The Three Best Bodyweight Exercise Moves you are not doing!

Bodyweight exercises aka calisthenics are one of the most popular ways to exercise.  Bodyweight exercise is great if you spend a lot of time travelling with spotty access to equipment.  Staple bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, push-ups, planks, etc. are easy to learn and can be done anywhere.

Three of the least known but most productive bodyweight exercises are:

The Sit-Through

Skaters

Kneel  to Squat

The Sit-through comes from wrestling and is simple to learn, yet highly effective.    It involves the entire body with an emphasis on the core, and creates an incredible cardiovascular overload.     Start on your hand and knees and then pick your knees up off the floor so you are on the balls of your feet and hands.    Then you quite literally “sit-through” by driving either foot underneath and across your body and picking up the hand you drive the leg towards.    You end up with your foot kicked out the side and butt down and the one hand supporting your bodyweight.  Then return to the starting position and repeat to the other side.   With a little practice you get a little hop going from side to side and man is this challenging on the core and cardio!    For even harder version keep both hands on the floor the whole time as you sit through and drive the leg out to the side.   Here is a nice video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiknAWhctow

Skaters are phenomenal for developing lower body power in the frontal plane (meaning moving side to side instead of forward and backwards!).         Start by taking a large step to the side with either foot, and as you transfer weight to the foot stepping out life your inside foot and cross it behind the other leg then repeat to the other side.     You can add power and actually jump to the side and for the maximum challenge flex forward at the waist as you land and the hip, knee, and ankle flex to absorb the landing then touch the inside hand to the ground in front of the outside foot.    Here is video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcBly7KUE2w

The get-up is a variation on squatting that looks simple but will really make you work hard.     Start in a tall kneeling position on both knees.    Then pull one leg forward and through placing the foot on the ground in front of the body so the knee is at 90 degrees.   Then step through and up with the other foot so that you are now in the bottom of a squat (do NOT stand up!!!).   Stay low in the squat and then return to the tall kneeling position by pushing back on one leg behind so that you are kneeling on one foot then push the other leg back so you wind up back in the tall kneeling position.   Alternate which leg steps up first and steps back first and get ready to feel that lower body sing! Here is a great video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6aq8UwIp2k

For a quick and effective bodyweight circuit do 20 repetitions of each exercise in succession and see if you can finish 4 rounds without a break!