3 Bodyweight Exercise, 15-Minute Fat-Loss Workout

You'll be using movements that allow you to work with a good amount of resistance (enough to actually have a muscle-building/sparing training effect) and you'll doing them continuously, for a cardiovascular training effect.

And because the movements are so completely different, targeting different aspects of your body, while you're doing one, the other muscles are basically resting. This allows you to maintain a relatively high level of performance all the way through the entire 15 minute block of time, cranking your metabolism extremely effectively.

The exercises I'm working with in the demo are the handstand push-up, the chin-up and the towel-assisted pistol (one-legged squat).

This particular set of exercises focuses only on bodyweight movements. You can absolutely sub in other exercises, if you're not able to perform any of these exercises. Just follow the push/pull/squat pattern that I use with the three exercises and you'll be good to go.

For example, you can also use a horizontal push like a variation of the push-up instead of the handstand push-up. And you could use inverted rows instead of chins.

Then you're just going to do continuous 3 rep sets of each exercise for 15 minutes. That's it. Very simple and very effective.

 

 

Exercise #1 - Push - Handstand Push- Up

This is one to do only if you're already familiar with the exercise. If you're not, you can also do Pike Handstand Push-ups, where your feet on a bench and your body is bent in a 90 degree pike position. This takes resistance off the movement.

Performing this one on the floor gives you a very short range of motion. You can bring your hands in a little to increase that.

 

Exercise #2 - Pull - Chin-Ups

These can be done pretty much anywhere. I'm using the cross-beam of my cable cross-over unit because that's the easiest place in the scope of this circuit for me to do them. Also, the thick beam gives some great grip work.

 

Exercise #3 - Squat - Towel-Assisted Pistols

The Pistol is a great exercise. It's essentially a one-legged squat. In this case, I'm gripping the ends of a towel to stabilize and balance during the exercise, which helps on this kind of high-volume training.

You can balance and give some assistance with the arms when doing the movement, making it more accessible.

When doing this one, do 3 reps on each leg on each round. Then on the next round through, start with the other leg, e.g. start with the left leg on the first round, then start with the right leg on the second round, then alternate from there.

These are the exercises...and like I said, you can sub in any other appropriate exercises within the circuit if you can't do any of these.

 

If you're on a time-crunch and want a good, efficient fat-loss workout that covers every major muscle group in your body AND you don't have much equipment to work with, use this method.

You're hitting the body with high-volume and a good amount of resistance, which is great for fat-loss AND preserving muscle and strength.