Best bodyweight exercises

Don't have access to a gym? Personal trainer Scott Laidler suggests his five top exercises that use only the weight of your body

Bodyweight exercises are just that: exercises that require only the weight of your body to be effective. They provide a versatile training option when access to gym equipment is limited. Bodyweight exercises improve strength and enhance range of movement, while preparing you for the next time you do manage to make it to the gym.

Below are my top 5 bodyweight exercises.

The six-pack mistakes everyone makes

Personal fitness trainer Scott Laidler outlines the big mistakes to avoid when building abdominal muscles.

Achieving six-pack abs isn’t as difficult as it’s often perceived (or marketed) to be. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of cryptic information and dodgy mindsets out there, and it means I see countless people make really simple mistakes.

Luckily, these mistakes are easy to fix. Incorporate the below advice into your abdominal workout and that all-important washboard stomach needn’t be a pain in the belly to achieve ...

1. Poor Exercise Selection

A common observation I’ve made over the course of my career is that most men focus incessantly on just a handful of well known abdominal exercises. The abdominal crunch and sit-up are the most commonly used ab exercises among beginners, yet they are inefficient and even potentially dangerous. Both of these exercises flex the spine at its weakest point. Abs are designed to brace the spine, not crunch it – every small crunch you do becomes an ingredient in a recipe for back trouble.

How to get bigger arm muscles

Personal fitness trainer Scott Laidler outlines his three-day workout for growing your arm muscles

Developing strong muscular arms is integral part of sculpting a well rounded physique. I’ll show you how.

The Workout

Day 1: Biceps

• One Arm Preacher Curl Drop sets (each arm, four different weights)
• 3 x Slow Motion Barbell Curls

How to shift your Christmas bulge in four weeks

It's January. Christmas festivities are now firmly behind us. The mince pies have been served, the wine has flowed and all that shortbread, chocolate, toffee and biscuits have been devoured. You're probably feeling that the only thing that’s lost weight over the last month is your bank account.

I once read that the average amount of weight gain in the UK over Christmas is half a stone. Given the type of foods we traditionally consume over the period, in combination with what is usually a marked drop in exercise frequency, it’s pretty safe to say that this weight gain is going to be comprised almost entirely of fat.

German Volume Training: the best training regime for increasing muscle size

Personal trainer Scott Laidler suggests a German Volume Training (GVT) regime that will help to supersize your muscles

I’m often asked which training regime I would recommend for gaining muscle mass. Unequivocally, the answer is always German Volume Training (or GVT). For me, it's the most effective training program out there for gaining serious muscle mass and breaking through personal plateaus.

GVT, or the ’10 sets methods’, is believed to have been created in Germany during the 1970’s. It was intially made famous by Rolf Feser, before being championed by Canadian power lifter Jacques Demers and female bodybuilder Bev Francis. The regime has been written about extensively by highly esteemed Canadian strength coach Charles Poliquin.

How to gain muscle quickly

Want to supersize your muscles quickly? Personal trainer Scott Laidler says the key is to damage your fibres in new ways, and then respect the amount of time they need to rest, heal and grow

One of the most frustrating elements of fitness is that it can be very difficult to gain a significant amount of muscle mass. We’re not talking about being a bodybuilder here, but 5-10lbs of new muscle would be a welcome addition to the physiques of most gym goers, at least on an aesthetic level.

Thankfully, gaining muscle isn't that difficult, you just need to know how to go about it in the right manner. There are a few basic principles that, when used in conjunction with one another, almost certainly lead to the growth of significant new muscle.

10 Tips to Build Muscle Fast

Some people spend years trying to put on muscle or get more toned, but just can’t seem to make it happen. Others see themselves in the mirror wearing a swimsuit, and realize that they want to get more toned or fill out some muscle, but just don’t know where to start. Whether you want to bulk up, get more curvaceous calves, enhance your chest, or achieve any other muscle building goal, you’re about to get 10 tips to build muscle fast..

Muscle Building Tip #1: Lift

In “How To Build Muscle,” you learn that the only way to significantly increase muscle is to cause muscle fibers to tear, and the only way to do that is to subject your muscles to external forces to which they’re not accustomed. So unless you have a heavy manual labor job like moving or construction, you must get your hands on barbells, dumbbells, and weight lifting machines to see significant muscle building progress.

Muscle Building Tip #2: Go Multi-Joint

Unless you’re already very muscular, single joint movements like biceps curls or triceps extensions do not build muscle quickly. Instead, you should use multi-joint exercises like cleans, deadlifts, squats, and bench pressing. Not only do these exercises work more muscles in less time, but they also allow you to use much heavier weight than you can lift with single-joint exercises.

9 KILLER WAYS TO GAIN MUSCLE NATURALLY!

Tired of being known as the 'skinny guy' ? Then try these 9 muscle gaining tips to combat your fast metabolism and achieve the mass you want!

Today I want to share with you some quality advice on how to gain weight. Now I caution you that this is for the really skinny guy looking to really gain weight because they barely have any meat on their bones. I know what it is like when you feel like you eat all the time and have nothing to show for it. I have been there. I also understand the feelings that you feel when people start to resent you because you can eat whatever you want and not ever gain a pound. They don't realize that to skinny guys, this is a curse more than it is a blessing at times.

Interval Training & Fat Loss

Three Surprising Ways Interval Training Can Help You Get Shredded

There are many who always go for the magical explanation. If crop circles appear in a cornfield, it was due to alien visitors, not a bunch of stoned frat boys pulling a prank.

High intensity interval training (HIIT) has been praised as the ultimate fat burner for over two decades, since the mega bestseller Body for Life lauded it as the greatest way to shed fat from your frame. As it turns out, HIIT may have some fat loss benefits — but not for the reasons most commonly professed.

Workout For Rear Delts, Forearms & Calves

Train Those Small But Crucial Muscles You Keep Forgetting With These Workouts

An aesthetic physique is the result of a delicate mix of muscle size and conditioning. And, above all, proportion.  

However, the classic muscle building formula — “big” exercises that use a lot of muscles like squats, bench presses, chin-ups, rows, deadlifts, and shoulder presses – doesn’t always support the quest for perfect symmetry.

Fact is, if you just go with the basics, small but key body parts like the calves, rear deltoids, and forearms can get lost in the proverbial shuffle.

2012 Fitness Essentials: Gym Star

Lifting weights is a powerful means of developing muscle mass and strength. Unfortunately, many men make rapid progress initially, and then either level out or experience a string of nagging injuries. This top 10 features proven products to help the lifting enthusiast break through plateaus and achieve a more mobile, healthy and functional physique.

10. ASICS© GEL-Neo33™

When looking for a good high-performance running shoe you can use at the gym, you want to find something that is relatively flat (not a huge heel lift), has some arch support and allows for multiplanar foot movement. Shoes with large heel springs or bubbles make it difficult to shift body weight posteriorly, which is important for all squatting, deadlifting and lunging variations. ASICS® has developed a new shoe that serves these purposes well and is also incredibly comfortable. Named for the 33 joints in the foot, ASICS® GEL-Neo33™'s sole has enough flexibility to allow the foot to move functionally, but enough stability to allow maximum force generation.

2012 Fitness Essentials: Beginners

The First Steps Every Man Should Take On His Way To A Six-Pack

Regardless of whether the goal is to find a new gym routine, an endurance training plan or simply to play sports again on the weekends, getting started is often the hardest part. Fortunately, you don't need to do it alone. This top 10 features tips and products to help the fitness beginner get motivated, start a routine that works and not give up.

10. A Massage

Stress, whether from work, relationships, environmental toxins, dietary choices, or a lack of sleep and exercise, can have a profound effect on both physical and psychological health. Most men are flirting with stress overload, which can have negative effects on hormone balance, energy levels, motivation, resiliency/capacity to change, and overall outlook on life. 

Top 10: Exercises For Guys Over 40

Aging is typically associated with fatigue and weakness. Why? Are these inevitabilities of aging or a result of lifestyle changes that occur alongside aging? There are plenty of examples of athletes defying age. Brett Favre, at the age of 39, just signed a two-year, $25-million contract. At the age of 44, MMA fighter Randy Couture was the heavyweight titleholder. Aging is inevitable, but dwindling muscle mass doesn’t need to be.

Most guys over 40 can actually reverse the loss of muscle mass that accompanies aging, and do it in less time than they think. With many guys juggling 40+ hour work weeks, families and a dwindling social life, there isn’t a lot of time to waste on marginally effective exercises.

High-quality exercises are those that hit a lot of muscles groups at the same time. By building a training program around these exercises you can strengthen all the major muscle groups of your body in the shortest amount of time. These exercises also result in a greater energy expenditure and a more favorable hormonal response, meaning you’ll build more muscle, get stronger and burn more fat.

Diet And Workout Recovery

The 6 Key Areas You've Been Neglecting To Take Care Of After Your Workouts

Although active recovery techniques like stretching and foam-rolling are important, diet plays the largest role in post-workout recovery.

Do you feel like you’ve hit a fitness plateau? Or that the soreness in your legs from yesterday’s workout is limiting you from pushing hard today? Or that you can’t seem to improve your strength-to-weight ratio? Recovering properly may be the missing ingredient you need to move to the next level. Properly refueling your body after exercise will accelerate the rate of recovery, allowing you to schedule workouts closer together and truly elevate your performance. Although active recovery techniques like stretching and foam-rolling are important, diet plays the largest role in post-workout recovery. Choosing nutrient-dense foods can accelerate the six key elements of recovery: muscle glycogen replenishment, hormonal support, soft-tissue repair, immune-system support, inflammation reduction and rehydration.

Gain Muscle Fast

Physique transformation is a long process, and it’s not really a straight path, at least in the sense that your progress isn’t consistent. Rather than progressing in a linear manner — in terms of both actual growth and the amount of time it takes — muscle growth tends to happen in “bursts.”

Unfortunately, these bursts are usually interspersed with long draughts of progress: the dreaded plateau.

You’ll often hear about guys who simply “can’t” get any bigger despite their best efforts. These guys have hit full-body plateaus, really. Most of the time, this is an issue with a guy’s diet more than training; these guys are often not eating enough. Slightly less talked-about but certainly more insidious are single-body-part plateaus, where someone is experiencing pretty decent progress overall, but one muscle group seems to have stalled out like the ’84 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera I drove in high school. (Hey, don’t laugh; that car had personality. It may not have had air conditioning or a working radio… or a functional passenger side seat belt, but it sure as hell had personality.)

How To Gain Muscle For Skinny Guys

I used to be skinny. Really skinny. In high school and up to my first year of college, I was a complete stick -- until I made the decision in my freshman year that I needed to put some muscle on. I had two basic reasons: I wanted to look good naked and wanted to be able to hit a tennis ball harder.

Eventually, by my senior year of college, I went from just “putting on muscle” to actually becoming a bodybuilder -- standing on stage and posing in a thong with 35 pounds of muscle above my original starting point.

If you were born skinny, you may not have the potential to gain the bulk of an NFL lineman, but it’s completely possible for a skinny guy to put on muscle. The bonus for you is that your body fat levels are naturally low, so when you do gain muscle, you’ll be able to achieve a very ripped look, which bigger, bulky guys often envy!

Here are seven things I learned from my own journey.

7 Muscle-Building Strategies for Guys

Experts share strength-training tips that yield results quickly.

If you're looking for quick muscle building, go no further than your local gym, where doctors say that major strength gains can be had in just a few weeks.

Last year, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the American Heart Association updated their recommendations for physical activity. In addition to regular cardio workouts, Americans are now being encouraged to perform resistance training at least twice a week, working every major muscle group.

Spero Karas, MD, assistant professor of orthopaedics in the division of sports medicine at Emory University, says that testosterone, the male hormone responsible for muscle growth, maxes out between the ages of 16 and 18. It reaches a plateau during the 20s and then begins to decline. As a result, muscle building after the adolescent years can be challenging, he says.

Try Hindu Push-Ups for a More Muscular and Powerful Chest

If you feel standard Push-Ups are too easy, perhaps it's time for some variation.

Hindu Push-Ups are a fantastic option for athletes of all ability levels to obtain the muscular pectorals that are necessary for strength, power and effective posture, movement and stability—all things athletes should be concerned with.

Hindu Push-Ups can be superior to Bench Presses for a few reasons:

• By being able to manipulate the position of your body, you can create more tension in your chest, a key component for building muscle.

Your Start Doing List to Build More Muscle

Writing out a list makes your shopping experience a whole lot easier. You know why you are there, where to go and what you need to do. Same goes for your daily to do list. When you are zeroed in on the specifics, you can get more accomplished. Writing lists puts your head in the game and gives you direction and purpose. You can use this power of a list to build more muscle! Set your intentions with a start doing list and your body will follow your mind.

Here’s your ready-made Start Doing List to build more muscle.

Start believing in yourself. You might think your fitness is all about your workouts and what you eat, but the biggest component of your health is mental. If you don’t believe in yourself, start today. I know what you are thinking: “Yeah, right, how do I do that?” First, stop telling yourself it’s hard to do.

12 Moves For Tight and Toned Arms

Summer is in full swing and that means sundresses, tank tops, swimsuits and lots of skin. Tight and toned arms are not only a sign of your strength but I might also add  they are sexy. Not only that, think about all your arms do: lifting groceries, pushing lawn mowers, carrying baskets of laundry or boxes to the basement. Arms are busy and we want them to be both functional and beautiful. So how do you achieve tight, toned arms? This dumbbell workout is designed to target all of the muscles that make arms shapely and fit: biceps, triceps and shoulders. But before we tackle the workout, there are other things that will influence how your arms look. Let’s take a look at a few other key facts about getting great arms:

BE CONSISTENT

Like everything else on our body, if you don’t use it you lose it. In order to have great arms you can’t just start a routine-you have to stick with it! The changes you make when you develop the new habits need to continue in order for the results to stick around.

4 Keys to Building Muscle Fast

There's a reason why you're spending countless hours in the gym but still looking scrawny and not brawny: muscle mass isn't built solely in the weight room. In fact, what you're doing at the kitchen table–and even in the bedroom—may be more important for gaining muscle mass than what you're lifting. (Of course what you're lifting, and how often you're lifting it, matters a lot too.) For any athlete looking to add size fast, the following four factors are critical.

Essential Exercises

Isolation training, where you focus on a single muscle, is nearly pointless for athletes. If your goal is to develop size, you need to perform complex lifts that recruit several muscle groups at the same time. So ditch moves like arm curls in favor of full-body movements like Chin-Ups. You'll cause more muscle stimulation throughout your body, leading to more muscle growth. The following eight exercises are essential to anyone looking to pack on muscle mass fast.

HOW TO GET DEFINED LOWER ABS

Follow these tips to develop your hard-to-define lower abs.

Question: I do all sorts of abdominal exercises, but I still have trouble developing my lower abs. What exercises do you recommend to crush your lower abs?

Answer: It may not be simply a matter of choosing better exercises, says IFBB pro bodybuilder and trainer to the stars Roland Kickinger. Definitely some exercises tend to emphasize the lower abs and some tend to emphasize the top part of the abdominals, but there are other important factors to consider if you'’re having trouble bringing out your lower abs.” Read on for Roland's checklist of what to do to turn your two-pack into a ripped, six-pack.

THE 15 MOST IMPORTANT EXERCISES FOR MEN

Build muscle, burn fat, and transform your body with these essential 

Every guy who’s into fitness has some methodology, piece of equipment, or program they like over anything else. Some like to circuit train every day, some follow bodybuilding protocols, and still others participate in any number of fitness trends and fads. However, there is a list of exercises that has withstood the test of time, and these moves have become staples in every serious lifter’s plan.

1. DEADLIFT

Arguably the king of all exercises, the deadlift hits every major muscle group hard, and is perhaps the greatest test of strength there is. Because of all the muscles involved, it releases a huge amount of testosterone (a muscle-building hormone) into the bloodstream. For this reason, the deadlift is a great cornerstone for any fitness plan.

BACK SQUAT

Just like the deadlift, the barbell back squat hits just about every major muscle group there is in the body and is the king of leg-developing movements. Any athlete will tout the squat as the reason they run fast, jump high, and keep increasing in strength all over, citing the testosterone release as the reason.

10 WAYS TO LOSE YOUR GUT BACKED BY SCIENCE

Get rid of belly fat and love handles with these diet and exercise tips.

With guys, weight gain—and loss—is all about the gut.

Men are genetically predisposed to carry any excess weight in their abdomens, says Brian Quebbemann, M.D., a bariatric surgeon with the Chapman Medical Center in California and president of The N.E.W. Program. Unfortunately, unlike fat in your butt, neck, and thighs, abdominal fat isn’t limited to subcutaneous, just-below-the-skin fat. Belly fat exists all the way down to and around your organs. “This visceral fat is directly correlated with multiple medical problems including diabetes, coronary artery disease, hypertension, sleep apnea, and a shorter life expectancy,” he says.

Add all of that to the simple fact that guts just aren’t sexy and, yeah, you have plenty of reason to get rid of yours for good. Luckily, all of these science-approved tips don’t just fight fat—they fight belly

How Long Should It Take to See Muscle Definition?

Because you’re dying to show off your workout results!

The question: “When should I expect to see more defined muscles?”

The experts: Jon-Erik Kawamoto, strength and conditioning specialist, owner of JKConditioning; Lee Boyce, C.P.T., owner of Boyce Training Systems

The answer: Depending on how often you exercise and the intensity of your workouts, give it between four to eight weeks for your muscles to get ripped, says Kawamoto. While that seems like a long time, there are other signs that show your exercise routine is working—like climbing a flight of stairs without feeling totally winded, he adds.

10 Facts About Your Muscles

MEET YOUR MUSCLES

When it comes to your body, knowledge is power. Literally. The better you understand your muscles and what they're capable of, the more you can do with them, whether you're acing a serve or turning heads at the pub. 

But when there are about 650 muscles, and millions of individual fibers, to get intimate with, it's more than a little daunting. So we're going to keep it simple. Here's the least you need to know to get the most from your muscles.

MUSCLES 101

Let's start with the 101. You have three types of muscles: the cardiac muscle found in your ticker, the smooth muscle that lines such organs as your stomach and esophagus, and skeletal muscle, which attaches to your bones via tendons. 

The 5 foods to avoid if you want a six pack

Carrying a spare tire around your belly? You're not alone: Fifty-four percent of U.S. adults now have abdominal obesity, up from 46 percent in 2000, according to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. If you fall into that category (male abs are considered fat if the waistline measures more than 40 inches), it's time to consider cutting down your consumption of these five foods:

1. Refined grains

Not sure what a refined grain is? It's an ingredient found in foods like white rice, white bread, and regular white pasta. The unrefined stuff (whole wheat, brown rice and quinoa) is always healthier. Pennsylvania State University researchers found that people who ate whole grains in addition to keeping a healthy diet—of fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and protein—lost more weight from the abdominal area the group of people who kept the same healthy diet but ate all refined grains.

A Skinny Guy's Guide to Bulking Up

Turn to the Professionals

Many people successfully bulk up on their own, but you increase your chances of success if you consult the professionals somewhere along the way. "What I'd recommend is not to jump into any crazy bulking diets that aren't tailored to you," says White. "Because, here's the deal, especially for getting big: you eat a lot, you can gain weight, but you can gain more fat than muscle." In order to achieve the kinds of gains you want, White advises finding a dietician and a personal trainer who can help you. You can also aim to find someone who performs both jobs, which will likely save you some money.

Get a Partner

Another excellent resource to take advantage of is your friends. If you know someone who has reached their own bulking-up goals, they can provide you with valuable advice that won't cost you as much as a professional. Aside from the firsthand experience they offer, having a friend you can consult with can also keep you motivated and responsible.

THE BEST FULL-BODY MUSCLE WORKOUT

Pack on serious size with this quick full-body workout.

101 Best Workouts of All Time is the ultimate answer to the question "What workout should I do?" No matter what equipment you have available, from a fully stocked supergym to a pair of mismatched dumbbells in your garage, or nothing but your body weight alone, you can build muscle, lose fat, and sculpt the physique you've always wanted.

Full-body workouts sound like they would take a long time. But when you boil down the exercises you need to perform in order to cover every area, there are only three you need to be concerned with—a push, a pull, and a squat. This is the ultimate in minimalism and works superbly for beginners or people who are short on time.

HOW IT WORKS

Any kind of pressing exercise will train your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Any pulling movement (a row or chinup variation) recruits your back, rear delts, biceps, and forearms. Squatting movements (and deadlifts, which aren’t quite a squat but require all the same muscles) take care of the quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Even your calves get some stimulation as they help to stabilize your squat. Your abs, of course, get worked on all these movement patterns, provided they’re done with free weights rather than machines, and work to brace your spine throughout. The workout at right contains everything you need to put on size fast—a squat, press, and pullup—done with heavy weights, and you should be able to wrap it up within 45 minutes.

10 WAYS TO GAIN MUSCLE

The must-do principles for anyone looking to bulk.

Whether you’re a skinny guy desperately trying to pack on muscle (like Michael B. Jordan in Creed) or a not-so skinny guy trying to convert body mass into muscle (like Chris Pratt in Gaurdians of the Galaxy), bulking up in the right way is a challenge. But that doesn’t mean it’s complicated. With the right training regimens (yes, you want more than one routine on deck), balance of calories and nutrients, and lifestyle you can be on your way to a thicker, stronger you.

Scroll through the gallery to get the details.

Fuel on Protein

Start reading food labels to get a sense of how many calories you're already eating. Then add 500 to that number and start eating that many calories every day. Aim to take in about one gram of protein per pound of body weight each day.

10 REASONS YOU'RE NOT BUILDING MUSCLE

Building muscle and packing on the pounds isn't just about "picking things up and putting them down." What's holding you back?

Packing on muscle is no easy feat regardless of whether you're a string bean or a husky guy. And why you're missing out on gains is typically caused by a number of reasons that can be easily avoided. So if you're frustrated about being stuck in the place and at the same weight, it's time to assess what you're doing and make a change.

YOU RE IMPATIENT

If you’re a true beginner, the first phase of your training program results in changes that you can’t see – typically, your coordination improves with each exercise and the amount of co-contraction between muscles decreases. Your brain gets better at communicating with your muscles and can actually activate a higher percentage of your muscle fibers, commonly referred to as neuromuscular efficiency. Don’t look in the mirror after two weeks and wonder why you’re not getting bigger. Be patient and put in the work, the results will come.