THe BODY WEIGHT STRENGTH PROGRAM VIDEOs
Here you will find full workouts for every skill level. From complete beginner to advanced strength athletes. Because we all have various strengths, weaknesses and skill levels, I have further designed the BWS system to be completely customizable to fit your exact needs. In order to do this, I have made detailed tutorials for each foundational body weight strength exercise, as well as complete tutorials for easier and more difficult progressions of each exercise.
Start by finding a program below that fits your overall needs and approximate skill level. A bit further down the page I will teach you exactly how to customize and tailor the program to suit you.
So if you jump into one of the training sessions below and you see me perform an exercise that is either way too advanced, or way to easy for you, don't worry! Just scroll down this page to the the section on scaling the workouts to suit your abilities.
Now Lets get to it!
Complete, Full body training sessions
BEGinners session
INtermediate session
This beginners session is based off of two foundational movements; the pushup-up for upper body, and the squat for lower body.
Start with this daily training session if you are new to exercise or if you struggle to exercise consistently.
You won't need any equipment at all, just a few square feet of floor space and the willingness to commit to 5 minutes a day!
Building the daily habit is the key to long term success and this video is designed to help you do exactly that!
This intermediate session is an efficient, full body session built upon my Foundational 8 exercises that will help you build strength from head to toe in minimal time.
This session can be completed by most people in 20-30 minutes.
I recommend performing this session 2 times per week as the minimum for the purposes of building strength and preserving muscle mass, and 3 or more sessions if you prioritize muscle growth.
Separating upper &
lower body
Upper Body Intermediate
Lower Body Intermediate
The upper body intermediate split is designed to pair with the lower body intermediate.
Additional exercises have been added to each session. If you were to try to perform both upper and lower together as a single, longer full body session, it would be difficult to sustain a high intensity of effort for the full duration.
Expanding use of gymnastics rings provides a medium that offers nearly unlimited development of upper body strength in minimal space.
You can build significant strength training the lower body using only body weight, and this session will walk you through doing just that. That said, once you have become efficient at single leg/pistol squats, there isn't an apparatus like rings that you can use to continue to increase lower body intensity.
At this point a simple way to continue to to add intensity is to use a weight (a kettlebell, dumbbell, compact weighted vest or a single plate) on your single leg squats/pistols. Due to the unilateral (single leg) nature of the exercise, you will not need much weight at all to significantly increase the intensity of your pistol/ single leg squats.
Scaling the above workouts to fit your current abilities
The key to making Body Weight Strength training work for you to accomplish your goals lies in being able to scale the intensity of each exercise up or down as needed. Think of this as the equivalent of adding weight to or taking weight off of the bar when you lift.
In order to help you accomplish this, I have created progression playlists. This is just a fancy way to say "a series of videos that walks you through going from beginner to advanced" for a specific exercise.
You can find links to these progression playlists in the video notes on YouTube for each of the videos above.
Here is an example of how this is designed to work.
You are watching the Full Body 20 minute session. You see me perform a set of pull ups and you think "I can't do pull-ups, so what am I supposed to replace them with?"
At this point you would pause the video, scroll down to where the video notes are visible and you would see links for every exercise I perform in the video.
Simply click on the link for "pull ups" and you will be taken to the pull ups progression playlist where you can start with the first video in the playlist and browse through each subsequent video until you find a pull up variant that matches your current abilities. Rest assured, all of my playlists start at absolute beginner, so no matter how out of shape you are, my content can help you get from where you are to where you want to be!
And as a way to try to make things easily organized, I am going to provide links on this page to each progression play list so you can always come here and find the link that corresponds to the exercise you need help with.
Simply click the appropriate tab and image below!
And if you still feel like you would benefit from a custom designed program or coaching, click the red button!
- PUSH UPS
- PULL UPS
- SQUATS
- ROWS
- HANDSTANDS
- FONT LEVER (CORE)
- BACK LEVER (CORE)
- SIDE LEVER
- RINGS
- PLANCHE
- GLUTES
The Pushup is the bread and butter of developing pressing strength when it comes to body weight strength.
If push ups are too simple for you, you will need to scale to the more advanced variations to continue to force the body to adapt and continue to build strength.
If you struggle to do pushups, however, you will start with the first progression with hands elevated. No matter how out of shape you are, you can start at progression one, hands elevated pushups, and work your way through the push up progression playlist over time eventually performing perfect hollow body pushups!
The pull up is incredible for developing pulling strength. While pull ups are commonly thought of as a back exercise, they are also highly effective for building powerful biceps. After all, they are integral pulling the entirety of your body weight over the bar. In addition to this, when performed in hollow body position, a lat synergy is achieved, engaging the anterior (front) chain of the musculature making the hollow body pull up a true full upper body exercise.
If you can not yet perform pull ups you will wan to make sure you do plenty of horizontal rows (think bent over row/ ring rows). In addition to horizontal rows, you will want to practice progressions 1 through 3 of the pull up progression playlist.
If you only do one lower body exercise (and ideally you will do more than one) it should be squats. Lower body training is the area where true 100% body weight strength training relatively quickly becomes less efficient than loaded lower body training. This is simply because it is much harder to manipulate leverage to force the body into disadvantageous positions which make the muscles work harder against gravity. Once you can easily rep a single leg squat you are going to need to load it.
But doesn't mean you need to commit a bunch of space to a full squat rack and barbells, a kettlebell or dumbbell makes a great, space saving way to load your pistol squats.
If you cant single leg squat (most people cant) just work your way through the squat progression playlist and you will get there in due time!
Ring rows are going to be the most accessible row since pull ups can be much more difficult to perform if your power to weight ratio is very poor. Simply put, a pull up puts your body pulling all of its weight directly against gravity, where ros allow us to work through full range of motion with feet on the ground thus transferring some of the bodies weight to the floor making the pulling muscles job much easier.
Of course, I have row variations which are fully suspended so that you are rowing 100% of your bodyweight, so no matter how weak or strong you are, the ring row progression playlist will have the progressions you need to build strength from beginner to advanced!
The overhead press is an important movement to perform if we want to live a rich quality of life as we age. From placing luggage in the overhead to picking the grandkids up and lifting them high, the handstand progression play list will help you build strong, resilient shoulders. Plus, handstands and handstand push ups are a lot of fun.
Embrace your inner child and get started on the handstand progression playlist. Don.t worry if you are a complete beginner. Start with the wall or pike pushup video and the frog stand video
A full front lever is an advanced body weight strength skill that most people will not achieve. With that said, it is certainly achievable if you are willing to put in the effort and time.
While most people will not achieve a full front lever, the progressions throughout the front lever progression playlist are amazing for developing not only the abdominals/core, but the entire anterior chain of muscles.
Like the front lever, the back lever is an advanced body weight strength skill that most people will not achieve. Of course, with effort and time a full back lever is possible, but even if you never perform one, the back lever progressions will help you develop significant core and posterior chain strength.
The straight arm strength you develop from back lever training is also a contributor to the elite bicep size and strength that you see in gymnasts. Like front lever, the exercises in the back lever progression playlist will help develop your entire upper body.
The side lever/human flag is an advanced body weight strength skill that requires a great deal of lateral chain strength. The intensity level on the shoulders is also very high.
If you are going to work on side lever, ensure that you are also fully training handstand/ over head press and working on core.
Side lever is a lot of fun to perform, however, you are developing the same muscles via the other playlists in the BWS system, so side levers are really a skill that you can practice, however are not required .
That said, the side lever progression playlist will take you from beginner to full side lever
RIngs are the ultimate upper body strength builder. All of the rings videos from the various playlists will be combined here for easy access.
If you want to focus on rings training, this playlist is for you!
The planche is an advanced gymnastics isometric strength skill that requires extreme shoulder strength as well as high levels of core strength to perform.
The planche is among most difficult skills due to the fact that in order to perform the movement you must support the entirety of the bodies weight via a lever fulcrum at the shoulder joint with the feet full extended opposite the fulcrum. In short, you are working against gravity in the least advantageous way possible and placing torque on the shoulders in as high an intensity as possible without adding external load to the planche.
While a full planche may be years away, the planche progression playlist will help build high levels of strength throughout the shoulder girdle as well as the biceps and forearms.
Weak glutes and hip musculature are a common reason for low back pain in adults. Focusing on training the glutes is keyt in alleviating lo back pain for most adults.
Strengthening the glutes is also sound strategy for injury prevention when it comes to safeguarding against falls of all kinds. Remember that the glutes are responsible for stabilizing the femur and controlling walking/running gait.
In addition to injury prevention, strong glutes will help increase strength and stability in nearly every other exercise from squats to deadlifts, not to mention improving performance at nearly every movement in any sporting endeavor.
In short, the glute progression playlist is a key addition to your program regardless of your experience level.