Five Supper Challenging Bodyweight Exercises for Women

The anatomy of a woman’s body makes some exercises easier for them to perform. For example a sit-up is easier for most women than a pull-up. Add to this the tendency of women to add more body weight from the waist down and you’ll get an imbalance in their workout routines.

Below are 5 bodyweight challenge exercises that goes against the natural tendencies of women to perform.

Traditional pull-ups

Women carry less muscle man than men. Due to lack of training they also have less upper body strength.  The combination makes traditional pull-ups very challenging. However, shying away from pull-ups means women will not develop their lats which is the largest muscles in their upper body that gives them pulling action as well as increasing their fat burning ability.

Clapping push-up

This is an advanced plyometric pushup that challenges even men. Once you develop the strength in your upper body to perform solid traditional pushups, you can focus on explosive power of your body to push your body far enough from the floor that you can clap before landing.

Besides strength, this version of push-ups requires speed and coordination.

Single-leg body weight squat

Standard squats are relatively easy for most women because of their anatomy and body weight distribution.

However, single-leg squat a different story.

You being with a stance as wide as your hips, place your hand a wall for balance or hold on to something like a TRX suspension trainer.  Raise one leg up slightly away from the floor and squat down on the other leg.

You don’t kneed to raise your leg up too high and you can place it back down as soon as you need support. In the beginning, you may be able to do only a quarter squat. With practice, you’ll build the strength to do single leg half-squats, then ¾ squats and finally full single leg squats.

Be careful not to stress your knee. Suspension straps like TRX helps you use your upper body for support which makes it easier to develop coordination, balance and strength.

Handstand push-ups

This is a demonstration of an ultimate upper body vertical strength. It is equivalent to pushing your body weight straight up.

Before you perform this, you need to develop your strength in push ups and shoulder presses and  make sure that your wrist can tolerate the stress of a ninety degree flexion.

Use a wall for support and have an experienced coach or partner spot you.

Floor Pike Lift

This is an intense hip flexor, core, and shoulder strength exercise. You sit on the floor, with your legs straight in front of you and your hands by your sides. You push off the floor so that your entire body is lifted off from your buttocks to your heel without bending your knees.

Ab Workouts For Girls

Stability ball hip lift

Effective and safe ab workouts for girls should consider the physiological make up of girls and the differences between girls and women as well as men and women.

What makes a girl a woman physically has nothing do to do with capabilities or maturity. There are physiological differences that occur in  girls before, during and years after puberty that impacts their control over the ab muscles especially their lower abs as well as their tendons that impact all the exercises.

A strong girl who is self-aware recognizes these differences and works with them during the difficult years of wild hormonal fluctuations.

Women are also different from men anatomically in many ways. Women have a wide your hip than men. Their wider hip is necessary for the process of pregnancy and childbirth and impacts how women’s hip and knees function together during motions.

The third difference that should be part of the workout for girls from the exercise point of view is a tendency for women to use the front of their legs and their quadriceps more than the back of their legs their hamstrings during exercise.

Effective and safe girl workouts consider these three differences.

Below are two exercises you could do in a row that makeup and effective workouts for girls.

Plank – Most ab workouts require hinging at the hips against a load. Crunches and situps are examples of this.

Hinge at the hip against load or gravity engages your quadriceps and transfers some pressure to your lower back.

Engaging your quadriceps is something women at any age need to reduce or balance.

Plank exercise provides an opportunity for women to engage their entire core by flattening their back without hinging at their hips.

Plank means a straight board without any curves. When you focus on keeping your back flat you do engage your abs and your entire core.

stability ball exercises

Stability ball hip lift – Stability ball is an inexpensive tool with a lot of versatility for everyone regardless of age or gender. Ab workouts need to be balanced and engage the entire core not just the front of the body with the six packs are visible.

By lying on the ground and placing your feet on top of a stability ball, your entire core gets engaged to help you maintain your balance and fall of the ball.

As you lift your hips off the ground, again, focus on keeping your back flat and control the tendency to arch your lower back. By keeping your back flat in an inverted position, while you’re facing up, you engage your glutes and your hamstrings.

The combination of the two keeps your pelvis aligned which helps relieve some of the low back pain often young women experience.

You can perform the plank for about 30 seconds and then move to about 12 repetition of the stability ball hip lift and repeat the process three times.

As you get stronger you can hold a plank for longer. And increase the number of repetitions of your hip lifts.

Workouts For Women