Keep your back straight and lower until your knees are over your toes. Bending your arms for balance, allow your butt to lower towards the floor. How to: Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip-width apart, toes slightly turned out. “Your legs are the biggest muscle group on your body so challenge them will produce a big caloric burn and when doing high reps you will increase the heart rate.” Why you should do it: “Any time you are focusing on a lower body exercise you are exerting the most energy,” says Forzaglia. How many: 3 x 60 seconds The Move: Squats Maintaining a straight line from your head to your feet, hold this position for 60 seconds. Lower yourself down onto your elbows, which should be placed directly below your shoulders. Extend your legs behind you in a straight line, feet shoulder-width apart. Why you should do it: This staple bodyweight exercise engages your core, quads, glutes and back muscles all at once. Roll up through your spine to standing position. Keeping arms and back straight, begin to walk your feet up toward your hands until they are just touching. Once hands touch the floor, walk them forward until hands are below shoulders in an extended pushups position. Bend at the waist and reach your hands toward the floor, allowing knees to slightly bend if necessary. How to: Start from a neutral standing position.

“At the same time, you’re building upper body strength (arms, chest, shoulder, core) and targeting the hamstrings for flexibility.” Why you should do it: “This is a great exercise because as the reps add up, they become very cardiovascular,” says Forzaglia. The Bodyweight Weight Loss Workout The Move: Inchworm To give your weight loss goals a head start, try these moves. Those big compound movements require more energy.” “For weight loss, it comes back to that energy equation of creating a caloric deficit. “Think, squats, lunges, pushups and pull-ups,” he says. Which ones will give you the biggest bang for your buck? “It’s always more efficient and effective to focus on primary muscle groups and do multi-joint exercises to burn the most fat and lose weight,” says Forzaglia.

Of course, options are many when it comes to bodyweight exercises. “Just by putting more muscle on your body, your resting metabolic rate, or how many calories you burn at rest, increases.” So strength training holds the key for weight loss, and bodyweight exercises can be an effective form of strength training that builds muscle, says Rosante. “Muscle is metabolically active, meaning it requires more energy to maintain it,” he explains. “And that’s putting yourself into a caloric deficit.” While cardio can help increase that deficit, Rosante says, strength training trumps a treadmill session when it comes to long-term weight loss. “The important thing to understand is what’s driving weight loss,” adds Adam Rosante, a certified personal trainer in New York City. If someone who just started working out for their first time does a lot of cardio, they will see a loss in weight because of the neurological adaption, but after a while they will hit a plateau.” “But after 20 to 30 minutes, your body switches from a fat burning state to an aerobic state. “A big misconception in fitness is that cardio is the best way to burn fat or help lose weight,” says Mathew Forzaglia, a certified personal trainer and founder of Forzag Fitness in New York City. But is it the most effective workout? Not if you’re in it for the long-term. It gives you a little rush too, making you think, hey this is the stuff. Why do so many people try to lose weight with cardio? On one level, it makes sense - huffing, puffing, and sweating does lead to calorie burning.

Weight training for weight loss at home