The Beginner Bodyweight Workout: Try this 20 Minute Routine At Home or Anywhere!

So you want to lose weight and get in shape, but you don’t want to leave your house?

Well, as your fitness Yoda, I will teach you a great bodyweight workout routine you can do anywhere: 

In your living room, at a park, or in a galaxy far, far away….

These are the types of workouts we build for our busy Online Coaching Clients, and I’m pumped to share it with you today! 

Let us build a bodyweight training program for you!

Here’s how we’ll dig into the different parts of this workout and get to the action:

Make sure you also download the Beginner Bodyweight Workout PDF so you can track your progress and level up at home.

I’ll send it on over when you join the Nerd Fitness Rebellion in the box below:

Note: If you’re here because your gym is shut down due to the outbreak of Covid-19, check out our guide “How to Stay In Shape (While Staying Inside).”

The Benefits of BodyWeight Workout Circuits

What makes bodyweight circuits work so well?

Every bodyweight exercise involved utilizes multiple muscle groups, gets your heart rate pumping, and burns tons of calories.

Essentially, circuit weight training, or circuit bodyweight training, burns more calories than interval training, and that in turn burns WAY more calories than steady cardio.

When you strength train, you burn calories.

Then, your body needs to spend hours and hours afterward rebuilding your muscles, which in turn burns even more calories (they call this the “afterburn” effect).

As we cover in our Coaching Program and the NF Academy, nutrition will account for 80-90% of our success or failure when it comes to getting in shape, might as well spend our time exercising being efficient and strong, right?

Want to make better food decisions? Read our Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating.

If you’re trying to lose weight, spending hours doing cardio on a treadmill can be a really crappy, boring, inefficient use of your time.

If you’re a busy person (and I know you are), why spend hours doing something when you can be MORE efficient and build a better physique with less time?

Enter the Beginner Bodyweight Workout.

I’m going to take you through a basic home workout today that can be completed anywhere – in your house, apartment, out at a park, in your basement, on the moon, wherever.

Beginner Body Weight Workout Video & exercises

This is the Beginner Bodyweight Workout (3 Circuits): 

• 20 Bodyweight squats.
• 10 Push-ups.
• 10 Walking lunges (each leg).
• 10 Dumbbell rows (use a milk jug or other weight).
• 15 Second Plank.
• 30 Jumping jacks.

See our section below on best bodyweight exercises to see how to do each of these exercises!

In a circuit routine, you’ll do each exercise in succession without a break in between (if you’re able).

• Once you’ve finished all exercises in the circuit, do it again.
• If you’re still able after the 2nd run through, go for a third.

Because all of these exercises come one after another, you’re bound to get tired – and that’s okay!

It’s better to stop and take a break than to do an exercise incorrectly.

Before you start, don’t forget to do a Dynamic Warm-Up – Make sure to get your heart rate pumping and get your muscles warmed or you’re just asking for injury.

You can run in place, jump rope, do a few push-ups, pedal on a stationary bike, do some punches and kicks, jog up and down your stairs, and/or twist and swing your arms and legs to get them moving!

After you’ve completed your workout at home, feel free to cool down and stretch after. 

“HOW OFTEN SHOULD I DO THE BEGINNER BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT?”

Do this routine 2-3 times a week, but never on consecutive days.

You don’t build muscle when you’re exercising, you build muscle when you’re resting, so try not to do a strength training routine (of the same muscle groups) two days in a row.

I like to follow a training pattern of:

Alternatively, pick one of these fun exercises to do on your off days instead!

In addition to checking out our Online Coaching Program, make sure you download the worksheet for this workout by joining the Rebellion (our free online community)!

I’ll send it to you right away when you sign up in the box below:

The 12 Best Bodyweight Exercises For Beginners

As laid out above in our Beginner Bodyweight Workout video, there are some key movements you can work on to help you get started strength training! 

Here’s how to do every movement in the Beginner bodyweight routine:

1) KNEE PUSH-UP

2) ELEVATED PUSH-UP

3) REGULAR PUSH-UP

We have a whole article on how to do a proper push-up, but we also cover it extensively in this 5 minute video:

4) ASSISTED BODYWEIGHT SQUAT (if you can’t do regular bodyweight squats):

 

5) PROPER BODYWEIGHT SQUAT:

If you want even more instruction, here’s how to do a proper bodyweight squat:

6) SUPPORTED LUNGES:

7) REGULAR LUNGES:

8) ONE ARM ROW (Use a milk jug, suitcase, or actual dumbbell):

9) PLANK

10) SIDE

11) WALKING JACKS (if you can’t do jumping jacks)

12) JUMPING JACKS

If you are looking for even MORE bodyweight exercises you can use in your workouts, make sure to check out our mega-resource:

 “The 42 Best Bodyweight Exercises You Can Do Anywhere.“

Note: We have helped hundreds of 1-on-1 Coaching clients get started with strength training and other awesomeness – but EVERYBODY starts with bodyweight training like these movements and this workout!

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn more here!

An Important Note About Nutrition!

Along with this bodyweight routine, you need to make sure you’re eating properly!

A good workout and crappy diet won’t help you lose weight.

After all, one of the Rules of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is “you can’t outrun your fork” and you can’t out-train a bad diet!

This means if you don’t ALSO fix your relationship with food, then all the exercise you do won’t be helping you lose weight and building muscle.

If you are trying to lose weight, then you need to fix your nutrition first and foremost. Eating healthy is key!

You can either learn to track your food through counting calories (calculate your daily caloric needs here), or you can look into our healthy plate strategy:

We’ve actually developed our own 10-level nutrition system and mindset blueprint in the Nerd Fitness Academy, but let me break this down into some basics:

• Eat natural, whole foods whenever possible.
• Leave the soda, candy, and junk food out of your system.
• Cut back on sugar and liquid calories wherever you can. The stuff is in everything!
• Swap out the grains on your plate for vegetables when you can.
• Make sure you get enough protein each day (meat, chicken, fish) – this helps with rebuilding muscles and things like that.

You can download a Free 10 Level Diet Guide too when you join the Rebellion and sign up in the box below:

The raw honest truth: how you eat will be responsible for at least 80% of your success or failure.

I’m not kidding when I say that. If you don’t develop a healthier relationship with food, no amount of exercise will get you there.

So if you’re doing this workout program because you’re interested in losing weight, know that training is only 10-20% of the puzzle!

The WORST is dutifully doing this workout routine for months or going to the gym for years and not getting results because you didn’t eat the right way!

That was me – I spent 6 years without results because I didn’t know how to eat correctly to go along with my training!

If you don’t have months or years to make mistakes, and just want your own Yoda to tell you what to do, you’re in the right place!

We’ve been helping busy people like you train at home and make better food decisions without hating life! It’s our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and it might be a great fit for you.

Schedule a call with us to learn more by clicking on the image below:

Learn how to lose weight and get strong with our Coaching Program!

After the Beginner Bodyweight Workout: Next Steps!

Do this Beginner Bodyweight Workout for the next 4-6 weeks and focus on getting better.

If doing just one circuit of the workout was really challenging, no big deal!

Write down how you did, and try to do just 1 more rep or exercise next time through.

The whole point is “do a bit more than last time.”

I also have MULTIPLE options for you to take for your next step too. Pick the option below that best aligns with your goals and timeline:

1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:

Our coaching program changes lives. Learn how!

2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Have questions you need answered? Join Nerd Fitness Prime!

Nerd Fitness Prime contains at-home exercise routines, live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community, group challenges, and much more! 

Learn more about Nerd Fitness Prime!

3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.

Sign up in the box below to enlist and get the Beginner Bodyweight Workout sheet so you can print out the sheet and train at home!

I’d love to hear how this workout went for you, and how else we can help!

This is what we’ve dedicated our lives to, and you’re now part of a killer community.

Welcome to the Nerd Fitness Rebellion!

You can do this, we got your back!

-Steve

PS: If you’re looking for more workout routines to follow, I got you covered:

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PHOTO SOURCES: fourbrickstall: “Follow or follow not. There is no follow for follow.”, Army Push-ups, Caveman cooking over fire.