Wondering what the best way of burning fat and building muscle is?
Say goodbye to barbells, machines, and endless hours of cardio. And say hello to:
Bodyweight burners.
This form of bodyweight training, can get an incredibly efficient, effective, and challenging total-body workout using only your own body weight for resistance!
Quick Navigation
What is a bodyweight burner?
A bodyweight burner is simply a workout that has been designed to burn fat, get incredibly fit, and build perfectly proportioned muscle all over your body. That’s the plan anyway!
These workouts are great if:
- You have body fat to lose.
- You are pretty new to bodyweight training.
- You are looking to kickstart getting back into shape.
Why do bodyweight exercises?
- Bodyweight exercises prepare you for life. Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy who performed bodyweight exercises sprinted faster, jumped higher, and threw harder than those who did a static warmup.
- Build balanced muscle across your entire body. Weight lifting and intense cardio can beat you up, leading to achy knees, sore shoulders, and a stiff back. Calisthenics on the other hand help to build balanced muscle across your entire body to increase your strength and stability while simultaneously improving your mobility and flexibility, which helps to actually prevent injury and build a new level of fitness.
- Get the RIPPED, Athletic Look You Want. Some of the greatest physiques in history have been sculpted through bodyweight training.
And my favourite reason to use bodyweight exercises: you can work out in the comfort and privacy of your own home and save time, money, and hassle of going to the gym. Nice.
Bodyweight burners to use RIGHT NOW 🔥
Here are 16 tried and tested equipment-free workouts that are proven fat burners (using only your bodyweight):
1. A 6 minute bodyweight burner by BJ Gaddour
- Pushup Toe Touch Complex
- Drop Split Jacks
- Hamstring Walkouts
- Sweepers
- Situp to Cross-Body Punches
- 4-Second ISO Squat Jumps
That’s 1 round. Do a single round as a starter or finisher. Do 3-5 rounds for a full workout, resting 1-2 minutes between rounds.
2. A 12-Minute Bodyweight Muscle Burner by Mens Health
Do each move for 30 seconds:
- Side Plank (left + right)
- Pushups
- Spider lunge with rotation
- Squat hop to plank
- Lateral lunge jump
Do 4 rounds for a 12 minute bodyweight muscle burner.
3. 10 Minute Bodyweight Circuit by Funk Roberts
Perform 10 reps of each bodyweight exercise back to back for 10 minutes straight.
- Push ups
- Squats
- Mountain climbers
- Burpees
- Leg raises
- Renegade rows
- Jumping lunges
- Table top toe grabs
- Buzz saw planche
- Prisoners jump squats
Complete as many sets as you can (or until you die).
4. 5 Minute Intense Burner by Critical Bench
Do each of these 5 exercises for 45 seconds each and rest 15 seconds in between.
- Jumping Jacks
- Squat Jumps
- Running Man
- Mountain Climbers
- Burpees
Too easy? Do another round (or two).
5. Killer Fat Burning Workout by Frank Medrano
Do each exercise for 30 seconds and rest 10s in between each move:
- In and out shoulder tap push up
- 360° mountain climber
- Shot caller burpee
- Plank side crunch
- Drop dead push up to knee in
- Froggers
- Break dancer
- Broad jumps
- Tricep extension knee-ins
- Split squat jumps
Rest 2 min before the second round)
How do you design your own bodyweight burner workout?
It’s pretty simple to design your own program.
In fact, there’s only really two things to consider when choosing exercises for your own bodyweight burners:
- Pick exercises that work the core – Forget doing crunches. Pick exercises that work your core, so you’ll build ab muscles like you’ve only dreamed about before!
- Pick compound exercises – Build all over muscle by working out your biggest muscle groups. Oh and you’ll also boost your metabolic rate and burn more calories 24/7.
Summary
Bodyweight burners are just a spin on the workouts you’ll find across all the other fitness blogs out there. But hopefully these have given you some inspiration for designing your own workouts.
Now, go forth and burn some fat.