How to Build Your Personalized Bodyweight Workout Routine

A well-designed bodyweight training plan can transform your body and even help you gain muscle. But what counts as 'effective' varies from person to person. For some, 10 push-ups might be enough, while others require 20, or even more sets. The frequency of your workouts also matters. Let’s guide you to the ideal workout that fits you perfectly.

In this case, being 'effective' doesn’t mean mindlessly repeating air squats all day long. Instead, a bodyweight program is truly effective if it aligns with these key principles:

• Choose something you enjoy. Even the most impressive program, delivered by someone like Thor himself, is useless if you dislike it. You won’t stick to it long enough to see results, no matter what that '4 weeks to blast ass fat' plan promises.

• Ensure it’s safe and matches your skill level. If a workout is too advanced, you risk injury or becoming so sore that you lose the will to continue. If your body isn’t ready for the exercises or you haven’t developed the fitness to recover from intense sessions, more difficult routines won’t automatically be better for you.

What’s most important is that your program suits both your needs and your schedule. Sustainable results come from consistently taking action, not from occasionally following an optimized program or relying on miracle weight-loss shakes.

Understand the Core Bodyweight Movement Patterns

Bodyweight exercises can be broken into compound movements that engage multiple muscle groups and isolation exercises that target specific muscles. If you're unfamiliar with these terms, check out our guide to fitness terminology. Simply put, compound movements work several muscle groups at once, while isolation exercises focus on one muscle or muscle group at a time.

Things get a bit more intricate from here: upper and lower body exercises are divided into vertical and horizontal push and pull movements, which refer to how you move objects away from or towards your body. The vertical and horizontal directions correspond to the anatomical planes of the body, but for simplicity, think of them as movements that go up and down or forward and backward, respectively. This leads to the following classifications:

• Vertical upper body press: Raise your arms and push upwards. This vertical press targets your traps, shoulders, and upper back. Examples include handstand push-ups (or a modified pike push-up) and chest dips.

• Horizontal upper body press: The classic push-up is a great example of a horizontal press (feel free to modify by doing them on your knees or using a stable elevated surface like a bench or chair). Push-ups engage your chest, shoulders, upper back, and triceps. For more push-up variations, check out this Art of Manliness article.

• Vertical upper body pull: The pull-up is the gold standard here, working your lats, shoulders, and biceps. If you can’t complete a pull-up, start with negative reps or experiment with different grips. That’s how I improved to full pull-ups (and beyond!).

• Horizontal upper body pull: Typically a rowing movement, this exercise involves pulling yourself toward an object, like a doorway. It’s great for engaging your back, arms, and stabilizing muscles.

• Lower body push: Leg exercises like lunges, squats, glute bridges, step-ups, and hip thrusts work your thighs, glutes, hips, hamstrings, and calves.

• Lower body pull: This mimics the “hip hinge” pattern from a deadlift, where you bend at the hips and push your glutes back. This works your posterior chain, which is the collection of muscles along your backside. Al Kavadlo, a bodyweight training expert, recommends exercises like back bridges and single-leg deadlifts. Flexibility may be necessary for full back bridges, so don’t worry if it feels challenging.

• Core: Many exercises will engage your core, but adding specific moves like planks (and their variations), hanging leg raises, bicycle kicks, and bird dogs will help strengthen it directly.

These essential movement patterns utilize many of your body’s 600+ muscles. A balanced workout should incorporate both push and pull exercises to develop strength evenly across your entire body.

How to Establish Your Bodyweight Exercise Routine

Before you get started, having access to a pull-up bar and a bench of some kind, like one found in a park or playground, would be ideal. Bonus points if you have a suspension trainer (TRX is a popular brand) and some resistance bands. While these tools aren't mandatory, they will allow you to enhance your workout by targeting smaller muscles such as the biceps and shoulders.

We’ll guide you through two different approaches to creating a bodyweight workout program: a simpler circuit-training method, and a more advanced weightlifting-style split routine.

Circuit Training Plan

In a circuit training routine, you’ll combine 6-10 exercises, decide on the number of repetitions for each one (or use a set time), and perform all the exercises consecutively without rest for a specific number of rounds (or time-based). This makes up one circuit. Repeat the entire circuit 3-6 times.

Adam Bornstein from Born Fitness presents this excellent, beginner-friendly workout plan:

Alternate between 50 seconds of activity and 10 seconds of rest for each exercise in this circuit, which includes 8 bodyweight exercises that engage every muscle group from head to toe:

Exercise 1:

Hip Thrust Alternative

Exercise 2: Pushup Alternative

Exercise 3:

Deep Squat Variation

(check out 35 ways to squat on 2 legs at the link)

Exercise 4:

Rowing Variation

Exercise 5: Hip-Hinge Technique Variation

Exercise 6: Handstand Pushup Modification

Exercise 7:

Single-Leg Squat Modification

(see the top 37 variations of the single-leg squat)

Exercise 8: Pullup Variation

His example provides a complete full-body workout. If preferred, you can stick to this routine and perform it three to five times weekly. For more variety, create two or three additional routines following the same template, swapping some exercises, and alternate between them by doing one every other day. This way, you’ll have a varied routine that can be followed for several weeks.

For additional bodyweight circuit training ideas, check out this routine from Nerd Fitness and John Romaniello’s “1% bodyweight” workout.

3-Day Split Workout Plan

The second option takes inspiration from a bodybuilding-style split routine, where each workout targets specific body parts or movements instead of working the entire body. In this case, the focus will be on push days, pull days, and leg days.

For assistance, I consulted Alexander Ferentinos, a nutrition and training expert from the UK. He recommends a four-day-a-week workout schedule. You will create three workouts (press, pull, and legs), each consisting of 3-5 exercises, and rotate through them throughout the week in the following order:

Day 1:

Press + Core* (Focus on Chest):

Push-ups, handstand push-ups, pike push-ups, chest dips, tricep dips

Day 2:

Leg Day:

Walking lunges, lunges, reverse lunges, side lunges, squats, glute bridges, step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, pistol squats, back bridges, single-leg deadlifts

Day 3:

Pull + Core (Focus on Back):

Pull-ups (or negatives), rows**, deadhang

Day 4:

Legs:

This can be the same leg workout, or feel free to mix in a few new exercises

* It’s okay to include one or two core exercises per workout. Options include planks, side planks, bicycle kicks, mountain climbers, and many more exercises.

** By adjusting your body angle, you can make rows more challenging and target different muscles. A great example is the inverted row, where your body stays almost parallel to the ground. Try adding a variety of angled rows as separate exercises on this day.

When applying this to your weekly schedule, your split routine might look like this:

• Monday: Press workout

• Tuesday: Legs workout

• Wednesday: Rest day

• Thursday: Pull workout

• Friday: Legs workout

• Saturday and Sunday: Fun days

Alternatively, switch up the pull and press days. You could also follow a pattern of press day, pull day, leg day, and repeat for six days with one rest day; or work out four days in a row followed by three rest days.

Ultimately, the choice is yours as long as you maintain consistency. Along with consistency, it's essential to incorporate some rest. To keep things simple, try not to schedule leg days or press days back-to-back. The main constraints are your schedule and fitness level.

On your days off, indulge in activities you love or simply unwind by watching Netflix and relaxing (no kidding). It's essential to remember that progress doesn’t come from overworking yourself.

Key Considerations: Frequency, Rest Time, and More

Ferentinos highlights that the core principle in bodyweight training is consistency—how frequently you work out matters most.

Challenge your body enough to feel it, but avoid pushing so hard that you can’t recover and train again soon. The goal is to develop proper movement, improve its quality, and increase your strength or your ability to handle more volume. Volume refers to the total sets and the cumulative weight lifted during a workout.

Since you're not lifting heavy weights, you can compensate by increasing the number of days, sets, or reps. Here are a few crucial tips to remember:

• Form is still key: Even though you’re not using heavy weights, performing exercises incorrectly—even something as basic as a push-up—can be risky. Learn correct form and technique and focus on improving the quality of your movements. Additionally, as Ferentinos points out, mastering bodyweight exercises and establishing the “mind-muscle connection” significantly contributes to building muscle and strength.

Theoretically, a beginner could follow either of these bodyweight routines continuously for months. If you start to feel bored, you can spice things up by adding interval training, plyometrics, yoga, swimming, or even gradually introduce weightlifting.