Anyone have any decent bodyweight routines that have worked well?
I bought a pair of 40KG adjustable DBs at the start of lockdown and one of them has fallen apart. The place I bought it isn't responding at all, so trying to find a workaround for the time being. The remaining DB is alright for some exercises as well, like, but not great for all of them on its own.
No point buying more gear either as we're emigrating in six months.
Cheers all
Reddit's bodyweight fitness sub has a recommended routine that's supposedly pretty good according to a mate of mine who's been doing it for a while
https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine. That sub in general is decent for bodyweight stuff, as far as I can tell (in no way am I an expert though!). There's a fair few youtube channels that have some really informative bodyweight stuff - fitnessfaqs and calisthenic movement are the ones that spring to mind, but there's loads out there I think.
I'm mostly just doing bodyweight stuff myself at the minute, though also have bands, a couple of (dead light, unfortunately) kettlebells, and recently got some rings, which are bloody excellent, btw, would strongly recommend to anyone. With regards to what routine, I'm mostly just doing a vague version of what I used to do with weights, but with bodyweight substitutions (pressups for bench, pike pushups or handstand pushups for OH press, various bodyweight squat progressions for squats etc.). They're not perfect, and adding resistance can be a challenge, but I find as long as I keep vaguely near failure on sets it seems to be working out ok. There doesn't seem to be a great substitute for the deadlift unfortunately. I find lower body stuff quite awkward when doing bodyweight stuff generally actually - can do stupid amounts of split squats to the extent that I'm probably outside the rep range for anything really beneficial, but don't have the ankle mobility for pistol squats yet. Ah well.
Oh, and have you got a pull up bar, or something to hang from? I think that's close to being essential for bodyweight workouts, or it has been for me anyways, otherwise I'm not really sure how pulling exercises would be possible (isometric holds maybes, but I've never really done them so no idea how effective they are). In general though, I'm quite enjoying the calisthenics, and I'm definitely stronger and more built than when I started doing them at the beginning of lockdown, although that may also because I hadn't been to the gym in months as my shoulder and elbow were getting knackered, so everything regressed. That's another thing - my joints feel a lot better doing bodyweight training than when I used to lift weights. Still think I'll probably go back to the gym eventually, but I am kinda considering not bothering and just doing calisthenics for a while.