Can You Strength Train Without Equipment?

I remember when I worked as a personal trainer and I had an elderly woman as a client. She was a retired teacher who lived alone in a small but comfortable home. She had never lifted weights before and she had no desire to get a gym membership but she wanted me to set her up on a strength training program.

No problem I thought.

There are a number of ordinary floor exercises that I could show her that work with her own body weight for a complete muscle workout. Bodyweight exercises are a simple, effective way to improve balance, flexibility, and strength without machinery or extra equipment.

We started on her stairs and walked up and down, holding onto the handrail for balance. This helped get her blood moving and her heart rate up.

Looking around her living room, we decided to use her piano bench for back one-arm pull and tricep exercises.

In her kitchen we used the countertop as support for leg exercises such as side raises and calf lifts.

The hallway provided a clear wall for pushups and wall squats. Since there’s no equipment involved, bodyweight workouts make it easy to transition quickly from one exercise to the next. Shorter rest times mean it’s easy to quickly boost heart rate and burn some serious calories.

Although my client was a beginner to exercising, bodyweight exercises are a great choice because they’re easily modified to challenge any fitness level. They also are good to stave off boredom by adding extra repetitions, performing the exercises faster or super-slow and can even the simplest exercise more challenging. So there really are no excuses for not exercising.

Ask someone why they don’t exercise, and chances are “no time” or “inconvenience” might come up as culprits.

Bodyweight exercises allow anyone to squeeze in workouts wherever they are. (tweet this)

You don’t need a gym membership, or a block of hours to exercises. You can start today.

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