12 Bodyweight Workouts For Beginners That’ll Get You Off the Couch

woman in white tank and orange leggings doing situps

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Meagan Morris is the editor in chief of Celebribody. She's…

You’re ready.

You’re ready to start a workout routine to help you feel better, get stronger, and maybe tighten up your body while you’re at it. But, where do you start? Slogging away on a treadmill to nowhere sounds like a bore, but you’re not quite ready to grab a barbell in the weight room. Your best bet: Start with some bodyweight workouts for beginners that help you tighten and build muscle while increasing your heart rate and burning fat at the same time.

Bodyweight Workouts For Beginners: What to Look For

We’ve all seen those bodyweight exercises that look more like workouts for exercise pros: Five rounds of 45 burpees with 27 lunges and five minutes of jumping rope? Yeah, no.

Remember: The best home workout routine is one you can stick to, not one that beats you down so much that you can’t move your body off the couch the next day. Beginner workouts should ease you into a workout routine and be low impact, meaning you won’t be doing 55 jumping lunges at a time.

And the absolute best part? You can work the entire body without investing a ton of money into expensive weights, equipment, or bands to do get in some bodyweight training.

Best Bodyweight Workouts For Beginners

To help you get started, we scoured the web for bodyweight workouts for beginners that meet all of our criteria — and they’re really fun, too. Each of the routines will give you an intense workout that’ll help you fall in love (or back in love) with exercise, we guarantee it.

The 15-Minute Bodyweight Workout For Beginners

PopSugar always puts out great workouts — and this one is no exception.

This 15-minute workout is doable for even the busiest of exercisers. It’s truly one of the best bodyweight workouts for beginners because it includes everything from ab exercises (like bird dogs and side planks) to chair squats, tricep dips, glute bridges, and push-ups, all done in a way that can be easily modified.

The workout is low impact — no jumping! — and leaves room for some much-needed stretching at the end. It’s a must-try workout if you’re trying to get back in shape.

15 Minute Beginner Bodyweight HIIT

This five-move bodyweight workout is a calorie scorcher without being too overwhelming. Each move is done as an AMRAP — as many reps as possible (with good form!) — in 50 seconds, followed by 10 seconds of rest before moving on to the next move. She even demonstrates modified versions of the exercises if you’re still iffy on some of the moves, like push-ups.

Ideally, you should do all three rounds of this workout back to back to total 15 minutes, but it’s totally OK to rest for a minute or two before jumping into the next round.

The Scientific 7 Minute Workout Video

Fitness Blender is one of the best sources for bodyweight workouts for beginners — and for good reason. Their 7-minute bodyweight workout is both short and filled with moves that make you sweat while strengthening both your lower and upper body. The moves in the workout include:

Jumping jacks
A wall sit
Push-ups
Crunches
Step-ups
Bodyweight squats
Tricep dips
A static plank
High knees
Lunges
Push-up + rotations
Side planks

Give it a try — you’ll love it.

30 Minute Bodyweight Blast Workout

Not totally convinced that a short 7- or 15-minute workout is enough for you? There are plenty of bodyweight workouts for beginners that span a longer period of time — and help you blast more calories in the process.

The workout starts with a dynamic warm-up to get your heart pumping and then goes into the strength-training exercises that include everything from push-ups to crunches — and so much more.

30-Minute No-Equipment Bodyweight Bootcamp Workout

Another winner from PopSugar, this time led by trainer Adam Rosante.

In this 30-minute workout, Rosante takes you through a fast-paced routine that’s sure to get you drenched in sweat. He also includes plenty of stretching both before and after the workout, so you’ll be tired and limber by the end.

Total Body Strength Training Without Weights For Women

Many bodyweight workouts for beginners contain the same few moves — and for good reason, because they work. This one switches things up a bit with some different — but just as effective — moves, including tip-toe sumo squats, along with wide and narrow push-ups and forward and reverse lunges.

Oh, and it’s all in 20 minutes.

30-Minute Bodyweight Abs Workout

Until now, all of the bodyweight workouts for beginners we’ve listed are made to be a full-body workout. This bodyweight workout, however, is made to target one certain area — your core.

After a dynamic warm-up, the trainer takes you through a circuit of six ab-focused moves that’ll build your ab and lower back strength, including:

Hollow holds
Wall sits
Alternating jackknives
Panther shoulder taps
Stationary lunges (both right and left leg)

You’ll do each move in the circuit for 45 seconds and then rest for another 15 seconds before moving on to the next.

30 Minute Cardio Tabata Workout to Burn Calories and Blast Fat

This 30-minute cardio workout will keep you moving the entire time, so you’re bound to work up a sweat. It’s based on the Tabata scheme, meaning you’ll do one move for 20 seconds, rest 10 for 10 seconds and repeat.

It doesn’t sound like much, but we promise you’ll be sweating buckets by the end.

20 Minute Beginner Bodyweight Fat Burning Workout

A relentlessly positive trainer takes you through this 20-minute workout that includes 30 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest before moving on to the next exercise.

The best part? He gives instructions on form all the way through, so you can be sure you’re on the right track (and avoid injury!). And if that’s not enough, one commenter said the workout “kicked my ass.”

So, you’ll get a workout with this one!

Abs, Butt and Thigh Bodyweight Workout — From Home in 14 Minutes

So, you’re looking to get a curvy backside? This is the workout you’re looking for. The 14-minute routine looks deceptively easy at first glance, but you’ll be feeling your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes with each move.

The most challenging move — flutter kicks from the floor — will also work your core so much that you’ll actually feel stronger by the end.

15 Minute Fat Burner At Home Full Body Workout

We added this as one of the bodyweight workouts for beginner because it is full of beginner moves, but it is more challenging than some of the others. It includes more high-impact moves, like jump squats, that’ll really take your perseverance to the next level.

And it’s totally OK if you can’t do 30 continuous seconds of each move. Just do what you can and you’ll quickly get better as your endurance improves.

25 Minute Insane Body Weight Workout for Women & Men

This bodyweight workout is amazing because it gives you two ways to follow along: The absolute beginner version and the more intermediate version. You can choose whether you follow the female trainer for easier, low-impact versions of the exercises, or the male trainer for more challenging, high-impact moves.

Either way, it’s an intense 25-minute workout that’ll help you blast those calories.

Meagan Morris

Meagan Morris is the editor in chief of Celebribody. She's veteran health and wellness editor with over 15 years of experience. Her work has been featured in The Atlantic, Yahoo Health, Cosmopolitan, SELF, and Women's Health, among others. She spends most of her time writing, but her favorite part of the day is spent under a barbell doing squats.