Bodyweight Squats, Inverted Rows, 3-D Lunges and Pushups

Bodyweight workouts are great fat burners.  You can do these four exercises to build fat burning muscle mass:

Bodyweight Squats

Get more fat burn doing shorter, effective workouts. You do this by using more full body strength exercises like squats.


Some form of squat exercise should be a part of every strength workout you do. The squat will help you build more muscle, burn more fat and speed up your metabolism.

Here are 3 reasons to do squats and burn more fat:

1. The squat works major muscle groups. To recruit more muscle fibers during workouts and improve your fat loss success, focus more on multi-joint or compound exercises like the squat.

Compound exercises will help you burn more fat because of the intensity of working large muscle groups in your body. You will also burn more calories and fat after your workout.

There is probably no other exercise that has a greater impact on your body's muscle-building, metabolism and energy expenditure (deadlift is also a great exercise).

This means your legs (especially quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes), abdominals and lower back are targeted. Even your arms and shoulders will feel the effects of the exercise.

2. You will tone your bulky and shapely fast twitch muscle fibers better with the squat exercise.  I am talking mainly about your butt, hips and thighs. Everyone wants to shape these areas.

3. Work your core with squats. Research shows that the abdominal muscles are engaged more when doing squats than they are doing many of the more popular ab exercises.

If your fitness goal is lean and tone, you will lose inches from your waist, hips, neck, arms, legs, etc. and your body fat will decrease by doing full body strength exercises. You should take these measurements at least once a week to measure your progress.

Don't worry about the weigh scale at first. Since muscle weighs more than fat, your weight might even go up a little at first. But you will be on your way to acheiving max fat loss and permanent weight loss because your lean muscle mass will gradually replace your burned fat mass. And this will help speed up your metabolism because your body has to work harder to maintain muscle mass.

How to Do The Traditional Two-Legged Squat

Don't let your knees cave in at any point in the squat exercise. Keep the natural arch in your back, head looking forward and shoulders back.  As you lower your body, try to push your feet outward without actually moving them. This will keep your knees aligned properly. Once you have lowered to the desired squat position, contract your glutes and thighs and explode upward to the starting position and exhale. You have done one repetition.

Inverted Rows

Include bodyweight inverted rows in your workout routine to work your back muscles in a different way. Doing different exercises for a specific muscle group can give you faster results or help you break through a plateau. I will see many people doing barbell rows and dumbbell rows but very few people doing inverted rows. And, inverted rows strengthen much more than just your back muscles...



Inverted rows build strength in your upper back, shoulders and arms. Your core muscles are also engaged during the movement. Inverted rows also improve your stabilizing strength in the low back, glutes and hamstrings. And, when you superset the inverted row with the pushup, you will get better muscular balance between the frontside and backside of your upper body. Muscular balance is critical for athletes to perform at peak levels.

1. Hang from the bar of a Smith Machine (back to the floor but not touching) and pull your chest up to the bar.

2. Keep your body in a straight line throughout the movement and brace your abs. Also, keep your head in line with your torso. Don't drop the head or jut it forward.

Add inverted rows to your exercise routine!

3-D Lunges (Clock)

Add clock lunges to your exercise routine to better sculpt your butt, hips, upper legs and lower legs and help them look better in 3-D space!


Many of you do forward lunges, reverse lunges and walking lunges. These exercises work your lower body in one plane of motion (sagittal). I don't see enough people doing side lunges and transverse lunges.

You will need adequate core strength to keep your body upright during the lunges.

When you do the lunges, don't let your front knee go past your toes and don't let your back knee touch the ground on the descent. Also, don't let the front thigh go past parallel to the ground.

To work your hamstrings more, lunge out further with the front leg. A shorter lunge will work the quadriceps more. Most people need more hamstring strength to prevent knee injuries.

If you will do clock lunges, you are covered in all 3 planes of motion, your legs will look better and they will be more balanced.

Do clock lunges this way (bodyweight, medicine ball or with dumbbells):

Lunge with your right leg at 12 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 5 o’clock and 6 o’clock. That’s 1 repetition for your right leg. Lunge with your left leg at 12 o’clock, 10 o’clock, 9 o’clock, 7 o’clock and 6 o’clock. That’s 1 repetition for your left leg. Maintain upright posture throughout.

Pushups

Pushups - Close-grip pushups, pushups on stability ball, power pushups, regular pushups, incline pushups, decline pushups, uneven pushups.... take your pick. Pushups are one of the all-time best bodyweight exercises.


How to do the pushup on dumbbells movement: Keep your body straight and torso braced throughout the movement. Keep your head in line with your torso at all times. Lower your body down to the ground and back to starting position. Repeat as required.

If you need bodyweight workouts that you can start at your own level, check out the Free download below (it has beginner, intermediate and advanced levels):

Free Bodyweight 500 Metabolic Fat Burner Workouts. Start shaping your body faster!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES


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About Mark

Hi, I'm Mark Dilworth, Nutritionist, Dietary Strategies Specialist, Nutrition for Metabolic Health Specialist and Lifestyle Weight Management Specialist. Since 2006, I have helped thousands of clients and readers make lifestyle habit changes which includes body transformation and ideal body weight.