What Body Weight Exercises are good for burning fat? So far I do push-ups, sit-ups, and Russian Twists. I am trying to lose fat, by nutrition, and doing benching, and a lot of small exercises put together. I am trying to strengthen my whole body, not just my arms and chest.

body weight squats, lunges, burpees, jump squats, plank, side plank,...

Would Weighted Lunges be better than regular ones?

yeah, but you asked for body weight exercises...

What Body Weight Exercises are good for burning fat? So far I do push-ups, sit-ups, and Russian Twists.

Running? As far as bodyweight exercises go, it's expends exponentially more calories than doing pushups and situps - even more challenging exercises like single-leg squats or pullups.

I am trying to lose fat, by nutrition, and doing benching, and a lot of small exercises put together. I am trying to strengthen my whole body, not just my arms and chest.

Your strength training should not revolve around the benchpress and "and a lot of small exercises". It really shouldn't. I did it too as a beginner, sadly. But you learn that horizontal pressing is only one movement of many that your body can perform and in many circles it's not even considered to be a particularly useful one.

I highly recommend that you read the stickies at the top of this forum if you haven't yet.

Tim

Running? As far as bodyweight exercises go, it's expends exponentially more calories than doing pushups and situps - even more challenging exercises like single-leg squats or pullups.

I think that can be argued. Depend on how you do either option, results will vary.

For instance, do this bodyweight circuit as hard and fast as you can:

Prisoner Squat 20 reps
Jump Lunge 10 reps
Clap/ballistic pushups 10 reps
Mt Climbers 20 reps
Squat Thrust w/jump 20 reps

Give yourself a 1 minute RI, then do it again. Do 4 or 5 sets.

Tell me for the time it takes that that's not every bit as challenging as a steady pace run, if not more so. It is more similar to sprint intervals, without quite the impact on the joints (less total impacts).

Don't get me wrong, running can be great, but if you get creative, lots of bodyweight exercises can be used in interval style to create a nice EPOC based fat burning workout.

This shouldn't take the place of regular strength training if you are trying to maintain or add muscle, but should be worked in around it. For a beginner without a lot of existing strength, though, bodyweight might get them going in the right direction even before they start lifting much.

If you have a bar or something to hang off, pull-ups and chin-ups are awesome.

I think that can be argued. Depend on how you do either option, results will vary.

For instance, do this bodyweight circuit as hard and fast as you can:

Prisoner Squat 20 reps
Jump Lunge 10 reps
Clap/ballistic pushups 10 reps
Mt Climbers 20 reps
Squat Thrust w/jump 20 reps

Give yourself a 1 minute RI, then do it again. Do 4 or 5 sets.

Tell me for the time it takes that that's not every bit as challenging as a steady pace run, if not more so. It is more similar to sprint intervals, without quite the impact on the joints (less total impacts).

Don't get me wrong, running can be great, but if you get creative, lots of bodyweight exercises can be used in interval style to create a nice EPOC based fat burning workout.

I still don't think you will beat the caloric expenditure of running with that stuff. If I go out running, I move 160 pounds of weight over a distance of a few miles with thousands of single-leg bounding movements. With the workout described above, you aren't performing anywhere near the same amount of "work" (in a purely scientific sense).

I am by no means saying that running is superior for all purposes. I'm just saying it expends more energy as that is what the OP seems interested in.

Tim

I still don't think you will beat the caloric expenditure of running with that stuff. If I go out running, I move 160 pounds of weight over a distance of a few miles with thousands of single-leg bounding movements. With the workout described above, you aren't performing anywhere near the same amount of "work" (in a purely scientific sense).

I am by no means saying that running is superior for all purposes. I'm just saying it expends more energy as that is what the OP seems interested in.

Tim


I've strapped on a HRM and done both. Until you attempt it, you seem to have no frame of reference.

I've strapped on a HRM and done both. Until you attempt it, you seem to have no frame of reference.

Out of curiosity, how long did the workout take and what did you estimate to be your caloric expenditure?

Tim

Out of curiosity, how long did the workout take and what did you estimate to be your caloric expenditure?

Tim

Somewhere right about 175-200 calories in between 15-16 minutes IIRC. So in the 800 calories per hour range. I can't remember how many sets that was. That's very comparable to a sprint workout for me with 30 second sprints, 1 minute recoveries. HR got well into the 170s. Not maxed, but relatively high. This all from memory when I was experimenting, so I'd have to dig through logs or do the workout again to be sure. I do know it was very close to sprints.

It also would depend on your fitness level when you do the work, too. A person just starting out would most likely burn more from an inefficiency standpoint.

The goals in this type of workout is not direct calorie burn, though. It's to increase EPOC to burn calories later through a raised metabolism.

I've had weight lifting sessions that burned in excess of 1000 calories in an hour according to my Polar. Probably not 100% accurate, but that's as a frame of reference.

I still don't think you will beat the caloric expenditure of running with that stuff. If I go out running, I move 160 pounds of weight over a distance of a few miles with thousands of single-leg bounding movements. With the workout described above, you aren't performing anywhere near the same amount of "work" (in a purely scientific sense).

I am by no means saying that running is superior for all purposes. I'm just saying it expends more energy as that is what the OP seems interested in.

Tim
Check out zenpharaohs' log. Stationary exercise can be a very efficient way to burn a lot of calories.

If I go out running, I move 160 pounds of weight over a distance of a few miles with thousands of single-leg bounding movements.
Running does involve single leg bounding movements, but these are movements that, comparatively, the body is very efficient at performing and that have little ROM under resistance. ROM under resistance is where real metabolic impact is created.

Running? As far as bodyweight exercises go, it's expends exponentially more calories than doing pushups and situps - even more challenging exercises like single-leg squats or pullups.

No, it doesn't.

I still don't think you will beat the caloric expenditure of running with that stuff. If I go out running, I move 160 pounds of weight over a distance of a few miles with thousands of single-leg bounding movements.

Actually MannishBoy knows whereof he speaks.

When you run, the up and down movement (which is where the real work is - not the lateral movement) is minimized if you have a good gait. Running will normally burn about 150 Calories a mile or less. And you can run a mile. Probably you can do it in seven minutes.

Can you do burpees for seven minutes? How many? Get a good answer to that question and you will likely have figured out how to burn a lot of Calories without running.

Or, you could have Ross Enemait give you a routine:

fjaTd_ZemkQ

I think he would be the Ace of the Calories without running question.

I've had weight lifting sessions that burned in excess of 1000 calories in an hour according to my Polar. Probably not 100% accurate, but that's as a frame of reference.

If you used the Ownindex VO2max test it's probably within about 5% accuracy or better. I use the same approach.

Yes, running for me burns about 150 calories/mile. And I can run 4 or 5 miles relatively easily in 30-40 minutes.

Can I do burpees for 40 minutes? No. We do this sort of stuff all the time in the Army. I can rip through 50 pushups in a minute, but in the next minute I might only do 15-20. You hit muscle failure and slow down real fast. At some point, even if you are mixing it up with other exercises, you can't do more than sets of 5. I can't imagine I'm burning too many calories/hour at that point.

I mean, flipping telephone polls end-over-end would burn energy at a tremendous rate, I'm sure, but how long will you keep that up?

I find that the rate of fatigue grows exponentially with intensity. That's why I can run 8:00-9:00/mile for a couple hours but I can only sprint 5:00-6:00/mile for a few minutes before I'm fried and can't continue.

Even Mannishboy said that his workout only lasted 15-16 minutes.

Now, if you wish to never work out for more than a few minutes, then by all means go out sprinting 4:00/mile and flipping telephone polls and burn energy at the fastest possible rate. But I think there is a real advantage to striking a balance between efficiency and intensity to allow for a longer duration while still burning at a reasonable rate.

In the end, though, I am not even interested in working out just for the sake of burning energy. I say that if you want to get better at running, run. If you want to get better at doing pushups and burpees, then do those. To me, how much energy I burn is just a (perhaps unwanted?) side effect. I know a lot of very lean guys (like most people on this forum would kill for) who simply train for performance (partially their ability to run) and don't even give a thought to how much energy they are burning or even how they eat.

Tim

Or, you could have Ross Enemait give you a routine:

fjaTd_ZemkQ

I think he would be the Ace of the Calories without running question.

I love his videos!

In light of my last post, I thought I'd go back and comment on what I originally said, which seems to have started this conversation...

Running? As far as bodyweight exercises go, it's expends exponentially more calories than doing pushups and situps - even more challenging exercises like single-leg squats or pullups.

On it's face this is just plain wrong, I'll admit that. Any sustained bodyweight movement is going to burn roughly the same amount of calories over a constant period of time. But when I wrote it I was thinking in the following context...

An average person comes up to me and says, "I want to burn a lot of calories". I can say, "Go run a few miles" or I can say, "Go do some pushups". If I suggest running, the average person can at least keep on grinding away for 20 minutes. If I suggest pushups, though, they might just do a couple max sets to muscle failure and then call it done because their arms hurt and they can't do anymore reps.

In that context, running a couple miles burns exponentially more energy than just doing 50-100 pushups.

Tim

Yes, running for me burns about 150 calories/mile. And I can run 4 or 5 miles relatively easily in 30-40 minutes.

Can I do burpees for 40 minutes? No. We do this sort of stuff all the time in the Army. I can rip through 50 pushups in a minute, but in the next minute I might only do 15-20. You hit muscle failure and slow down real fast. At some point, even if you are mixing it up with other exercises, you can't do more than sets of 5. I can't imagine I'm burning too many calories/hour at that point.

I mean, flipping telephone polls end-over-end would burn energy at a tremendous rate, I'm sure, but how long will you keep that up?

I find that the rate of fatigue grows exponentially with intensity.

A: 750 Calories for 5 miles in 40 minutes is not bad. But you can easily lift for that if you train at it.

B: You should be able to keep sets of 20 or so going indefinitely. I've done sets of 20x225# squats for 50 minutes in the past (then I throttled back to 20x185#). With full speed jump rope for three minutes in between sets. And I'm in a good deal better shape now. So sets of 20 anything bodyweight should not really be a dealbreaker.

C: How long can you keep it up is entirely determined by whether you can keep it below your lactate threshold. If you can, then you can keep going until you bonk.

D: Fatigue increases with intensity, but only if the intensity is above the lactate threshold. I maintain a high lactate threshold (which this sort of training will do for you) so I don't get much overall fatigue in my workouts.

You should be able to keep sets of 20 or so going indefinitely... So sets of 20 anything bodyweight should not really be a dealbreaker.

I think you are overestimating the strength of most people. A popular workout for improving pushups among Army people goes like this...

Every minute on the minute, do a set of 20 pushups. So the faster you do each set, the more rest you get in between. Do this for as long as you can until you can't complete a set of 20 in under a minute.

Personally, I have a hard time keeping that up for much more than 5 minutes and I do a lot of pushups. I know many people that can't even do a set of 20 good pushups at all. How are they going to get much of a metabolic effect out of this? For them it's like going back to my analogy of flipping telephone poles.

Tim

I think you are overestimating the strength of most people.

Don't care what most people can do. I care what most people who train should be able to do.

Last time I did one of these bodyweight things I ended up going for about two hours, and that included a lot of stuff, but one thing it included was 29 sets of 20 medicine ball deep squats at speed, with eight breaths between sets. I have had a bunch of computer nonsense the past few days but if I get I chance I should be able to pull that heart rate graph out of backups and post it.

This should not be exceptional. Any serious martial arts competitors wouldn't even blink at this sort of thing.

Running is OK if you don't weigh much, or don't like your natural born knees. But if you want to be big then you really need to find other forms of cardio. Endurance deadlifting or squatting really should be somewhere in everyone's program. If not, at least step ups.

An average person comes up to me and says, "I want to burn a lot of calories". I can say, "Go run a few miles" or I can say, "Go do some pushups".

Or if you are me, you will ask them what sort of deadlifting they do. The biggest baddest Calorie burner I know is this one:

PU7_S_WC18M

Or if you are me, you will ask them what sort of deadlifting they do.

But now you aren't even answering the OP's question. We started this because was looking for bodyweight exercises.

And if you are going to move on to recommend step-ups, you are getting dangerously close to running. There is a lot of overlap between running, running stairs, climbing stairs, and doing high repetition step-ups.

Tim

Yes, running for me burns about 150 calories/mile. And I can run 4 or 5 miles relatively easily in 30-40 minutes.

Can I do burpees for 40 minutes? No. We do this sort of stuff all the time in the Army. I can rip through 50 pushups in a minute, but in the next minute I might only do 15-20. You hit muscle failure and slow down real fast. At some point, even if you are mixing it up with other exercises, you can't do more than sets of 5. I can't imagine I'm burning too many calories/hour at that point.

I mean, flipping telephone polls end-over-end would burn energy at a tremendous rate, I'm sure, but how long will you keep that up?

I find that the rate of fatigue grows exponentially with intensity. That's why I can run 8:00-9:00/mile for a couple hours but I can only sprint 5:00-6:00/mile for a few minutes before I'm fried and can't continue.

Even Mannishboy said that his workout only lasted 15-16 minutes.

Now, if you wish to never work out for more than a few minutes, then by all means go out sprinting 4:00/mile and flipping telephone polls and burn energy at the fastest possible rate. But I think there is a real advantage to striking a balance between efficiency and intensity to allow for a longer duration while still burning at a reasonable rate.

In the end, though, I am not even interested in working out just for the sake of burning energy. I say that if you want to get better at running, run. If you want to get better at doing pushups and burpees, then do those. To me, how much energy I burn is just a (perhaps unwanted?) side effect. I know a lot of very lean guys (like most people on this forum would kill for) who simply train for performance (partially their ability to run) and don't even give a thought to how much energy they are burning or even how they eat.

Tim

The question was...can I get burn fat doing bodyweight exercises. The answer is yes. Doing workouts like I suggested is like a HIIT workout, which is a well known method for burning fat. You are moving the discussion to something different. Some argue it is more efficient than long, lower intensity steady state cardio. But in the end, both can work.

HIIT is intended to be short. Hence the "H".

And the workout I described was just a sample. I can do more, and have, but that wouldn't fit a beginner plan so I didn't bring it up.