legs, with the elegant and deceptively tough skater jump. The elegance comes from the impeccable balance you’ll undoubtedly demonstrate doing the exercise, which mimics a skater gracefully speeding across the ice. The difficulty comes from the challenge provided to your body by the explosive lateral jumps. It all adds up to a plyometric exercise that will provide a stern test of strength, balance, fitness and co-ordination – fun, right?

The main muscles worked by the skater jump are found in your legs and rump. Your quads receive the bulk of the punishment, but your hamstrings, glutes and calves will also be nicely toned by the movement. Extra benefits come in the form of balance and co-ordination improvements, unless you keep falling over of course, and a full minute will really get your heart pumping, for those keen on including it in a HIIT circuit.

How To Do The Skater Jump

From standing, push off your left foot to leap to the right. Land on your right foot, bringing your left foot behind your right leg. Aim to land softly with a slight bend in your right knee and keep your left foot off the floor, though if you are struggling with your balance you can touch your toes to the floor. Pause for a beat, then leap in the other direction.

How far you jump determines the difficulty of the move, so if you are finding it hard to keep your balance without touching the floor with your back foot then shorten the distance you jump.

See related :

• The Best Leg Exercises For All Levels Of Gym-Goer
• The Best Cardio Exercises To Set Your Pulse Racing
• Burn Fat At Home With This Bodyweight Workout

Skater Jump Variations

Make it easier: Skater steps

If you’re new to this exercise or returning to exercise after a break, it’s best not to jump straight in. This easier version of the move will help you to maintain your balance during the exercise, while still working the same muscles. Simply step, rather than jump, from side to side, and let your trailing leg make contact with the floor.

Make it harder: Skater jump squats

If leaping is not enough of a challenge for you, add a one-legged squat while holding your skater pose each time you land. This substantially increases the difficulty of the move, because your lower body and core muscles must work harder to maintain your balance as you squat, leap, and squat again.

How does this sound: increased muscle strength, healthier bones and improved balance, coordination and posture, as well as reduced joint pain, risk of injury and even chronic health conditions like osteoporosis? These are just some of the benefits you can enjoy from regular resistance exercise – even when using just your own bodyweight.

Start with these bodyweight exercises for strength, conditioning and mobility that, frankly, everyone should include in their weekly routine. Whether you’re new to exercise or a seasoned veteran, they should provide the foundations for a fitter, stronger, happier body now and long into the future.

Bodyweight Exercises For Strength

Fitness trainer and online coach Ila Divina has recommended two core moves, two lower-body exercises and an upgrade on an upper-body staple for all-over strength.

Dead bug

Targets: core, abs, lower back

Don’t let the name put you off – this is a superb core-strengthening move and will help you avoid developing lower-back pain. Lie on your back with your arms pointing straight up. Raise your legs and bend your knees at 90° so your lower legs are parallel with the floor. Press your lower back into the floor to engage your deep-lying core muscles. Keeping your lower back pressed down, lower one leg and the opposite arm until they are just above the floor, then raise them back to the starting position. Repeat on the other side.

Split squat

Targets: glutes, quads, hamstrings

A great warm-up exercise and one that helps you progress from both lunges and squats. Stand with one foot in front of you and the other behind you. Don’t line them up directly in front of each other – keep some lateral space between them to make it easy to maintain your balance. Keeping your torso upright throughout, bend at both knees to lower until your back knee is just off the floor, then rise back to the start. Take two seconds to lower, and two seconds to come back up. Do all your reps on one side, then switch legs.

Cossack squat

Targets: glutes, quads, hamstrings

Stand with your feet double shoulder-width apart and your hands together in front of your chest. Bend one knee to lower to one side, pushing your hips back and driving your knee forwards in line with your toes, which will protect your knee. Keep the other leg straight and your torso upright as you lower. You should feel a light stretch in the back of the straight leg so only lower as far as is comfortable. Push back up to the start and repeat on the other side.

Side plank

Targets: core, abs, obliques, glutes

The side plank targets the deep stabiliser core muscles, and strengthening them helps reduce the risk of back pain. Lie on your right side with one foot stacked on top of the other, and your torso propped up on your right forearm, with your elbow under your shoulder and your forearm pointing away from your body. Raise your hips and squeeze your core and glutes to hold your body in position. Once your target time is complete, or your form falters, swap sides.

Hand-release press-up

Targets: chest, shoulders, triceps, core

Divina says this is the best way to learn press-ups without cheating the exercise. In the top of a press-up position take a deep breath to brace your core and glutes. Lower your chest to the floor, lift your hands off the floor briefly, then exhale as you push back up to the start. These can be performed on your knees or done by focusing just on the lowering part of the move until you have the strength to drive back up.

Bodyweight Exercises For Conditioning

These bodyweight exercises will challenge multiple muscle groups at once for an added cardiovascular challenge. They come from Tom Eastham, a former London Irish RFC strength and conditioning coach and founder of The Minimal Fitness Method.

Unweighted squat

Targets: quads, glutes, hip flexors

The ultimate lower-body move. Stand with feet around hip-width apart, toes pointing out slightly and hands together in front of your chest. Bend your knees and push your hips back as you lower until your bum is level with your knees. Keep your heels in contact with the floor at all times, don’t allow your knees to travel in towards each other, and keep your chest up to protect your lower back. Push back up, squeezing your glutes at the top of the move.

Glute bridge

Targets: glutes, hamstrings, lower back

Lie on your back with your knees bent and your heels close to your bum. Keep your knees hip-width apart as you engage your glutes, lower back and hamstrings to lift your hips as high as you can. Pause, then lower under control until your bum taps the floor and repeat. Press your hands into the floor if you’re having trouble maintaining your balance, or keep them off the floor to challenge your core stability.

Walking lunge

Targets: glutes, quads, hamstrings

Stand with your feet together. Take a big step forwards, then bend your knees to lower until your back knee is just off the floor. Push up off your front foot, then bring your back foot through and continue into the next lunge. Keep your torso upright throughout and keep a lateral distance between your front and back leg to make maintaining your balance easier. Still find this tricky? Eastham suggests building up to this excellent exercise by simply walking with an elongated stride.

Bear crawl

Targets: core, chest, shoulders, quads, hamstrings

Start in a four-point position – from all fours lift your knees just off the floor, so your weight is on your hands and toes. Keeping your core tight and knees just off the floor, walk your right hand and foot forwards, then repeat on the left side to move forwards. Aim for a set distance or, if space is limited, move a few steps forwards, then a few back.

Down-up

Targets: everything

This essential exercise is one of the first moves we learn as toddlers. The only problem is we stop practising it as we get older and miss out on its full-body conditioning benefits. The goal is to drop to the floor and simply get back up. You can drop to touch your chest on the floor and back up, or roll onto your back or bum or side or however you like. Aim to do this for one minute and you will be breathing harder than you expected. Once you’ve mastered a minute, Eastham suggests building up to the famous “100 burpees for time” test. Don’t worry, it’s not mandatory.

Bodyweight Exercises For Mobility

These exercises come from Christian Lewis-Pratt, head coach and founder of The Move Studios. A former England rugby sevens player, Lewis-Pratt’s moves are intended to “rewild your movement” and improve overall mobility for a more robust and pain-free body.

Rolling wave

Targets: Hamstrings, calves, lower back, chest, shoulders, abs

Think downward-facing dog into an upward-facing dog or cobra. Start at the top of a press-up position. Lift your hips high and back and gently drive your heels towards the floor. From here, lift your heels to begin rolling forwards, all the time pushing the space between your shoulder blades upwards. Bring your shoulders as far over your wrists as you can, then engage your glutes and drop your hips until just off the floor. Retract your shoulder blades hard, then reverse the movement back to the start.

Loaded beast to front kick

Targets: chest, shoulders, hips, hamstrings, core

Start at the top of a press-up position. Drive your hips back so your bum is over your heels, knees just off the floor and arms straight. From here you can simply return to the start and you will have completed the loaded beast.

To advance this move further, Lewis-Pratt suggests stepping your right foot outside your right hand as you come forwards, then releasing your right hand as you kick your trailing leg forwards between your front foot and supporting hand to point it forwards. Reverse back into the high plank and repeat on the other side. The aim is to kick forwards – think true north on a compass.

Kick-through

Targets: chest, shoulders, hips, hamstrings, core

Start in a four-point position, with your hands below your shoulders, your weight on your toes and your knees bent at right angles so they’re just off the floor. Release one hand, rotate towards this side and kick your opposing leg through the space between your supporting hand and foot. Keep your foot close to the floor as you kick through and trust your upper-body strength to support your weight. Return to the four-point start position and repeat on the other side. Start slowly and build up the speed as you improve your technique.

Deficit press-up

Targets: chest, shoulders, triceps, core

A progression from the standard press-up. Use weights or yoga blocks for press-ups to create a greater range of motion with each rep. These can either be performed on your toes or knees. With hands on the weights or blocks, start with your shoulders directly over your wrists, keeping your head in a neutral position. Lower into a deep press-up until your chest is just off the floor, then push back to the top. Build your range gradually as you go and keep a strict line between your shoulders, hips and knees.

Overhead squat reach

Targets: hips, glutes, ankles, calves, upper back, core

Lower into a deep squat position, keeping your knees wide apart and your weight on your heels. Fold forwards, rounding through your spine and reach your hands forwards on the floor to release tension in your upper back. Extend your spine to sit up as tall as possible and lift your arms overhead with hands together and fingers pointing up. Reverse to the start and repeat.

Photograph: Glen Burrows

The lunge, and indeed the reverse lunge, are fantastic lower-body exercises, but they have one serious flaw – they only require you to move forwards and backwards. That’s a problem since sometimes you’re required to move sideways, because life doesn’t always come at you head on.

As well as enlisting a couple of extra muscles on your inner and outer thighs that the forwards-and-backwards lunges can’t reach, the side lunge, or lateral lunge, will also improve sports performance – you’ll be jinking around defenders like Lionel Messi and leaping to make astonishing diving catches like Jonty Rhodes in no time. (We’ll concede the former South African cricketer is not quite as famous as Lionel Messi, but hot damn was he one hell of a fielder. The man must have been side lunging 24/7.)

The main muscles worked by the side lunge are the quads and glutes, as is the case with the standard and reverse lunge, but the extra focus on the inner and outer thighs means it’s an exercise you should have in your repertoire even if you have no intention of playing sports because it will contribute to the functional strength of your lower body.

How To Do The Side Lunge

Start by standing tall with your feet parallel and shoulder-width apart. Your back should be straight and your weight on your heels. Take a big step to the side and, ensuring you keep your torso as upright as possible, lower until the knee of your leading leg is bent at around 90°, keeping your trailing leg straight. Push back up and return to the starting position.

The most common form issue with a side lunge is to collapse over the straight knee. Focus on bending and lowering from the hips, with your back straight and core engaged, as with a squat. Also make sure you’re keeping the heels of both feet on the floor as you lower.

You can do several side lunges on one leg then switch sides, or alternate legs. Shoot for 20 side lunges on each leg in total, or build them into a timed circuits routine.

Side Lunge Variations

Dumbbell side lunge

Once you’re comfortable with the movement, the best way to increase the difficulty of the side lunge is to hold a dumbbell in each hand. Keep the dumbbells in front of you, with your palms facing your body and your arms hanging straight as you move, but don’t let them pull your torso down and out of position while lunging. That is unless you are performing the side lunge and touch, which is a further progression of the exercise. In this variation, once you’ve stepping into a side lunge you bend forwards at the hips and lower the dumbbells to the floor by your leading leg, keeping your back straight.

Leaping side lunge

Adding a leap between lunges ramps up the cardio benefits of the exercise and also increases the demands of maintaining good form throughout the movement, so your core strength should benefit all the more.

Stand with your feet together. Take a large step out to the right and squat on that side with your bodyweight over your right knee, which should be bent at a 90° angle, while your left leg is straight. So far, you’ve just followed the standard side lunge technique, but from here it gets funky. Instead of simply stepping your right foot back into the middle, you leap, moving your right leg back and then straightening it as you lunge out over your left side, aiming to land softly and move smoothly throughout.

See related 

• Do This Leg Workout At Home To Strengthen Your Lower Body
• A Quick-Fire Full-Body TRX Circuit
• The Best Leg Exercises For All Levels Of Gym-Goer

Transverse lunge

This hip-opening side lunge variation will prepare your body for the sudden twists and turns involved in sports like football, so your body doesn’t seize up when you’re trying to tackle a tricky winger.

Stand with your feet together. You can hold dumbbells by your sides to make the exercise tougher. Take a big step to one side and turn the leading foot so it is at a right angle to your standing foot, twisting around so your chest is facing sideways from your original position. Lower until the knee on your leading leg is bent at around 90°, keeping the trailing leg straight, then push back up.

Cable side lunge

One of the great benefits of the cable machine is that it can provide sideways resistance for your side lunges, which dumbbells and other free weights can’t. Stand side-on to a low cable, holding the attachment in both hands by your hips. Take a big step towards the machine to lower the weight, then push back up to standing.

For most people the word cardio means running, cycling or something along those lines, but all you really have to do to improve your cardiovascular fitness is raise your heart rate. Running is great for that, but you can get an effective cardio workout done in the gym or at home using just bodyweight exercises.

Generally, plyometric exercises that involve jumping are safe bets if you’re looking for exercises to make up a cardio workout. Leaping off the ground just a few times is enough to get most of us out of breath. It’s also worth picking compound exercises which involve several muscle groups and joints, because the more of your body you get moving the higher your heart rate is going to rise, even if you’re not moving all that fast.

Below you’ll find a range of great bodyweight cardio exercises you can do anywhere and at any time. Put them all together for a HIIT circuit that will leave you gasping.

The Best Cardio Exercises

Burpee

The burpee works muscles all over the body and is failsafe heart rate raiser. From standing, drop your hands down to the floor and jump your feet back so you end up in the top press-up position. Then jump your feet forwards to your hands again and jump straight up, taking your hands above your head. You can make the move more challenging by tacking on a variety of other exercises, like changing the jump into a tuck jump, but the most common variation is adding a press-up.

See related

• Cardio Workouts To Get Your Blood Pumping
• Improve Your Cardio Fitness In The Gym With These Drills
• The Skipping Workout You’ll Want To Do Again And Again

Skater jump

The skater jump tests your strength, balance and co-ordination, as well as improving your cardio fitness. From standing, jump off your left foot to the right, land on your right foot and sweep your left leg behind your right one. Then reverse the movement to leap to your left and sweep with your right. Start with small jumps and increase the distances of your leaps as you become more confident.

Jump squat

The squat is a great cardio exercise even without the jump, because it enlists so many major muscle groups in the lower body. Adding the jump ramps up the cardio benefits, and also helps to increase the power your legs can generate. From standing, lower into a squat until your thighs are parallel to the ground, then drive back up and jump up. Land and go straight into the next rep.

Jump lunge

Like the squat, the standard lunge does plenty to get your heart pumping, but adding the jump takes those benefits – as well as your heart rate – to the max. Take a big step forwards and lower your body until both knees are bent at 90°. Then push back up explosively and swap your legs around while in the air, then land and go straight into another lunge on the opposite side.

Mountain climbers

This fundamental core exercise is also great for your cardiovascular fitness, as long as you keep your legs pumping as fast as you can. Get into a press-up position and then alternate driving your knees towards your chest.

Box jump

Stand in front of a box or other stable surface that’s about 50cm high and can take your weight. Drop into a shallow squat, then leap up to land softly on top of the box. Step back down and repeat. The higher the box, the harder this exercise is.

Fast feet press-up

This is a great choice to use as a brutal finisher to your cardio workout. Run on the spot as fast as you can, taking your feet just a couple of centimetres above the ground, and after ten seconds drop and perform a press-up. Jump back up and go straight into fast feet again. Repeat the combo as many times as you dare.

Whether you’re a new runner or a veteran, strength and conditioning work should be a key part of your routine. For new runners in particular, it will help you strengthen key areas so your body can deal with the demands of the sport.

It’s important to tailor your workouts to running, though, because certain strength and mobility moves will be far more effective than others in helping you excel on the run. If you’re not sure what to do, start with these six exercises picked out by Dr Martin Yelling, a Garmin running ambassador, which can help you run faster, longer and reduce your risk of injury

The exercises have been chosen from a series of workouts on the Garmin Connect app, which you can follow on your wrist if you have a compatible Garmin tracker. Or just download the app, sign up for free and follow the instructions.

And don’t delay – try them today. “These strength and mobility exercises shouldn’t just be for when you’re feeling the onset of injury, discomfort or niggles,” says Yelling. “Rather, they should be used as a regular long-term preventative strategy that complements your running. When done frequently and properly, and incorporated into a structured plan in an appropriate way, the habit can get you running stronger, faster and further.”

Burpees

“Burpees are a great strength and conditioning activity to work the large muscles of the legs – your glutes and hamstrings – and your core and chest,” says Yelling.

“Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your hands at your sides. Quickly lower your hips and place your hands in front of your feet, then kick your feet back into a press-up position. Complete a press-up and then jump your feet back under your hips, then jump up and touch your hands behind your head. Repeat at a steady pace, starting off at a low intensity to focus on technique and control.”

Plank

“The plank is a simple exercise focusing on stability and strength for your abs and glutes,” says Yelling. “With your elbows directly beneath your shoulders and legs extended, lie on the floor and raise your torso. Ensure your body makes a straight line from your shoulders to your ankles. Hold this position, tightening your stomach and squeezing your glutes. To maximise stability, press your elbows into the floor.”

Locust pose

“The locust pose focuses on flexibility, mobility, breathing and strength,” says Yelling. “Lie face-down on a mat with your big toes together. Clasp your hands behind your sacrum [just above your tailbone] and use a big inhale to lift your chest and feet off the ground. Hold for three full breaths.

“Many runners are primarily chest breathers, using the upper part of their lungs and secondary breathing muscles. With this exercise, runners can shift their breathing, focusing on the smooth relationship between the diaphragm and pelvic floor. Not only does this exercise focus on breathing for stress reduction, it also improves core stability and co-ordination and will release excess muscle tension.”

Downward-facing dog

“Yoga allows you to focus on critical stability and can improve your ability to absorb and dissipate ground impact force and help prevent problems in your knees, lower back and IT bands,” says Yelling.

“The downward-facing dog focuses on your shoulders, arms, legs and back. Begin on all fours with your toes tucked under. Lift your hips, pushing your sitting bones towards the ceiling. Try to gently move your heels towards the floor, while dropping your head so that your neck is extended. Try to hold this position for at least three breaths.

“This will help maintain good postural control, and can also help improve running form and biomechanical balance.”

See related 

• Strength Training For Runners
• 15-Minute Core Workouts For Runners
• Help Avoid Runner’s Knee With These Exercises And Expert Advice
• Running For Beginners: Free Couch To 5K Plan

Leg lift in external rotation

“This is a good form of strength training for your glutes, as well as improving mobility and conditioning your stability muscles and adductors,” says Yelling. “It’s great for injury prevention and helps you to maintain your form when fatigued.

“Lie on your side with your hip bones aligned, one on top of the other, and your legs stacked. Lean your legs forwards a bit so they are slightly in front of your torso. Rotate your top leg outwards, bringing your heels together and toes apart. Lift your top leg to hip height, squeeze your leg and then lower to touch your bottom heel. Repeat on both sides.”

The hundred

“A strong core is an important part of a runner’s defence against injury and fatigue,” says Yelling. “The hundred is great strength and conditioning training for your core and abdominal muscles, and will help focus your breathing.

“Lie on your back with your pelvis in a neutral position, knees bent, and arms resting by your sides. Raise your legs one at a time into a bent-knee, tabletop position. Curl your head and shoulders off the mat and straighten your legs, holding your heels together. Pump your arms and inhale for five counts, then exhale for five counts. You repeat this ten times – hence the name ‘the hundred’.”

In This Series

• Unweighted squat
• 30-day squat challenge
• Box squat
• Prisoner squat
• Sumo squat
• Squat jump
• Squat thrust
• Split squat
• Bulgarian split squat
• Cossack squat
• Single-leg squat
• Pistol squat
• Goblet squat
• Barbell back squat
• Front squat
• Landmine squat
• Overhead squat

It is testament to the squat’s effectiveness that there are so many widely practised variations of the exercise. Of all those variations, the pistol squat stands out as the toughest unweighted squat exercise, testing your strength, stability and mobility to the max.

If you’re not already an accomplished single-leg or split squatter, then it’s best to start with those exercises rather than go straight into a full pistol squat. Along with building up your leg strength it’s worth working on your hip and ankle mobility before you try the full pistol squat, because no matter how powerful your legs are, you won’t be able to adopt the pistol position without flexibility in those areas.

Sporty types in particular will benefit from adding the pistol squat to their fitness routine, assuming the sport involved requires a lot of running (darts players don’t really need to bother). Working on one leg in this way mimics the movement of running and will both increase your power and help make you more resistant to injuries.

How To Do A Pistol Squat

Stand on one leg with the other held straight out in front of you. Slowly lower into a deep squat, keeping the airborne leg straight. In the bottom position of the exercise the hamstring on your standing leg should be touching your calf, with the other leg extended parallel to the ground. Once you’ve reached the pistol position, pause for a second, and then push back up by driving through your heel. What you do with your arms during the exercise is up to you, but it’s wise to hold them out in front of you to help you balance when you are new to the exercise. Once you become a pistol master you can keep your arms against your chest or even hold a weight of some kind.

Pistol Squat Variations

TRX pistol squat

Using a TRX (or any brand of suspension trainer) adds some assistance, helping you to maintain your balance in particular, so use this variation as a handy stepping stone if you’re struggling with the full movement. Use the short straps and stand holding the handles of the suspension trainer ensuring there’s no slack in the straps. Lower on one leg, lifting the other so it points straight out in front of you. Go as low as you can, using the handles to help you balance, and then push back up to standing, using your arms as little as possible.

Box pistol squat

This is another exercise that works as a stepping stone to a full pistol squat, and you can vary the difficulty by raising or lowering the height of your box – the higher it is, the easier the move. Stand on one leg with the box behind you. Lower into the squat, raising your other leg out in front of you, until you touch the box with your bum, then push back up to standing.

It’s quite rare that you find an exercise that you’d be happy to do both in the gym and at a public gathering to impress those around you. The human flag is one such move, the plank is decidedly not. Unless you’re prepared to hold it for an entire evening, which isn’t necessarily the way to win friends at social occasions.

The elbow lever, also known as the elbow planche, is another move that works as a party trick, especially if you perform it on a raised surface (do be safe). However, the benefits do extend beyond showing off.

“The elbow planche develops wrist mobility and strength, and helps you understand how to manoeuvre your weight using good mechanics,” says James Griffiths, personal trainer and founder of Wild Training.

“The biggest benefit of an elbow planche might be how it teaches you to use your diaphragm to stabilise your spine, while keeping a good amount of air going in and out. No bad thing for any intense sport.”

See related

• An Introduction To Calisthenics Training
• Start Building Up To Do A Handstand With This Workout
• Start Movement Training By Learning These Two Moves

How To Do The Elbow Lever

“Place your hands on the ground with your fingers pointed behind you or out to the side,” says Griffiths. “Your hands need to be narrower than your hips, because your hips will end up resting on your elbows.

“With your knees on the floor, pull your elbows in and rest your waist on top of your elbows. You need to have your abs pulled in tight and your pelvis tucked under to be able to find a balance point.

“Extend your legs so you are on your toes. Then you can start experimenting with your balance till you start to ‘float’. Keep your body parallel to the ground. Your legs should be straight with your feet locked together, and you should be able to breathe normally.”

The great charm of bodyweight exercises is that you can do them anywhere, so your fitness routine need never be interrupted by travel or those days where you don’t have the time or resolve to make it to the gym. The biggest downside of bodyweight training is, however, that you are limited in the amount of resistance you can use.

That’s where resistance bands can help. They’re easily stuffed into a bag or even a jacket pocket, so portability is no concern, and you can use them to significantly increase the resistance in your bodyweight workouts to help challenge your muscles.

Below you’ll find a range of beginner, intermediate and advanced resistance band exercises, selected and explained by Matt Gleed, personal trainer and ambassador for resistance band brand Let’s Bands. The exercises use three different types of resistance band: mini (a small looped band), max (a larger looped band, which is usually also thinner than a mini band) and flex (a strap band with two ends). You can also just get a flex band and knot it as appropriate for each exercise, but it will be easier to have the different bands to hand.

We’ve also added a few of our favourite moves because we just couldn’t resist.

Beginner Resistance Band Exercises

Chest press

Targets Shoulders and chest

“Attach a max band to a stable object behind you,” says Gleed. “Step inside the band and hold it with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Keep your shoulder blades down and back, and engage your core and glutes. Your hips and knees should be slightly bent for balance.

“Push the band out in front of you. Fully extend your arms and squeeze your chest muscles. Slowly return to the start. Keep your chest up while performing the press and do not let your upper back hunch.”

Squat

Targets Glutes and legs

“Stand on a max band with your feet shoulder-width apart,” says Gleed. “Grasp the other end of the band and hold it by your shoulders, with both hands facing up and elbows pointing out. Bend your knees to lower yourself until your thighs are parallel with the ground. Your feet should point forwards, your knees should be in line with your feet and behind your toes, and your back should be straight.

“Keep pushing your knees out as far as possible – don’t let the band pull them inwards. If you cannot keep your knees out enough, only lower yourself halfway down into the squat.”

Crunch

Targets Core

“Lie on your back with a mini band around your feet and your knees bent,” says Gleed. “Put your hands next to your head with your elbows pointing out to the sides. Press your lower back into the floor and lift your upper body, simultaneously pulling one leg towards your chest. Keep your elbows facing outwards and make sure your neck is in line with your spine. Do not curl your chin towards your chest. Alternate legs with each rep.”

Biceps curl

Stand on a looped band with your feet hip-width apart and hold the other side of the band in one hand. Keeping your upper arm still and bending at the elbow, bring your hand up to your shoulder, then slowly lower it back down, making sure you’re not letting the band drag your arm down without control. Do all your reps on one side, then switch.

Glute bridge

Loop a short band around your thighs just above the knee and then lie on your back with your knees bent and feet planted close to your bum. Lift your hips to form a straight line from your knees to your shoulders, working against the band so your thighs don’t collapse inwards. Pause at the top, then slowly lower back the start, still pushing your thighs out against the band.

Crucifix hold

The crucifix hold with free weights gets pretty intense pretty quickly, so starting with the resistance band comes highly recommended. Even so, don’t be surprised if you soon feel it in your shoulders. Stand on the resistance band with your feet together, take the top of the band in both hands and raise your arms to the sides until they’re parallel to the ground. Hold that position. Aim to hold for 30 seconds at a time over the course of three sets.

Intermediate Resistance Band Exercises

Press-up

Targets Chest, shoulders and arms

“Place a max band around your upper back and hold the ends in your hands,” says Gleed. “Assume a press-up position, with your hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Lower your body until you are touching the floor with the tip of your nose, then push yourself back up. Keep your core and glutes activated throughout, and pull your shoulders down and away from your ears. For less resistance, step through the band first so that only one, rather than both, lengths of the band go around your back.”

Lateral walk

Targets Glutes and legs

“Wrap a flex band twice around your legs,” says Gleed. “Once around your lower thigh just above your knee and once again around the mid thigh. Then cross the band over and hold each end outside your hips. Take ten to 12 steps to one side, then reverse the direction of the steps to the start. Don’t let your knees rotate inwards. Keep your toes facing forwards and your back straight throughout.”

Kneeling horizontal chop

Targets Core

“Attach one end of a max band to a stationary object above your head,” says Gleed. “Stand side-on to the band and put the knee closest to the band on the ground. Hold the band in both hands and bring it to your opposite hip in a chopping motion, turning your trunk away from the attachment. Keep your arms straight throughout.”

Squat to overhead press

Stand on a large looped band with your feet shoulder-width apart, and hold the other side of the band in both hands by your shoulders with your palms facing upwards. Drop into a squat until your thighs are at least parallel to the ground, then drive back up and as you come back to standing press your arms overhead until your elbows lock out. Bring your hands back down to your shoulders slowly, then go straight into another squat.

Upright row

Stand on the resistance band with your feet together and a slight bend in the knees. Hold the band with your hands together, palms facing towards you. Next, pull the band towards your chin for a three-second count, hold the top of the move for two seconds, and then lower again over three seconds. Aim for three sets of six to eight reps, but don’t worry if you fall short first time out.

See related

• The Best Resistance Bands: Plus, Black Friday 2021 Deals On The Best Resistance Bands
• Blast Your Whole Body With This Resistance Band Workout
• The Full-Body Resistance Band Home Workout To Do In Front Of The TV
• The Upper-Body Resistance Band Workout That’s All About Those Gains
• Resistance Band Workout: Burn Fat in Just 20 Minutes

Advanced Resistance Band Exercises

Shoulder stabiliser

Targets Shoulders, back and glutes

“Attach a flex band to a fixed point in front of you,” says Gleed. “Stand tall with your arms extended in a Y position, holding the ends of the band in each hand. Pull your shoulder blades down and back and engage your core and glutes. Lower into a squat, maintaining the shoulder and arm position. Avoid lifting your shoulders, bending your elbows, and arching or rounding your back. Also watch out for your knees caving in or your toes turning outwards.”

Squat with broad jump

Targets Lower body

“Attach a max band to a stable object behind you,” says Gleed. “Place the band around your hips and get into a squat position. Jump forwards explosively, driving your hips forwards, then land softly.”

Side plank reverse flye

Targets Abs and upper back

“Attach a flex band to a stable object,” says Gleed. “Grasp the other end of the band and get into a side plank position with the band taut. Keep your hips high off the ground, your spine neutral and your core braced. Maintain the side plank position while pulling the band towards you until your hand is above you and forms a straight line to the elbow supporting you. Don’t let the weight rotate your pelvis and torso forwards.”

Front raise

It’s all too easy to pick too heavy a weight if you use dumbbells for this shoulder exercise, which makes it a good candidate for the resistance band.

Stand on the resistance band with your feet shoulder-width apart and a slight bend in the knees. Lean forwards slightly with a straight back so that you’re looking at your toes. Hold the resistance band with a shoulder-width grip and your hands by your thighs, palms facing towards you. Keeping your arms extended, raise your arms for a three-second count until your hands reach shoulder height. Hold this position under tension for one or two seconds, then lower slowly. Aim for three sets of six reps.

Once you master the major bodyweight exercises, you’ll be amazed at how well-stocked your fitness arsenal is, because it only takes small tweaks to the standard version of each to change the difficulty of the move and which muscles it targets.

The diamond push-up is a great example of this. While all kinds of push-ups work the chest, shoulders and triceps, moving your hands closer than in a classic push-up puts the focus firmly on your triceps, turning it into one of the, if not the, best triceps exercises. In contrast, spread your hands wide apart to target the chest.

Diamond push-ups are also a sizeable step up in difficulty from the standard push-up, so don’t be surprised if you fail after doing half as many diamond push-ups as you can normally manage.

How To Do A Diamond Push-Up

Get on all fours with your hands together under your chest. Position your index fingers and thumbs so they’re touching, forming a diamond shape, and extend your arms so that your body is elevated and forms a straight line from your head to your feet.

Lower your chest towards your hands, ensuring you don’t flare your elbows out to the sides and keeping your back flat. Stop just before your chest touches the floor, then push back up to the starting position.

See related

• The Push-Up Home Workout For Big Arms
• Attempt The 30-Day Press-Up Challenge

Diamond Push-Up Variations

The diamond push-up is hard, so if you’re finding it tough to get through more than a handful of them at a time, don’t be afraid to drop onto your knees to complete a few more reps. If you’re really struggling, reverting to the classic version of the exercise to build your strength up is another savvy strategy.

On the other hand, if standard diamond push-ups are not hard enough for you, then you can try to do them with your feet elevated. Put your feet on a bench or, tougher still, a gym ball and then do the exercise. The instability of supporting yourself on an gym ball will make for a stern test of your core strength while you complete your push-ups.

The squat is one of the finest exercises on the planet. It stimulates all the major muscles in the legs – the quads, hamstrings and glutes. Once you’ve mastered squatting with both legs (no easy feat), the split squat and the Bulgarian split squat, then the single-leg squat is a way to progress even further.

Adopting a single-leg stance can spark new muscle growth in the targeted leg, in addition to aiding your mobility, co-ordination and core stability. It also helps program your body to keep a straight back (neutral spine to those in the know), which will carry great benefits into other exercises.

Working on one leg is also something that all sportspeople should include in their cross-training. Whether you’re a runner, footballer, hiker or lacrosse player, the chances are you spend more time on one leg than two – unless you’re a particularly lazy player or like to bunny-hop your way around the pitch. The single-leg squat is a particularly good one-leg exercise for athletes, because you mimic the movement of running while strengthening your leg muscles, making you faster and more resistant to injuries.

How To Do A Single-Leg Squat

Stand on one foot with your other leg bent at the knee. You can extend the raised leg straight out in front of you and do a pistol squat, which is a common (and very difficult) type of single-leg squat, but it is simpler to just bend your knee to raise your leg when you’re first attempting the exercise. You can also make it easier by holding both arms out in front of you during the exercise to aid your balance.

Once you’re balanced on one leg, squat down as low as you can without losing your form (or toppling over). Don’t let your knee go past the front of your toes while you squat. Pause at the bottom of the squat for a second, then push back up through your heel, squeezing your glutes as you go.

Single-Leg Squat Variations

One-leg box squat

If you are finding single-leg squats tough and getting nowhere near ten reps on each leg without stopping, then go back and master the one-leg box squat first. Get a box or a chair – the lower it is, the harder the box squat will be – and stand on one leg facing away from it. Squat down until you are sitting on the box, then push back up.

Single-leg goblet squat

The easiest way to make the single-leg squat harder is to hold some weight while performing it. Grab a kettlebell, dumbbell or sandbell and hold it against your chest in both hands. This will increase the difficulty not only by adding weight but also by making it harder to keep your balance because your arms are close to you rather than extended out in front. You can also use a barbell, but if you do, rest your non-squatting leg on a bench for safety and stability purposes.

Pistol squat

Once you’ve become accomplished at single-leg squats, you can try to progress to a full pistol squat, which is a hellishly hard test of your strength, balance and mobility. Stand on one leg with the other extended out straight in front of you and drop into a deep squat. At the bottom of the movement the hamstring on your standing leg should be resting on your calf, with your other leg still stretched out ramrod straight, so you look like a pistol. When you first tackle the exercise you can hold a suspension trainer or an anchored resistance band to help you get into the pistol position.

If you play sports, there are few bodyweight exercises so worthwhile as the lunge. By simply taking a stride forward and dropping your back knee to the floor, you target multiple joints and muscle groups, making them stronger and improving your balance and flexibility overall. 

Sounds easy, right? In reality, it requires co-ordination, control and practice to do it properly. To master this essential exercise, and understand how it could help you, we spoke to running specialist Rory Knight, director of fitness at leading fitness app WithU. Here’s his expert guide, tips on how to avoid the move’s common pitfalls and an explanation of why it’s totally safe to let your knees travel beyond your toes.

And once you can lunge with the best of them, keep scrolling to find a range of lunge variations to help you progress.

How To Do A Lunge

The Set-up

Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart and your core engaged but not overly tense. Identify a point on the floor a meter or so in front of you where you will aim to land with each step forward. Keep your chin up to correct your posture so you don’t end up staring down at your leading foot, which makes balancing more difficult.

The Descent 

Take a generous step forward, landing with your weight evenly distributed across your heel and midfoot, and your torso upright, rather than with your bodyweight over your front leg. Your back heel will lift off the floor at this point. Bend both knees to lower until your back knee is just off the floor—or you can tap it gently on the floor. Keep your front knee directly above your front foot. 

“Always control the descent, even as you fatigue,” says Knight. “Use your glutes and hamstrings to slow the eccentric phase of the move. Feel the rep, don’t steal the rep.” 

The Return

To return to the start, powerfully press through the heel and midfoot of your front foot and step back to standing. When driving out of the deep lunge position, keep your core engaged and torso upright, rather than leaning over your front knee. Reset, then repeat on the same side, or alternate sides with each rep. 

“Once you feel strong and stable and can confidently perform eight to 12 reps on each side, don’t be afraid to add load so that you can progress this exercise further,” says Knight. 

Common Lunge Mistakes

Crowding Your Front Leg

A strong, safe forward lunge relies on accurate foot placement. Too big a step forward and any impingements in mobility will limit the depth you can sink per rep. Too small a step and you’ll crowd out your front leg, tipping your bodyweight forward and overloading your knee and ankle. Before you add any extra load, practice a few reps to locate the sweet spot, then mark it out like a cricketer measuring their bowling run-up.

Failing To Control The Descent 

Another common lunge faux pas, says Knight, is smashing your back knee into the floor every rep. “Lowering your knee to gently touch the floor ensures you’re performing the exercise with a good range of motion, but if it’s hurtling into the ground I can guarantee you will not be engaging your muscles optimally,” he says. “Control the descent and slow down the eccentric element of the exercise.” 

Losing Your Balance

A slight wobble here and there is inevitable with any lunge variation, but if you’re pressing from an unstable base you won’t be able to complete many reps or add load safely. A simple fix is to focus on the connection between the floor and your front foot. 

“Your feet are the connection point between you and the ground,” says Knight. “To enhance that connectivity and become more stable in your lunge, think of your foot as a tripod gripping the floor at three points—your big toe, your little toe and your heel. Try it. I can guarantee you’ll feel greater engagement, more connectivity and, ultimately, much stronger all over.” 

What Are Lunges Good For?

The classic lunge exercise delivers a triple whammy of benefits that few bodyweight moves can match. 

First, it improves the stability and integrity of your ankles, knees and hips in unison. Second, it helps develop lower-body strength and size in the quadriceps, the powerhouse muscles on the front of your thighs, while simultaneously activating the glutes and hamstrings to control your descent. 

Third, it develops these physical attributes in a truly functional way that you’ll notice whenever you break into a run, in or out of the gym. 

“For me, a lunge of some description should form an essential part of any good strength routine,” says Knight. “You are strengthening multiple lower-body muscles in a unilateral fashion, meaning you can target both sides of your lower body more effectively, while also challenging and developing your balance, stability and hip mobility.” 

Lunge Variations And Progressions

Once you’ve mastered the standard lunge, take a moment to pat yourself on the back. Then move on to one of these variations to develop all-round lower body strength, stability and mobility. 

Beginner-Friendly Lunge Variations

Reverse lunge

A lot of lunge variations involve moving in different directions, but since you’ve mastered the standard lunge, let’s keep to the sagittal plane (that’s forward and backward). Take a big step backward and lower until both knees are bent at 90°, then push back up. Why go backward? Well, the same muscles are involved as in a standard lunge, but pushing back up and forward in the second half of the movement provides a closer approximation of the movements you’ll undertake while running, so it helps to build functional power.

Reverse lunge to knee drive

Adding in a knee drive at the end of the move makes it an even more effective exercise for building power and strength for running. Step back into your reverse lunge as normal, then when you push back up to standing, bring your trailing leg through and drive the knee up to chest height. Balancing on your standing leg also increases the movement’s challenge to your core.

Walking lunge

To combine the initial phase of the forward lunge and the second phase of the reverse lunge, try this walking progression. Lunge forward as normal, but instead of pushing back to the start, move your back leg forward so you go straight into another lunge, keeping your torso relatively upright throughout.

Intermediate-Level Lunge Variations

Side lunge

Another new direction to lunge in—two new directions in fact, because you have two sides to play with here. The side or lateral lunge is another move that mimics the movements of sports such as football and rugby, where moving only forward and backward would make you a liability to your team, and it also enlists some extra muscles in your inner and outer thighs. From a standing position, take a big step to the side and lower until the knee on your leading leg is bent at 90°, keeping your trailing leg straight. Then push back up.

Clock lunge

Once you’ve nailed the form for forward, reverse and side lunges, put them all together and complete a clock lunge. Lunge forward, to one side, backward, and to the other side sequentially to hit the 12, 3, 6, and 9 on a clock face. Progress to adding lunges at 1.30, 4.30, 7.30 and 10.30 on a clock face.

Curtsy lunge

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Step backward with your right leg but bring your foot across to the left side of your body as you lower, finishing with the toes and ball of your right foot on the floor. Push through your left heel to return to standing. Complete all the reps on one side, then swap legs.

Pulse lunge

Maximize the time under tension to pump up your quads. Lunge forward as normal, then hold that position. Ensuring you remain balanced with both feet on the floor, slowly rise straight up a few inches, then lower again a few inches. Pulse for 20 to 30 seconds on one leg, then switch.

Weighted lunge

The easiest way to increase both the difficulty and the benefit of a standard lunge is to add weight. Hold a dumbbell in each hand by your sides or on your shoulders, or clutch a kettlebell or sandbag to your chest as you lunge. If you plan on using a barbell, make sure you’re confident with the move and can keep your knees in line with your toes throughout. No matter the weight, pay attention to where you position it—you want the weight centered so you’re balanced. 

Advanced Lunge Variations

Lunge with overhead press

One step harder than the weighted lunge is the lunge with a dumbbell shoulder press. Hold two dumbbells by your shoulders with your palms facing. Perform a forward lunge and once your knees are bent at 90°, press the dumbbells up. Reverse the movements to return to the start, alternating legs with each rep.

Jump lunge

The jump lunge is the most advanced variation here, but it’s not a big step up in technique (it does turn the lunge into a high-impact exercise though). Start by stepping forward into a lunge but instead of pushing back up, power into the air by driving off your front foot and switch the position of your legs in mid-air so you land ready to drop into another lunge on the opposite leg. This version of the lunge helps build explosive power in your legs and is a must-do move for runners looking to increase their speed.

Lunge to step-up

You will need a box for this exercise, but that’s the least of your worries. This lunge-to-step-up is going to get your legs working on all kinds of levels—literally. Stand in front of a box, then take a large step backward to find your starting position. Perform a forward lunge towards the box, then push through the heel on your front foot; as you rise, bring your back foot forward and use it to step onto the box. Drive up so you end standing on the box. Slowly step down and go straight into a reverse lunge to the starting position, one lunge’s distance from the box again.

Single-arm overhead lunge

This is also known as the Statue of Liberty lunge, which is a useful way of picturing the position. Stand holding a dumbbell (or flaming torch—dealer’s choice) in one arm above your head with your arm extended and your other arm by your side—unless you want to hold a tablet to complete the Lady Liberty look. Keep the dumbbell above your head as you perform a forward lunge. The position of the dumbbell will increase the challenge to your core by making you work to maintain your balance throughout the exercise, and the extra weight will increase the benefits of the move in general.

About Our Expert

If you’ve bought a pull-up bar and have been sticking to pull-ups and chin-ups, then we are about to transform your training. As well as the pulling collection of moves that bolster your back, build your biceps and turn your shoulders into boulders, a bar can be used for a demanding set of abs exercises. To start you off, here’s a list of the best pull-up bar exercises.

Best Pull-Up Bar Exercises

Dead hang

If you’re looking for a way to work up to pull-ups, then start with a dead hang. Grab the bar with an overhand grip – palms facing away – and see how long you can hold on for. This’ll do wonders for your grip strength, which you’ll need to develop if you’re eventually going to be completing multiple sets. If you can, raise yourself slightly so your arms aren’t completely locked out – this will help build strength in your biceps.

Negative pull-up

This is another great progression exercise to move you closer towards a full pull-up as well as a great grip strength exercise. Take either a wide overhand grip or a close underhand grip, and use a small platform or jump so you’re holding yourself at the top of the move with your chin at the same height as the bar. Then with as much control as possible, slowly lower until your arms are fully extended. The key to making progress with this move by doing it in a slow and controlled way.

Pull-up

The pull-up is a pretty singular exercise – there just isn’t much else like it. It’s a compound exercise that works most areas of your upper body, but its biggest benefit is in building you a strong back. Grasp the pull-up bar with your palms facing away from you and have your grip wider than shoulder-width apart. Pull yourself up until your chin is above the bar, then lower yourself slowly.

Chin-up

Done properly, chin-ups are an outstanding exercise for your biceps because you put those muscles through a full range of movement, which promotes better muscle growth. Grasp the bar with a close grip, palms facing towards you. When you get to the top, squeeze your biceps to encourage more growth.

Forearm pull-up

If you have forearm grips on your pull-up bar – so your palms are facing each other – use ’em. Your back and biceps still get worked, but it’s one of those rare exercises that develop your forearm strength. Improving that is an invaluable way to get better at any exercise that requires you to grip something, which is a lot of exercises.

Side-to-side pull-up

Turn the whole pull-up gig on its side and you get a great shoulders and biceps exercise. Grasp the pull-up bar from both sides, so your palms are facing opposite ways. Pull yourself up, moving to one side as you come to the top so one shoulder touches the bar. Lower slowly, then repeat but move to the other side as you rise. Keep changing sides each rep.

Around the world

This is one of the harder variations, but then going around the world isn’t easy. Holding the bar with hands wider than shoulder-width apart, move your body up in a semi-circle to the right and down to a semi-circle to the left. This will provide greater focus on each side’s shoulder, biceps and back muscles, as well as providing an extra challenge to your core – and that’s putting it mildly. Aim to do three or four going one way and then the same number of reps the other way.

Hanging knee raise

Hang from the bar using an overhand grip. Slowly bring your knees up until your thighs are at least parallel to the ground, then lower them again. The key to getting the most out of this move is to keep your movements slow and deliberate.

Garhammer raise

This move is essentially a hanging knee raise with a tweak, which results in your abs muscles being kept under tension throughout the entire set. Start with your knees raised so your thighs are horizontal, then bring your knees up to your chest and back down to the starting position. Since your legs remain raised, your abs don’t get the brief break between reps. Not for the faint-hearted.

Hanging leg raise

If you found the hanging knee raise tough, be warned, this ups the ante. Hang from the bar using an overhand grip. Keeping your legs extended and together, raise them until they are parallel to the ground. Lower slowly. If you’re flagging during a set, remember there’s no shame in switching back to the knee raise for the final few reps.

Windscreen wipers

Another abs exercise, but one that’s slightly less taxing than the hanging leg raise, is windscreen wipers. Hang from the pull-up bar with your arms fully extended and legs together. Bring your knees to your chest, then sweep them from side to side in an arc.

Hanging bicycles

Bicycle crunches are hard, but everything is harder hanging from a bar. Use an overhand grip, hands shoulder-width apart, and hang with your arms fully extended. Slowly drive one knee at a time towards your chest, kicking out as you lower. As one leg goes down, the other should balance this by coming up. Continue to pedal away either for reps or for time. An interesting game you can try is doing hanging bicycles until either your abs or arms gives out. Run a book among your fellow gym-goers as to which it’ll be. Go on, it’s fun.

Toes to bar

One of the hardest abs exercises going, toes to bar isn’t one to take lightly. Use a forearm grip and ensure your body is rigid and still. Keeping your legs straight, raise them to the bar where your hands are. Ideally, you’re going to raise your toes all the way up, but don’t fret if you can’t quite make it. The important part is lowering with control – if you can achieve this you’ll see progress fast.

Toes to bar and back again

If you want an upgrade on toes to bar, first of all, who are you? And second of all, good for you. Do ensure you can complete the toes to bar with perfect control before you add the extra bit.

Once your toes hit the bar, lower with control but stop when you get to 45°. Raise them to the bar again before lowering to the ground. To finish the move, pause for applause.

The first time you do a burpee you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Although it’s renowned for being a brutal bodyweight exercise that burns fat as fast as it boosts fitness, and is often used as punishment if you skip a section during obstacle course races, none of that tallies with how you feel after performing just one burpee.

But keep going and 30 seconds later you’ll be wondering how it’s possible for so many muscles to be aching and your lungs to be burning at the same time.

There is no fun way to do burpees. Whether you take them slow and hit a certain rep count, or try to cram in as many as possible within a set time period, they knacker you out faster than just about any other exercise out there. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that all that effort is absolutely worth it. The burpee works your arms, back, chest, core, glutes and legs—you name it, it works it. And burpees also spike your heart rate as much as sprinting for a bus does—one reason it’s a firm favourite among the high-intensity interval training (HIIT) crowd. And all of those benefits come without the use of any equipment, so you can do the burpee anytime and anywhere.

Read on to discover the best ways to include this effective exercise in your training.

Benefits Of Burpees

It’s important to extol the virtues of burpees before telling you how to do them, because once you’ve knocked out a set you’ll need some convincing to put yourself through that again. So here goes.

The burpee is a true full-body exercise, working most major muscle groups while also improving your cardiovascular fitness, and testing your balance and co-ordination. If you could only do one exercise for the rest of your life, the burpee would be a smart pick for keeping you in the best shape possible.

Not only do burpees work a range of muscles, they do so in a functional manner, so you’ll notice the improvements to your strength and mobility in your day-to-day life, not just in the gym. That’s if you even go to a gym—because you don’t need to for burpees, which require zero kit to do. All that’s needed is the steely determination required to get you through them… and perhaps an understanding neighbour who won’t complain about the frequent jumping up and down.

If you’re not convinced by our explanation of the merits of burpees, perhaps a word from the man who did more than 67,000 of them in a year might help. Craig Peters achieved the feat in 2016, when he started with one burpee on 1st January, then added one for each day of the year, finishing with 366 burpees on 31st December (madness to do it in a leap year), for a grand and terrifying total of 67,527 burpees.

“I do feel fitter—I’m much leaner, I’m in the best shape I’ve been in for a long time,” Peters told us after he completed his year of burpees. “I used to have a lot of back problems but I have had no problems in the past 12 months. It’s made my body stronger and more flexible. It’s little things like running for a bus or going upstairs—you certainly feel a difference. It’s a hell of a lot easier.”

The burpee is also an exercise that’s easy to vary and combine with other exercises so you work the body in different ways. You’ll find an extensive range of variations below, but first let’s run through how to do the standard burpee.

How To Do A Burpee

The classic burpee is a four-point move. From a standing position, drop into a squat with your hands on the ground just in front of your feet. Then kick your feet back behind you, keeping your arms extended so you are in a raised plank position. At this stage, the more adventurous can throw a press-up into the mix, which really ramps up the difficulty.

In the basic burpee, you remain in the raised plank and jump your feet back towards your hands. Then round off the manoeuvre by leaping into the air with your arms straight above you. Then do it all again.

Burpee Form Tips

“There is a lot going on when you do a burpee,” says trainer Dan Baldwin of Six3Nine. “This means there's the potential to make the burpee harder and reduce the amount you can do, which means you're wasting energy and reducing the exercise's effectiveness.” Follow this five-point form guide to perfect the burpee and reap the worthwhile rewards, then use these tips when taking on the ruthlessly efficient burpee workout we've devised below.

1. Mobilise: “The burpee can put a lot of stress through your ankles, knees and wrists,” says Baldwin. “Make sure you're thoroughly warmed up and you've done some mobility work, including press-ups, lunges and squats, to loosen up the joints.”
2. Break it up: “The burpee can be complex so to start with, split the move into two parts: a squat thrust and a deep squat jump. Make sure you are comfortable with each phase of the exercise before combining the two.”
3. Squat thrust: “For the squat thrust make sure your shoulders are directly over your hands, and your legs are extended into a press-up position. When jumping your feet in and out, keep your shoulders above your hands – don't let them move backwards or forwards.”
4. Deep squat jump: “For the deep squat make sure your hips are sitting back and try to keep your chest as upright as possible. Explode up and ensure you cushion your landing by bending the knees as you make contact with the floor.”
5. Get some air time: “Once you're happy you can perform both with good form, add the two together. Your arms can play a part here and as you transition from the squat thrust to the squat jump, swing your arms forwards and above your head for maximum height.”

Common Mistakes To Avoid

Skipping Steps

As you begin to tire, it’s a common impulse to want to skip certain steps in order to make the burpee easier. Don’t beat yourself up about it, we’ve all been there but remember what your school teachers told you—you’re only cheating yourself. Applying the correct level of intensity to the burpee at all times ensures you reap all the heart-healthy, muscle-boosting benefits. If you begin to falter, rest briefly then go again.

Neglecting Your Core

The plank stage of the burpee is pivotal to ensuring your abdominals get sufficient stimulation. Ensure your shoulders are parallel to your wrists, keep your core contracted and engaged and your back straight, neutrally aligned with your glutes. Many make the mistake of arching their back, negating the positive effects the burpee has on the abs, while also risking injury.

Doing Too Many Reps

As is the case with virtually every other exercise, doing more reps for the sake of it does not directly correspond to a successful workout. Focus on nailing the correct technique as explained above first, and this will help you to progress more smoothly.

How To Improve At Burpees

Burpees are commonplace in CrossFit workouts, with speed and efficiency paramount to recording a good time or score. So if you want to get better at burpees, who better to ask than CrossFit Games athlete Emma Tall?

“There are a lot of burpee variations in CrossFit, but in general I would say rhythm and breathing are key,” says Tall, who spoke to us at a Reign Total Body Fuel event. 

Tall recommends maintaining a fast but consistent pace that you can stick to, and trying to keep your breathing controlled throughout. Don’t make the mistake of going all-out from the off and holding your breath through a few reps, because this is sure to leave you gasping for air.

Tall also advises to keep your movements to the absolute minimum, especially once you progress to variations such as burpee box jump overs or bar-facing burpees.

“This applies to most movements, but try not to take extra steps, walk around or waste time and energy on something that doesn’t give you another rep,” says Tall.

Six Burpee Workouts

Burpees can be incorporated into circuit training, used to warm up before other exercises or done over and over again to act as your entire workout.

100 Burpee Challenge

The 100 burpee challenge isn’t a warm-up, it’s a workout and a half: just do 100 as quickly as you can. The first 15 shouldn’t take much more than a minute, but the rest will take a lot longer. Any time under 10 minutes for the full 100 is pretty darn impressive. If you’re nowhere close, try this format to pace yourself, which adds up to about 16 minutes of rest: Do one, rest for 10 seconds, then do two and rest for 20, all the way to 10, then back down. That’s 100.

The Burpee Ladder

The burpee ladder is another way to build a workout around this king of all exercises. Start with 10 burpees, have a quick rest, then do nine, eight and so on. If you’re feeling brave, do burpees, press-ups and sit-ups on every rung. It’s a weird feeling to view sit-ups as a welcome break.

Max Out

This dynamic workout will build up your tolerance to the lactic acid inevitably flooding your legs and help increase your anaerobic performance for a fitness boost with a large scoop of fat-burning benefits.

First, find out your maximum set by doing as many burpees as you can before having to stop. Reduce that number slightly, and perform three sets with a 30-second rest between. For example, if your maximum set is 20, rest for 30 seconds then do 15 for your working set, rest another 30 seconds, then repeat a further two times. Now breathe, hard.

CrossFit Open Workout 12.1

The CrossFit Open is an annual fitness competition which kicks off the CrossFit season and it’s designed so everyone can take part, no matter their level of fitness. The first workout of the 2012 CrossFit Open tasked people with completing as many chest-to-floor burpees as possible in seven minutes.

If you want a target to aim for, Kristan Clever posted the best women’s score with 143, while Scott Panchik topped the men’s rankings with 163.

Death By Burpees

The “Death By” format makes for an excellent workout finisher and requires you to complete an ever-growing number of reps in a set period of time. 

Here, complete one burpee in the first 30 seconds, then two reps in the next 30 seconds, then three reps, and so on until you can’t complete the reps in the time allowed.

30-Day Burpee Challenge

A one off not enough? Then try our 30-day burpee challenge. The beauty of this training plan is that it’s scaleable—it’s based on your current fitness level, established by the test on day one.

Best Burpee Variations

Chest-to-floor burpee

This tougher variation is about as common as the standard burpee, so don’t be surprised if it’s what’s expected of you in an exercise class that involves burpees. It’s the same as the standard move except that when you reach the raised plank position, you perform a press-up, lowering your chest to the floor, before you jump back up.

Burpee tuck jump

It’s annoyingly easy to combine other exercises with a burpee to make a Frankenstein’s monster of a move, as this nasty variation shows. Perform a burpee as normal, but when you leap into the air afterwards, raise your knees to your chest. This will increase the cardio benefits of the exercise and also ensure you aren’t half-arsing your jumps, which is common when pushing through a set of burpees.

Dumbbell burpee

A surefire way to make any exercise trickier is to add some weight and you can do that with the burpee by holding a dumbbell in each hand. It’s better to opt for hexagonal rather than circular dumbbells for this, because you’ll be supporting your bodyweight on them so you’ll want a stable base. Perform your burpee as normal, holding the weights at all times—and add a renegade row if you want to make the move even tougher.

Single-leg burpee

If you’re looking for a straightforward way to increase the difficulty of burpees without introducing equipment or extra movements, try doing it on one leg. This will ramp up the core control required to avoid toppling over to one side, as well as beefing up the benefits to the leg muscles that are working to compensate for the lack of support from the other leg. You can alternate which leg is grounded or complete all your reps on one side before swapping. Try this with the chest-to-floor burpee for a truly tough variation.

Burpee pull-up

Makes you sick to see those words put together, doesn’t it? But hear us out. Burpees and pull-ups both have a decent claim to being the single best bodyweight exercise you can do, so meshing them together into one super-move creates something truly special. Perform your burpee as normal (press-up optional), then as you jump up, grab the pull-up bar with an overhand grip and haul yourself up until your chin is level with the bar. Lower under control until your arms are fully extended, then let go and continue into the next rep. The pull-up is a brilliant back, shoulder and arm exercise that complements the cardio and strength benefits of the burpee perfectly. This variation is brutal, but well worth the pain.

Be honest now, how often do you stretch? For the vast majority of us, the answer is not enough. Whether you’re a keen runner, cyclist or gym-goer, or just spend your days sitting at a desk, stretching should be an integral part of your weekly routine. It’ll improve your mobility and flexibility, reduce your risk of injury, and help you excel at your chosen sport if you have one.

To help you introduce more stretching to your life we asked Richard Scrivener, PT and product development manager at TrainFitness, for his five favourite stretches. What are you waiting for?

1 Decompression dead hang

Time 30-60sec

“Gravity compresses us throughout the day,” says Scrivener. “This stretch helps the shoulders, spine and hips, making you taller and restoring your full stature."

To do the stretch simply hang from a bar. If you plan on doing these stretches at home, you can pick up a telescopic pull-up bar, which is easy to put up and take down, for as little as a tenner.

“Keep a tight grip and let your entire bodyweight drop,” says Scrivener. “Try not to fight it.”

2 Front line opener

Time 30-60sec each side

“We spend much of the day in flexion [hunched forward],” says Scrivener. “This is a great way to lengthen everything on the front of the body to create balance.”

Place the top of your foot on an exercise ball behind you – pin this against a wall to keep it in place – and the knee of your same leg on the ground directly beneath you. Plant the other foot in front of you with your knee bent at 90°. Reach both arms directly overhead.

“Keep the glutes engaged to avoid arching your back,” says Scrivener. “Breathe out slowly as you reach up overhead.”

3 Posterior hip

Time 30-60sec each side

“The capsule around the hip joint is prone to tightening,” says Scrivener. “Sinking into this pose helps mobilise this capsule to eliminate pinching sensations."

Start on your hands and knees. Lift your right leg off the floor and put the right knee on the ground behind the left knee, moving your left lower leg across your body to make space. Sink into the pose to feel the stretch in your hips.

See related 

• Speed Up Your Recovery With These Stretches For Runners
• 5 Stretches And Exercises That Will Feel Amazing After A Day At The Office
• Five Hamstring Stretches To Keep Your Legs Loose

4 Thoracolumbar fascia

Time 30-60sec each side

“The tissue surrounding the lower back is thick and dense and prone to getting stuck down,” says Scrivener. “This pose helps lengthen the tissues in this region.”

Lie on your back. Take your left arm up behind your head and your right arm out to point to the right side. Take your left leg across your right so it also points to the right side.

“Aim to keep pressing all your limbs into the ground as the leg sweeps across and up,” says Scrivener. “Find the stretch and take deep belly breaths.”

5 Pec minor

Time 30-60sec each side

"A tight pec minor tilts the shoulder blade forwards, which can cause havoc with shoulder health and posture,” says Scrivener. “Getting at this muscle is tricky. This is not the classic pec stretch, which targets the pec major.”

You’ll need to stand against a pillar or edge of a wall for this stretch, with the leg nearer the pillar in front of you in a split stance.

“First press the front of your shoulder into the post and then rotate your arm up above shoulder height so that the forearm and palm face forwards,” says Scrivener. “Lean in a little.”

When you hear the word calisthenics, your mind might immediately jump to the more extreme end of the practice, to incredible feats of strength like the human flag. However, at its basic level calisthenics is any kind of bodyweight exercise where you use gravity as resistance, including far less intimidating moves like press-ups and sit-ups.

In this introduction to the discipline, an expert outlines what calisthenics is, how to get started, and how to do three seriously impressive moves. And – if that piques your interest – we've got a beginner's calisthenics workout for you to try, below.

An Introduction To Calisthenics Training

Thanks to the good old internet, the spread of calisthenics videos of extraordinarily ripped people performing moves like the human flag, back levers and muscle-ups has made the practice more popular than ever. Understandably, though, many people are still a little apprehensive about giving it a go, mainly for fear of being asked to hold their body up like a flag in minute one of their first class.

To put your mind at rest on that front, and get more info about calisthenics in general, we spoke to David Jackson, co-founder of the Nottingham-based School of Calisthenics.

What are the benefits of calisthenics?

“Our tagline is ‘redefine your own impossible’, because these moves look impossible but they can be done – and that goal gives you purpose and motivation,” says Jackson. “Rather than setting generic goals such as ‘I want to be ripped’, with calisthenics we encourage people to work towards a specific outcome. You improve session-on-session until one day you do something that you thought was impossible.

“It took me three months to learn the human flag, but one day I couldn’t do it, the next I could. Your body starts to adapt and you look better, but you’re not doing it purely for aesthetic reasons: you’re trying to achieve something and you have to activate multiple muscle groups at the same time – which is why you get such impressive body benefits. You will also feel incredible mentally.”

How do people get started with calisthenics?

Not with the human flag, put it that way. You start out with bodyweight exercises you probably already know and maybe even already love. The bonus here is that you really don’t need a gym membership or much in the way of equipment.

“Our beginners’ programme is free and you can get instant access with our Virtual Classroom,” says Jackson. “It has a series of weekly sessions to follow, with a focus on improving and developing the way you move, developing strength with just your bodyweight, and having fun while you do it.”

Is it really possible for normal people?

OK, enough of the basics. Are us normals ever going to be able to do the human flag?

"We gave 12 normal blokes three two-hour workshops to learn to do the human flag,” says Jackson. “On day one they were laughing, but after only six hours of tuition and some practice at home, three were doing it. We want to teach people what to do with their bodies, rather than just show off ourselves. Flexibility and mobility are important, so we help people address what may be restricting them.

“Age doesn’t matter – we had a guy in his 50s who perfected the back lever at one of our workshops. Past injuries aren’t a problem, either. Tim [ Co-founder Tim Stevenson] has dislocated both his shoulders, I’ve broken my shoulder in two places, and dislocated the AC joint in a shoulder. We’re proof you can overcome weaknesses and sore spots.”

How To Do 3 Insane-Looking Calisthenics Moves

Here’s David Jackson’s step-by-step guide to the human flag, back lever and handstand push-ups

Human Flag

Flexibility check: You need to be able to make a “Y” shape with your arms in the air when you’re standing, because if you can’t, it means you’re too tight through your shoulders to achieve the human flag. You might also have a tight thoracic spine. If that’s the case, address that first with self-massage and stretching.

Step one: Your bottom arm is your pushing arm, which acts like an anchor. Your thumb should point down, palm open. Your top arm is the pulling arm, so with your thumb pointing down – imagine you’re doing an overhand grip pull-up. It’s strange for your brain to push with one arm and pull with the other, but it levers you up and keeps you horizontal.

Step two: Use your pulling arm to draw the shoulder blade back and down, so that you can engage the mid lower traps on that side. Engage your obliques, to pull your hips up and keep them in line with your shoulders. You’ll feel it on the top side of your body.

Step three: Keep your legs together, squeezing quads and hamstrings. Also squeeze your butt cheeks like there’s a £50 note in there and hold your body still in that horizontal line.

Progressions: Build up by starting with your legs in tuck position, then move on to stretching one leg out in a straddled star position, then go the whole hog.

Back Lever

Flexibility check: You need to be able to get full shoulder extensions. To check that, get into position with “skin the cat”. Hold on to a bar or rings, do a backwards roly-poly and hang. If your shoulders are tight, you’ll struggle, so improve that range of motion first.

Step one: “Skin the cat” and once you’re hanging with your arms above you, keep your arms pointing upwards as a beginner before moving to the classic palms-pointing-downwards position because that will put less stress on the bicep.

Step two: Think of a see-saw; it balances because both weights are spaced equally from the centre. In this move, your legs are one weight, your head the other. To pull your legs up and flatten out, pull down on the bar with your hands to reduce the angle your arm is making with your torso. Your hips start to come up, head goes forward and try to pull your hands down towards your hips.

Step three: Straighten your legs out and start to balance. Your glutes are connecting your torso and legs, so they need to be engaged. Squeeze your butt cheeks again and pull your ribcage down as if bracing for a punch.

Progressions: Make it easier by being in a tucked position, pulling your hips up and flattening your back. Then extend one leg, then do both.

Handstand Push-Ups

Flexibility check: Check you can get your hands up above your head. You also need wrist mobility, too.

Step one: To practice orientation, lie horizontally between two boxes – one under your shoulders, one under your calves, to get your core, glutes and alignment straight.

Step two: With hands shoulder-width apart, grip the floor with your fingertips and the base of your palm, fingers splayed. Screw your right hand to the right, left hand to the left to externally rotate your shoulder. Put your knees on your inside elbows and take your feet off the floor, lean forward, gripping with your fingertips to balance.

Step three: Pivot forward into a headstand, so you have another point of contact on the floor. Then take your legs up. Stack your bum on top of your shoulders, with your knees bent, then straighten your legs.

Step four: Add a press-up. Keep a straight line in your body but at an 80-degree angle. Your core and glutes will have to work hard to keep you up, but that allows you to take your head forward making a triangle with your elbows and head for push-ups.

Progressions: Start practicing with your back to a wall and walk your feet up. Try arching through your back to help yourself balance.

A Beginner’s Calisthenics Workout To Build Bodyweight Strength

“Calisthenics is a great training method to build lean muscle mass, gain strength and master control of your own body,” says Darren Onyejekwe, a calisthenics specialist otherwise known as Bodyweight D. “If you’re trying to pack on loads of muscle mass, calisthenics isn’t the most efficient option,” says Onyejekwe. “Combined with a sensible diet, it’ll create a lean, defined body, like a gymnast’s.” 

“Calisthenics is all about the quality of movement over the quantity,” says Onyejekwe. “A lot of people are attracted to it by the highlight-reel moves, but I’d say make sure you can perform clean, full-range reps of press-ups, dips, pull-ups, squats and hanging knee raises. I respect anyone who’s striving for clean movements and is in full control throughout the entire range of movement.”

How To Do This Workout

“This workout is focused on strength, so the reps are kept low and there’s a decent amount of rest between sets,” says Onyejekwe. “Focus on quality movement.” Do it twice a week, supersetting the moves marked A and B, resting for as long as you need to get through the reps.

1 L-sit hold

Do it on bars, or the edge of a sofa/chair. If you can’t manage the full version, tuck your legs.

2A Pull-up

Sets 5 Reps 5

Aim to pull your elbows behind you, and touch your collarbone to the bar on each rep.

2B Dip

Sets 5 Reps 5 Rest 1-3min

Lower until your upper arms are parallel to the floor, pause, and push back up.

3A Press-up

Sets 5 Reps 10

Keep your hands under your shoulders, tuck your elbows to your sides, and touch your chest to the floor on each rep.

3B Inverted row

Sets 5 Reps 10 Rest 1-3min

Lie under a bar/Smith machine with your feet flat and body straight. Pull up until your chest touches the bar, pause and lower.

4 Hollow body hold

Sets 5 Time 60sec Rest 1-2min

Lie on the floor, then bring your hands above your head, arms straight, and feet off the floor. Hold it.

5 Superman hold

Sets 5 Time 60sec Rest 1-2min

From the hollow hold, roll onto your front and do the reverse, Man of Steel-style. It’ll build near-bulletproof abs.

6A Unweighted squat

Sets 5 Reps 20

With your feet shoulder-width apart, squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor, pause, and stand up.

6B Half bridge

Sets 5 Reps 12 Rest 1-2min

Lie on the floor with your feet close to your glutes. Drive your hips up in the air, pause and lower.

Instant Expertise

Know your scapula

“Your shoulder blades can sit in four positions: protraction, retraction, elevation and depression,” says Onyejekwe. “Even people who can do the advanced skills often don’t have a clue which position they’re using.” The scapula pull-up will help with retraction and depression: hang from a bar, and keep your elbows straight back as you pull your shoulder blades together, aiming to get your shoulders away from your ears.

Unleash L

Make the L-sit your new favourite abs move. “This static position should be one of the first skills you learn,” says Onyejekwe. “But most people will need to work on their core strength and hip flexors.” If you can’t do the full thing - hands on the floor, legs out – start between two chairs, holding your thighs horizontal with knees bent. Do 60 seconds of this in as few sets as possible, twice a week.

In This Series

• Introduction
• Lunge Variation: Reverse Lunge
• Lunge Variation: Side Lunge
• Lunge Variation: Clock Lunge
• Lunge Variation: Walking Lunges
• Lunge Variation: Jump Lunge
• Lunge Variation: Curtsy Lunge

The lunge is a great exercise, but where would humankind have got to if after every big step forwards we took an equally large one back to end up where we started? Nowhere, that’s where, and certainly not to the Moon. Sometimes you’ve got to keep moving forwards, both in life and in lunges, and that’s where the walking lunge comes in.

You reap all the benefits of the standard lunge, with each and every one of the major muscles in the lower body brought into play – that’s your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves – and by continually stepping forwards the challenge to your core is increased considerably. That’s because it will be working overtime to keep your torso upright and balanced as you move.

The walking lunge is an exercise runners in particular should master because it’s not only a great addition to the strength workouts you do to support your running – you are doing those, right? – but it’s also the perfect move to use in your warm-up before a tough training session or race.

How To Do A Walking Lunge

Stand tall in front of a long and clear walkway. Your feet should be hip-width apart, your chest up, and your core and glutes engaged. Take a big step forwards with your left foot, lowering until both your knees are bent at 90° and your front thigh is parallel to the floor.

So far, so standard lunge, but here comes the tricky bit. Push off of your back (right) foot, bring it forwards and step straight into another forward lunge. You can come back to a standing position in between, and that’s a good place to start with the walking lunge, but it’s all the harder on your core if you try and stay as low as possible while moving forwards. Make sure you keep your torso upright and core braced as you move. Either count each step as a rep or work by distance or time.

See related

• The Expert Guide To Strength Training For Runners

Walking Lunge Variations

Reverse walking lunge

Reversing the movement pattern so that you step backwards rather than forwards might seem like an insignificant difference, but it forces you to think more about how you move and it will also work your muscles in a slightly different way to help you build a stronger core and legs.

Weighted walking lunge

Performing walking lunges while holding a dumbbell (or any available weight) in each hand increases the weight your muscles have to move, so it makes each step more difficult and ramps up the benefits for your legs. It will also work your core harder because it needs to be fully engaged to keep your torso stable. Hold the dumbbells with your arms straight and shoulders back, keeping your torso upright.

Kettlebell overhead walking lunge

You can do this variation with one or two kettlebells, and it’s actually harder to do it with just one because you have to resist falling over to the side, which challenges your balance and core muscles. Use light kettlebells for this variation – it’s tough enough that you don’t need to use a lot of weight.

While standing, press one (or two) kettlebells overhead until your arm is fully extended. Step forwards into a lunge and then, keeping your torso low, bring your back leg through and go straight into another lunge. The extra weight naturally increases the difficulty of the move but it’s holding the kettlebell overhead that really ups the challenge to your lower body and core, which will have to work to keep your body stable as you move.

When it comes to animals you’d imagine taking fitness cues from the crab might not feature near the top of the list. A magisterial grizzly bear or a regal lion perhaps, but a crab?

However, you’d be doing both yourself and the sideways scuttlers a disservice if you ignored them entirely, as the crab walk is a very simple and effective way to work out a whole load of muscles in a short space of time.

Your shoulders and triceps will feel the heat of supporting your upper body, while your hamstrings and quads do the job for your bottom half. In between, keeping your hips raised hits the abs and glutes hard. The higher your hips, the harder your core will work.

How To Do The Crab Walk

This might be one for at home when no one else is around. It should never be embarrassing to do any kind of exercise, but a crab walk might confuse anyone who interrupts you more than a press-up would.

Start by sitting on the floor with your feet out in front of you, hip-width apart. Plant your palms behind you and push up onto your hands and feet so your hips are raised. Then walk back and forth for a minute – you’ll be surprised how tough it is to keep scuttling. The faster you go, the harder it will be.

It’s a great addition to circuit training, or if you want to get all your crab walking in at once before moving on to something else, try and do three to five minutes of it, with 30 seconds’ rest in between each minute of crabbing.

See related

• Build Abs With A Bear Crawl
• How To Do The Bird-Dog Exercise

Crab Walk Variations

Crab kick

This variation can be done in one place, making it a handy core-crunching alternative to the crab walk when scuttling space is limited. Get into your crab position – hips raised and your weight supported on your hands and feet – and alternate kicking your legs as high as you can. Try to get your leg straight when you kick, although those living in less flexible bodies might find they have to keep their knees bent slightly.

Crab crunch

If you get tired of walking or kicking like a crab, you might like to up the challenge by attempting the crab crunch. This exercise really stretches the limits of what you could imagine a crab actually doing, but it’s a great workout for the core. From your crab position bring one elbow and the opposite knee together, alternating sides with each rep. It’s a test of both balance and strength, and there’s every chance you’ll fall over a couple of times, so save this one for a softer floor.

Dancing crab

You’ve walked, you’ve kicked and you’ve crunched, which means there’s only one thing left to do – dance. This is the toughest of all the crab-based exercises and hits muscles all over the body, with your core, hamstrings, glutes and shoulders working hardest of all. Once again you start by getting into the crab position, which should be quite familiar to you by now. Lift your left leg straight up and touch your toes with your right hand. Then come back to the starting crab position and repeat with the opposite limbs. Supporting your body on just two limbs while adopting this position is a real challenge, so definitely find a soft surface to fall on when you lose your balance.

In the pursuit of gaining muscular size and strength, most people fixate on lifting weights. And that’s why most people fail to achieve their muscle mass and raw power potential. Including bodyweight plyometric moves – such as box jumps or clap press-ups – in your training is a highly effective way to increase both muscular size and power output, according to a study published in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research. And the best bit (apart from not needing any kit) is that subjects who did plyometrics once or twice a week increased their 20m sprint time and maximal strength more than those who did four sessions.

But that’s not where the benefits end. The finding of a new study that suggests integrating balance drills with plyometric exercises, such as jump squats or vertical jumps, results in a “significant and substantial” improvement in muscle strength, power and speed. In the study, published in the Journal Of Sports Science And Medicine, subjects followed a balance and plyometric training programme, exercising on an unstable surface along with a series of jumping and hopping exercises. After eight weeks, performance in key athletic tests – including 10m and 30m sprints, and vertical jumps – improved by an average of 30%. Boost your performance by including some jump squats and Bosu ball squats as part of a legs session warm-up.

“Adding plyometric exercises to your routine will not only increase your athletic capabilities, it will also improve muscle mass by recruiting your fast-twitch fibres,” says trainer Alex Gildea. “Start by keeping the rep count low to perfect your technique and avoid injury.”

Box jump

Stand facing a box or other type of stable raised surface that’s about the same height as the top of your shins. With your feet hip-width apart, do a quarter squat then swing your arms back while simultaneously exploding off the ground and onto the box. Land with both feet, then step back down and repeat. Do three sets of five reps, resting for one to two minutes between sets.

Tuck Jump

From a standing position, drop into a shallow squat, then explode up off the ground. Keep your back straight and bring your knees as close to your chest as possible. Land softly then either bounce on the balls of your feet once before taking off again, or for a harder challenge go straight into another jump as soon as you land.

Frog Squat Jump

Stand with your feet wider than shoulder-width apart. Drop into a deep squat and sit back with your hands touching the ground between your feet for balance (like a frog). Then jump as high as you can and raise your hands above your head. Land softly and repeat.

Skater Jump

From a standing start, move your weight onto your right foot and move your left foot behind your right – the toes of your left foot should touch or hover slightly above the ground. Then jump laterally to your left and, as you land, bring your right foot behind your left. Repeat the movement at pace.

Broad Jump

Stand with your feet hip-width apart, then drop into a shallow squat and swing your arms back. Swing your arms through and jump forward as far possible. This simple but effective exercise acts as good measure of your progress when aiming to build explosive power in your legs – after a few weeks of plyometric exercises you should notice your broad jumps cover a greater distance.

See related

•  Get Faster And Fitter With This Agility Workout

Standing Triple Jump

From a standing start leap forward as far as possible and land on one foot, then continue straight into another forward jump and land on the other foot. Then – you guessed it – go straight into a third jump and land on both feet. Even if you never intend to beat Jonathan Edwards’s unassailable triple jump world record, this is a great exercise for building power in both legs.

Jump squat

Squat down and load tension in your legs and glutes, then jump up powerfully, swinging your arms for momentum. Push your hips forwards at the top and exhale. Don’t roll your knees inwards when you land. Do 5-10 reps for 3-5 sets, resting 60sec between them.

Jump lunge

Start in a split stance and load tension on your front leg with your core engaged. Jump up powerfully and switch legs in mid-air to land with your other leg in front. Don’t let your knees go ahead of your toes. Do 5-10 reps per leg for 3-5 sets, resting 60sec between them.

Press-up burpee

Squat down, jump your feet back and do a press-up. From there bring your knees towards your chest, then jump up powerfully. Land softly by bending your knees and go straight into the next rep. Do as many reps as you can for between 30sec and 60sec.

Clap press-up

This move done in the same way as a normal press-up – except you explosively push yourself up off the floor, going high enough to lift your hands up from the floor, clap and put them back down on the floor (or you’ll land flat on your face). Focus on keeping your core tight and pushing down as hard as possible to lift your torso up high into the air. Build up strength by doing one clap press-up at the start of each set, then work up to doing five sets of three reps, resting for one to two minutes between sets.

The press-up is probably the most popular bodyweight move in the world. That’s partly because it can be performed anywhere, without the need for much space or any kit. But above all it’s effective, working your chest, core, triceps and shoulders, if you do it right. What’s more, this classic move has a huge number of variations that will work the muscles of your upper body in new and challenging ways to promote new muscle mass growth, improve shoulder stability and mobility, and burn body fat to reveal a more defined torso.

So if you haven’t done a press-up since it was your punishment at school for forgetting your PE kit, it might be time for you to reconsider your opinion on it and factor it back into your training programme. Read on to discover how to perform the perfect press-up and find out how you can use the move more effectively to build your best ever body.

Press-up Form Tips

“The ability to crank out countless press-ups might seem impressive, but if you’re serious about adding upper-body size and strength then quality is far more important than quantity,” says trainer James Stark. “If you get your press-up form absolutely right, every single rep will help you add size and strength.” Follow these form tips to master the movement and add muscle faster.

Hand width

How Place your hands shoulder-width apart with arms straight and so your shoulders, elbows and wrists line up.

Why This position, with all the joints of your arms aligned, works your muscles without placing excess stress on the joints.

Hand position

How Your fingers should be slightly splayed and pointing forward, with your hands forming right angles with your forearms.

Why Maintaining a strong wrist position keeps your arm joints aligned to minimise joint stress and form the most stable set-up.

Elbow movement

How Initiate the move by bending your elbows to lower your chest towards the ground.

Why If you flare your elbows, you’re putting unnecessary stress on your joints. Perform press-ups correctly by keeping your elbows tucked in to your sides as you lower your chest towards the floor.

Ideal hip height

How Your hips should remain in line with your shoulders for the entirety of the set.

Why Holding your hips up keeps your body stable, which allows your muscles to focus on performing high-quality reps rather than on stabilising your torso.

Foot width

How Keep your feet hip-width apart. Placing them farther apart makes it easier and bringing them together makes it harder.

Why The closer together your feet the less stable your body, which means your muscles must work harder each rep.

Depth of reps

How The closer you can get your chest to the floor the better because this makes the working muscles move through a full range of motion.

Why The deeper you can go the more muscle fibres you activate. Keep reps slow to work them harder.

Power up your press-ups

Increase your press-up personal best with these expert endurance tips

0-10: “Start by mastering the movement pattern then doing one rep at a time, pausing at the top, to gradually build upper-body strength,” says trainer James Stark.

11-30: “Once you get into double figures try slowing down the eccentric, or lowering, portion of each press-up to increase the workload on the target muscles,” says Stark. “Then press back up powerfully to hit your fast-twitch muscle fibres.”

31-50: “You’re now into serious press-up territory so you need to keep the working muscles out of their comfort zone to keep getting stronger,” says Stark. “Try one- or two-second pauses at the bottom to expose them to even more tension.”

50+: “If upper-body size and strength is your goal then you need to make the move harder to keep progressing,” says Stark. “Raise your feet above your hands to up the resistance, or try clap press-ups, which require explosive power.”

The Best Press-Up Variations

When it comes to indicators of raw strength and power, there's not much that beats the press-up. It's the only upper-body exercise you can do anytime and anywhere and is one of the greatest exercises ever invented, working all the muscles of the chest as well as the shoulders and triceps, and requiring good core strength to keep your upper body stable.

Below you'll find form guides for the ten best press-up variations that require no kit, so they can be done at home, on holiday or down the pub. Once you can do 15 reps, move on to the next variation.

1. Press-up on knees

Resting your knees on the floor removes some of your bodyweight from the move, making this a great way to start building upper-body strength.

Difficulty: 1/10

2. Wide-arm press-up

Placing your hands slightly wider will reduce the range of motion, making each rep a bit easier. It also places greater emphasis on the chest and less on the triceps, which are a weak spot for some.

Difficulty: 2/10

3. Press-up

Place your hands just wider than shoulder-width apart with your body in a straight line from head to heels. As you lower keep your elbows pointing back, not to the sides.

Difficulty: 3/10

4. Diamond press-up

Touching the tips of opposite thumbs and index fingers together turns this into a great triceps-sculpting move.
 
Difficulty: 4/10

5. T press-up

Twisting and raising your arms alternately after each rep forces your core to work harder to stabilise your body.

Difficulty: 5/10

6. One-leg press-up

Lift one leg off the ground and perform the set as normal to work your core, glutes and leg muscles.

Difficulty: 6/10

7. Alternating offset jump press-up

Jumping your hands alternately backwards and forwards hits your chest and triceps muscles from different angles.

Difficulty: 7/10

8. Jump press-up

Pushing up hard so that your hands leave the floor helps develop explosive upper-body strength and power.

Difficulty: 8/10

9. Clap press-up

Pushing up explosively after each rep so that you can clap your hands recruits more fast-twitch muscle fibres, which leads to greater size and strength gains.

Difficulty: 9/10

10. One-arm press-up

The ultimate show-off move, performing press-ups with only one arm requires great upper-body strength and stability because your core must keep your torso steady so that you can complete each rep without falling over.

Difficulty: 10/10

Conquered all of them? Then try this, the hardest press-up known to man.

Planche press-up

Doing a press-up with your feet off the ground requires phenomenal strength, balance and co-ordination. Place your hands by your hips, lean forward, lift your legs off the ground, press up and start counting!

The push-up is often overlooked and considered unworthy of inclusion in many upper-body workouts. That’s a big mistake. Because when it comes to building a bigger and stronger chest, few moves are better than the classic bodyweight exercise that’s still used to separate the army men from the army boys.

This effective chest builder can be done anywhere, any time—and it works your shoulders, triceps and abs too. And there are a number of great variations that mean you’ll never run out of simple moves that sculpt impressive pecs. 

Former Royal Marine physical training instructor Sean Lerwill details—and demonstrates—his favourite push-up variations, as well as his performance and progress tips so you can build a bigger and stronger upper body.

We also have essential form tips from the PT who trains other PTs, Alasdair Nicoll.

How To Do The Push-Up

• Start with your hands underneath your shoulders and toes on the floor.
• Brace your core and raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
• Keeping your weight on your arms, bend your elbows to lower your chest towards the floor. Don’t let your hips sag or rise during the set: if they sag, it puts pressure on your back; if they rise, it takes the tension off your chest.
• Pause briefly at the bottom, with your chest as close to the floor as possible without touching it.
• Press back up powerfully to return to the start.

Tempo

“Far too many people think the push-up is an exercise that is beneath them—they favor barbell bench presses, dumbbell flyes, cable crossovers and other weighted moves to build up their chests instead,” says Lerwill. “But the push-up is a tried-and-tested upper-body muscle builder, and the beauty of it is it can be done any time. To get the gains you want, don’t rush your reps—taking your time to lower and lift your torso. Try a 4010 tempo—a four-second lowering phase, no pause at the bottom, a one-second pressing phase, then no pause at the top—to get your muscles better at controlling each movement. Or try a 3110 tempo that introduces a one-second pause at the bottom of each rep—all of a sudden this ‘easy’ and ‘boring’ bodyweight exercise is a legitimate muscle-building move.”

Push-Up Form Tips

For advice on how to nail a perfect press-up, we spoke to Alasdair Nicoll, personal trainer and tutor at The Fitness Group, which provides personal training courses.

1. Make Sure You Have A Stable Starting Position

“For most people, the hand position should be one-hand width outside of their shoulders,” says Nicoll. “Make sure that your wrist is directly underneath your elbow and your shoulder. The phrase we use is stacking joints. If you stack the shoulder and the elbow and the wrist on top of each other, it creates a really stable base from which to start the movement.

“Your feet should be pretty much in alignment with your shoulders, again to create as much stability as you can, because the more stability that you’ve got in any exercise, the more force production you can have and the greater level of muscle recruitment you can utilize in the exercise.”

2. Form An Arrow With Your Elbows

“You want to make sure that the direction in which the elbows are traveling is right,” says Nicoll. “You don't want them traveling out to the side because that’s going to put unnecessary stress through the shoulder.

“If we were to look over the top of the person, we’d want to see an arrow shape from the head down to both elbows. They should be angling back at pretty much a 45° angle. That would be optimal for prioritizing the chest, and will also help to get a full range of motion through the chest.”

3. Get The Tempo Right

“Make sure that when you go through the motion of the push-up that it's under full control,” says Nicoll. “Not just dropping into the movement, but doing it under control, potentially using a tempo. That could be two to three seconds on the way down, then a slight pause for a half second at the bottom. Then on the way up, making sure that that movement is really intentful. It should probably be close to a second for the powerful concentric part of the exercise.”

Push-Up Workouts

The classic push-up is a great exercise for improving muscular endurance in your pecs, front shoulders and triceps, as well as a fantastic way to work these muscles to full failure to encourage muscle size growth. To do this, perform a set of push-ups to failure after every set of bench presses. So once you finish your set of eight to 10 bench press reps, immediately move to the floor and do a set of push-ups to failure, which means you literally cannot do one more single rep with good form. This will work all those muscle fibers in your chest that don’t get worked by your heavy bench presses so you’ll build more muscle size, strength and endurance.

Push-Up Variations

Diamond Push-Up

Want bigger arms? The diamond push-up is the move for you, because this variation places far greater emphasis on your triceps than your chest to pack on size on your upper arms. To make the most of this move, focus on squeezing your triceps at the top of each rep, and think about how your triceps are contracting when you lower your torso towards the floor, using a good slow and controlled tempo. The more you can focus on a muscle moving during an exercise, the greater the rewards.

• Start in the push-up position but with your hands together so that your thumbs and index fingers form a diamond.
• Brace your core and raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
• Keeping your weight on your arms, bend your elbows to lower your chest towards the floor. Make sure your elbows point back, rather than out to the sides, during the lowering phase of a rep to avoid over-stressing the joint.
• Pause briefly at the bottom.
• Press back up powerfully to return to the start.

“This move is a lot harder than it looks, and that means a lot of people give up quickly because they can’t do many full-range reps,” says Lerwill. “To get stronger so you can do more reps, just do the lowering part of the move, keeping the tempo slow to make your muscles work harder, then kneel back up to return to the start. Alternatively lower yourself in the diamond position, then take your hands back to normal width to push back to the start.”

Wide-Arm Push-Up

Placing your hands wider apart increases the focus on your chest and lessens the involvement of the triceps and shoulders. It’s important to perform the move safely by lowering your torso to the ground slowly and under full control—doing so will both reduce the risk of injury and increase the effectiveness of the move. You want to feel a good stretch across your chest as you move closer to the ground. The quality of the rep is always more important than the width of your arm position – don’t sacrifice form by placing your hands too far apart.

• Start in the push-up position but with your hands about double shoulder-width apart.
• Brace your core and raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
• Keeping your weight on your arms, bend your elbows to lower your chest towards the floor.
• Pause briefly at the bottom, with your chest as close to the floor as possible without touching it.
• Press back up powerfully to return to the start.

“You need to ensure that your head and neck stay tight and in line,” says Lerwill. “Allowing your head to hang can cause your shoulders and upper back to round, which is poor form and makes the move less effective. This often happens as you get close to failure, so instead of going until you can’t do another single rep, stop once you notice your form suffering, rest on your knees for a count of 10, then do another set of reps. When you hit failure a second time, rest again, then do one final set to build chest strength without risking injury.”

Side-To-Side Push-Up

This variation is a great way of increasing the difficulty of the basic move to make the muscles of your chest, shoulders and triceps work hard to support, manage and move your bodyweight up and down and from left to right, while your core muscles need to be fully engaged to keep your torso level for the duration of each rep. The deeper you go each rep, the more effective it will be. That does make it harder so if you’re struggling, reduce the rep count and focus on quality of movement.

• Start with your hands underneath your shoulders and toes on the floor.
• Brace your core and raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
• Keeping your weight on your arms, bend your elbows to lower your chest towards the floor.
• As you lower, move your torso left so your head is in front of your left hand.
• Keeping your chest as close to the floor as possible, move your torso across so your head is in front of your right hand.
• Press back up powerfully to return to the start, moving your torso back to the middle as you do.

“This is a hard exercise, so it can be tempting to rush each rep to get the set finished quickly, but you need to resist that temptation if you want to work the target muscles effectively,” says Lerwill. “As with all exercises, it’s always better to focus on quality reps than quantity. Try to add an extra rep or two per set every time you do this move, but keeping reps slow and controlled is the first priority to increase muscular time under tension and minimize injury risk.”

Spider-Man Push-Up

This heroic variation is a move that’s not just about the chest, shoulders and triceps. Your upper and lower abs need to be fully engaged to draw one knee up to your elbow then back down again, and you’ll activate the deep stabilizing muscles of your core to keep your whole body stable throughout each rep. It’s a hard move, but mastering it will mean better performance and a better physique. Keeping your torso level with the floor, as opposed to rotating as you raise your knee, will keep the maximum amount of tension in your abs.

• Start with your hands underneath your shoulders and toes on the floor.
• Brace your core and raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
• Keeping your weight on your arms, bend your elbows to lower your chest towards the floor.
• As you lower, draw one knee up towards your elbow.
• Pause briefly at the bottom, with your chest as close to the floor as possible without touching it.
• Press back up powerfully to return to the start, straightening your leg as you do, then repeat with your other knee and alternate with each rep.

“The first thing to do to perform this move more efficiently and effectively is to engage your core before starting a set,” says Lerwill. “Do this by pulling in your bellybutton to tense your entire abs and deep core region. Bracing your midsection to keep it strong and stable—and focusing on keeping it tensed—will allow you to draw your knee all the way up while keeping your push-up form perfect to maximise your results.”

Dive-Bomb Push-Up

The very nature of this move means that for the duration of each rep there are a lot of different muscles fully engaged and under tension, which can only be a good thing when you want bigger, stronger and more defined muscles. The down-and-forwards then up-and-backwards movement also makes your chest, shoulders, triceps and core all work in different and more challenging ways from the standard push-up.

• Start with your hands and feet flat on the floor so that your body forms an inverted V-shape.
• Brace your core then lower your head and chest towards your hands, moving your torso and head forwards in a smooth arc as your head approaches the ground.
• Keep moving your upper body forward in a smooth arc until your eyes are looking forward and your chest is up.
• From there, raise your hips to return to the start position.
• Despite the aggressive-sounding name, the key to this exercise is maintaining a smooth movement path—the whole rep should be fluid and performed at an even tempo.

“Don’t worry about completing too many reps of this per set—instead, think about the muscles working at each point of the rep to build a stronger mind-to-muscle connection that will help you train more effectively in every session,” says Lerwill. “The nature of this movement means some areas will be far more difficult than others, with the most likely sticking points coming when your shoulders or triceps are fatigued but your chest is still strong. If that happens, do this variation to failure, then go straight into regular or wide-arm push-ups to keep working the chest muscles with a slow and controlled tempo for faster gains.”

Fingertip Push-Up

This variation is more about your finger and wrist strength than upper-body strength, so it’s best suited to people who want or need stronger fingers and wrists, such as MMA fighters, climbers and gymnasts. If that’s not you but you’re still up for a really big challenge, then give it a go—but don’t get disheartened when you fail! As with anything worthwhile, it takes time and effort to get good at this move, so add one or two reps per session over the weeks and months to build finger strength slowly without risking injury. If you’re unable to perform a rep on your fingertips, you can still develop finger and wrist strength by holding the top position for as long as possible.

• Start with your hands underneath your shoulders but with just your fingertips in contact with the floor.
• Brace your core and raise your hips so your body forms a straight line from head to heels.
• Keeping your weight on your arms, bend your elbows to lower your chest towards the floor.
• Pause briefly at the bottom, with your chest as close to the floor as possible without touching it.
• Press back up powerfully to return to the start.

“It’s worth experimenting with different finger positions,” said Lerwill. “We are all anatomically different, so some people find the exercise easier with fingers spread, others with fingers quite close, some somewhere in the middle. It all depends on finger length, size of hands, arm length and many other factors. If you’ve mastered one way, then try another—there are many ways to adapt and progress with an exercise, so don’t be afraid to use your imagination and experiment. Maybe one day you’ll be able to do a dive-bomb push-up on your fingertips!”

About Our Experts

The mountain climber is one of those full-body exercises that look simple enough, yet are painfully easy to get wrong. Like using a rowing machine and failing to synchronize your arms, legs and core, a poor set-up or poor execution can make you dread mountain climbers. 

But get the form right and remember a few simple cues to keep your technique on track and you’ll quickly see why they’re so often used by personal trainers. 

Once you realize their effectiveness for boosting your cardiovascular fitness, torching calories and simultaneously strengthening your abs, chest and shoulders, you might even learn to love them. 

To learn how to perform the mountain climber with flawless form, how to avoid common pitfalls and identify variations to spice up your bodyweight workouts, we spoke to Matt Wright, co-founder of the Earn Your Stripes fitness program and chief growth officer at The Fort Athletic Club in New Jersey, USA.

How To Do A Mountain Climber

The set-up

Start on all fours, with your hands shoulder-width apart and arms extended. From here, step your feet back to assume the top position of a push-up, supporting your weight on your hands and toes, with your core muscles engaged to keep your body in a straight line from shoulders to ankles. 

“Your hands should be positioned underneath your shoulders throughout,” says Wright. “This will alleviate any stress through the joint. And don’t forget to breathe.”

The movement

 Keeping your core braced and shoulders above your hands, bring one knee forward to your chest, then return it to the starting position as you simultaneously bring the other knee forward. Keep bringing one knee to your chest while the other returns to the starting position, ensuring the rest of your body remains stable. 

The tempo

Once you’ve nailed the basic form, try experimenting with your pace. Speed up to challenge your cardio fitness, or slow down to make your abs work harder. “When driving your knees under your body, don’t think only about what your legs are doing,” says Wright. “Emphasize pulling with your core.” 

He also stresses the need to keep your hips level. “Speed usually leads to poor form—especially causing the hips to shift above the rest of your body so keep them low.”

Common Mistakes With Mountain Climbers

The most common mistake people make with mountain climbers, especially as they tire (which doesn’t take long with this exercise), is allowing their hips to rise while the shoulders move towards their feet. You’ll know it’s happening to you because blood will start rushing to your head, compounding the effect of your heart beating furiously through your chest. Here, Wright explains why this happens and how to correct it. 

Chest shifts towards feet 

This frequently happens for the purposes of self-preservation. “People often push their hands away to help take the strain off their core and shift the weight onto their chest and shoulders, which are often stronger,” says Wright. Instead, hold firm and trust your core muscles to stabilize your body as you shift your weight forward so your hands are directly under your shoulders.

Hips lift

This tends to occur in tandem with the chest shift. Raising your hips too high, Wright says, “is an indication of a weak core”. If you can’t keep your hips in line with your shoulders and ankles for the required duration of your working set, he suggests breaking the move down into one leg drive at a time.

The Benefits Of Mountain Climbers

The chief benefit of the mountain climber exercise is in raising your heart rate. For that reason, it’s commonly included in bootcamp-style workouts where the goal is to improve cardiovascular fitness, using functional, bodyweight exercises. 

There’s no kit required, it’s relatively entry-level—so long as you heed our advice on common mistakes to avoid—and it’s ruthlessly effective. Just 30-60 seconds of well-executed mountain climbers is usually enough to have you blowing hard. 

Part of the beauty of the mountain climber exercise is its versatility. “There are so many variations,” says Wright. “The push-up to mountain climber, inchworm to mountain climber and cross-body mountain climber are some of my favorites.” Small tweaks with the tempo of the exercise can also shift the emphasis of the move, turning it from a cardio challenge into a strength exercise for your core muscles. 

“If I want to switch from cardio to strength with my clients,” says Wright, “I’ll get them to hold a plank for 10-15 seconds to start, then shift into a slow and controlled alternating knee drive for the remainder of the minute.” 

Mountain Climber Regressions

Elevated mountain climber

If you find the traditional mountain climber a little tough on your arms, shoulders and core, Wright suggests placing your hands on a raised surface like a bench or box. This lightens the load on those parts of your body, allowing you to focus on effective technique.

Mountain Climber Progressions

Cross-body mountain climber

To enlist the obliques in your mountain climber workout, move your knee towards the opposite elbow when you bring it forward and slightly rotate your torso. You should still be able to maintain a good pace while you do this, but move slightly more deliberately than you do with the classic mountain climber to ensure good form.

Gym ball mountain climber

Supporting your upper body on a fixed surface makes mountain climbers a little easier, but putting your hands on an unstable surface like a gym ball makes them infinitely harder. Trying to maintain perfect form while the ball moves beneath you increases the challenge to your core significantly. For these, focus on slow and controlled movements and build the pace gradually. 

Spider-Man mountain climber

This testing variation targets the obliques as well as the lower abdominals and will help improve your balance and hip flexibility to boot. From the top of a push-up position bring your right knee toward your right elbow. You can either tap that foot to the floor before taking it back to the starting position or keep it raised throughout the movement for an extra superhero-worthy challenge. Once your right foot is back in place, repeat the movement on your left side.

Wall mountain climber

Be warned: this advanced progression should be performed with extreme caution to avoid face-planting. Raise the stakes for your arms and shoulders by taking your feet off the floor and pressing them against a wall. Your body should now be parallel with the floor. Slowly bring one knee forward to your chest, then replace it on the wall and bring the other one forward. The pace will be slow, but the rewards will come in the form of greater upper-body strength.

About Our Expert