How Should I Structure My Bodyweight Workout Routine?

There are a ton of way to structure your bodyweight workout routine depending on your time available and the way you mentally like to do things. You should also take into consideration your recovery abilities when you look at these three following workout splits that are very common.

What you see on the left is me splitting cheese with our cat ariel. This is not a productive split….

The 3-day split workout is usually push, pull, lower or some variation of that. So with bodyweight exercises, that may look like this:

Day 1: Push
Handstand Pushups 5 x 5
Chest Dips 4 x 6-8
Pushups 3 x failure
Bar or wall triceps extensions 3 x 15

Day 2: Pull
Chin ups 4 x 6-8
Horizontal Rows 3 x 10-12
Close Grip Top Chins 3 x failure
Hanging Leg Raises 3 x 15-20

Day 3: Lower Body
Pistols 4 x 6-8
Jumping Lunges 3 x 10-12
Squatting Calf Raises 3 x 20-50

The 2-day split workout with bodyweight weight exercises usually is an upper lower split workout. The two day split is usually upper, lower, day off, upper, lower but by now you are probably seeing that it is all a matter of preference and personal workout recovery ability. The one workout split that I have found to work well over and over again for almost everyone however isn’t a split at all. It’s the full body workout using bodyweight exercises, done three times a week on non-consecutive days.

There are many great things about the full body workout. One is that sometimes you may actually go from three days a week to two days a week if you feel yourself getting overtrained or if progress starts to stall a little. Another is that because everything is getting worked all in one day, less bodyweight exercises overall need to be used. The overlap of muscle groups causes everything to get work either primarily or secondarily in a very natural manner.

Doing less exercises overall means that your workout is done quicker without any sacrifice in effectiveness. Scheduling is a big plus with the full body workout with bodyweight exercises because when you are doing a 2 or 3 way split sometimes something comes up on a certain day. You get thrown off and then you have to start shuffling workouts around so you don’t start messing up your schedule. If you were doing a split that had you doing arms, then a day off and then back or chest you could end up hitting biceps right before a big back day. That’s not going to be a good thing.

So what I’m trying to say I guess is that the easiest to understand way to structure your workout is also one of my favorites. The full body workout three days a week using bodyweight exercises that you can do anywhere.

By the way, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to structuring your bodyweight workout, so if you would like to see what I really like and use you can check it out here http://www.calisthenicsbodyweightworkout.com/