4 Essential Bodyweight Exercises You've Probably Never Tried

Bodyweight training is—or at least should be—the cornerstone of any Spartan’s training.

Why? Because relative strength, your strength to body size ratio, is a key determiner of athletic prowess. Think about it: Some of the hardest obstacles you’ll find in the gym or on a Spartan course use just your bodyweight as load. Rings, monkey bars, rope climbs, burpees, the Olympus, hurdles.

“Your body is a machine that requires all components to work together to perform a task,” says Spartan SGX coach and athletic trainer Megan Beck, C.S.C.S. That means that, contrary to biceps curls and triceps extensions, every bodyweight exercise will train your upper- and lower-body and core muscles to operate as a strong, cohesive unit for a smaller risk of injury and better stability, coordination, agility, and athleticism.

Related: The 15-Minute Plyobox Bodyweight Workout to Up-Level Your Lifting Game

That said, by bodyweight exercises, we mean more than pullups and pushups. After all, as much as we love them, they’re probably (hopefully) already part of your routine.

But these exercises, courtesy of Beck, you’ve probably never tried. Try mixing them into your warmups and cooldowns, or, for a full workout, perform 3 sets of 10 reps of each exercise back to back.

Best Bodyweight Exercises for OCR Athletes

Pushup to Loaded Beast

Get in a high plank position, then lower into a pushup. As you push through your chest to raise from the pushup, bend your knees and shift your weight backward to end in a loaded beast—just like child’s pose, but with your knees hovering just off of the floor. Keep your core tight, then “unload” the beast to lower into the next pushup.

Airplane

Standing on one leg, hinge at the hips to lower your torso toward the floor and raise your leg behind you until your body forms a T shape. Rotate your torso toward one side, then the other, and then extend the hips to return to standing. Perform all reps, then repeat on the other leg.

Lateral Ape

Get in a low squat and place your hands on the floor in front of and to your side. Press your hands into the floor and jump your legs up and over toward that side. That’s one rep, perform all reps moving in one direction, then the other.

Crab Walk

Sit down, place your hands and feet on the floor, and squeeze your glutes to raise your hips a few inches from the floor. Keeping this position, walk backward, counting each “step” as a rep. Perform all reps moving backward, and then forward.

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K. Aleisha Fetters, C.S.C.S.

K. Aleisha Fetters, M.S., C.S.C.S., is a Chicago-based personal and online trainer. She has a graduate degree in health and science reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and regularly contributes to Men's Health, Women's Health, USNews.com, TIME, and SHAPE. When she's not lifting something heavy, she's usually guzzling coffee and writing about the health benefits of doing so.