When I was younger, I lifted quite a bit and put on a lot of mass (pizza probably contributed also, haha). I have not lifted weights in a long time, as I have transitioned into doing body weight exercises. I do about 400 pushups and 250 sit ups per day. For a long time, I was doing work in between sets and it was taking me 30-45 minutes to do this, which I know is ridiculous. Recently, I have reduced the time substantially and now it takes about 10-15 minutes. I am not sure if the results are different but it feels like a better work out. A while back, a friend of mine who is a dedicated lifter told me to be careful with the push ups because they can be rough on the shoulders. I think it has had a negative impact on me throwing a baseball but other than this, my shoulders feel okay,
Any thoughts on bodyweight exercises to build muscle? I just want to convert some fat to muscle.
Body weight workouts are great. They have become quite popular. Push ups, pull ups and crunches can really get the whole body. You can mix grips to focus on different muscle area. I like narrow, neutral, wide, staggered (same for pull ups). You can also do knee tucks while doing pull ups (killer ab work out). Planks are great as well and there are many different stances to isolate different areas.
You can through some cardio in to make it very effective. Jump rope in between sets of push ups. Try doing 10 sets of 100 jumps / 30 push ups and tell me that doesn't get your blood pumping.
Also, on the P90X3 (30 minute workouts), there's a routine called "The Challenge". Pretty awesome and hard. You pick two numbers, one for pull ups and one for push ups (believe me, start low) and you do alternating sets with different grips. I started 4 / 15 and built from there. Think I got to 6 and 20 within a few weeks. That's doing 60 pull ups and 200 push ups , using different grips, focusing on form. You get plenty strong. Might only want to do that once or twice per week to avoid the shoulder issues and mix in with different stuff. P90X3 has another 30 minute routine called "The Warrior" which is awesome and hard. Upper body, cardio, lower body, core. All body weight. Sweat your ass off and get a really good, intense total body workout.
You can stream those workouts (and hundreds more) from Beachbody for about $100/yr. Currently doing a 10 Rounds boxing thing that is not for the faint of heart.
I like the idea of jumping rope. Any insight on how to get something to do pull ups on? I do not want to go to a gym.
I can envision jumping rope to the Rocky theme...
just get one of those door jam deals. It's not perfect but they work. Mine has the bar plus handles. I do traditional pullups / chin ups with the bar and I also use the handles which is different but mixes it up some.
Don't skip leg day, bro.
Do air squats.
I do a spin bike for legs and alternate the tension between difficult to pedal (spelling?) and easy to pedal but faster. I have two elliptical machines but they are cheap and broken.
Burpees are great if you are looking to just crush yourself. They suck - but very effective.
The other things you can do are look at the 20 minute circuit routines - things like planks, to leg lifts, to squats, to burpees, etc. AMRAP type stuff is crushing, requires no weights if you don't want to use them, and frankly probably more effective than 90% of workouts.
HIIT workouts with strengthening are awesome for overall strength and fitness. Best of both worlds. All kinds of stuff available online.
I didn’t reach high reps on pull-ups and pushups on graded military fitness tests until I started to incorporate weightlifting. If you’re naturally lean and weigh 135, then yeah its great. If you really want to push yourself athletically, you’re going to have to lift.
Body weight is nice. You can give yourself more of a challenge with pushups if you do incline or decline off a bed/chair ledge.
Nothing wrong w/ bodyweight exercises. Just don't forget progressive overload. It's easier with weights because one day you use 40lbs and a month later you use 50lbs so its obvious. With bodyweight exercises really the only changes you can make are time-under-tension (more reps) and/or variations to the exercise.
So regular pushups can be varied by where you put your hands (narrow/wide or above head/in line with abs), where you put your feet (narrow/wide/1-foot/knee-to-elbow), and your angle to the floor (incline/decline).
W.r.t shoulder injuries: it's definitely possible. Try not to bang out 40/50/60+ pushups with garbage form. Slow, controlled, pullback the shoulders (ie. retract scapula) on the way down, explosive on the way up (if you want actually push yourself off the ground, easy transition to clapping pushups or pronate the shoulders at the top or move hands together for extra chest squeeze)
I would suggest dynamic tension.
Charles atlas made this famous...imagine you are flexing a muscle...like your bicep...now do that simultaneously for your entire body (head to toes...use your toes to "grip the floor"...takes some mental focus...imagine you are doing kung fu in slow motion), and then go thru various exercise motions in slow-motion, while every muscle in your body is held under tension (don't forget to breathe slowly thru your belly).
also, why aren't you doing burpees, with a couple pushups on the floor...and a jump squat at the top (where you jump up as high as you can from the squat position..and land with knees slightly bent as you go back down into the pre-pushup position for next rep).
as for a machine...i would suggest this climber...compact, inexpensive, low-impact...and gives a good combo cardio/resistance workout.
Also, would suggest doing
(you can do at home...simple, cheap, effective)I do not even know what a burpee is but it sounds like something I should look into.
burpee - also referred to as a "squat thrust"
https://tenor.com/view/full-metal-jacket-private-pyle-vincent-donofrio-just-chillin-burpees-gif-3297856
start from the standing position
squat down, and put hands on the ground shoulder width apart
thrust your legs back into the "pushup position"
do some pushups (1-10)
jump your feet back into the down squat position
from the down squat position, jump up as high in the air as you can and reach for the sky
land, repeat
In military terms it's also referred to as a "bodybuilder"
Just straight up follow this video: Marine Special Operations Command full body weight calisthenics workout (short card)
That is good stuff.
Bodyweight exercises are good for burning fat and building a bit of muscle when you first start out but once you reach a certain level of fitness they become a waste of time if you're trying to build muscle. You get to the point where you're doing so many consecutive reps that you aren't getting any hypertrophy, you're just training your muscle's endurance. For example: doing hundreds of pushups will not do much at all for chest growth compared to benching 260 for 12 reps. Same goes for something like pull ups, if you're doing 25+ in a row, then you're much better off putting a high amount of weight on a lat pulldown machine and doing 10-12 reps. This is why you don't see any legit bodybuilders focusing mostly on bodyweight exercises, there are just more efficient ways to build muscle. With that being said, if you just started working out bodyweight exercises can be great.
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