Bodyweight Workout For Teens

Bodyweight Workout for Teens

If you are trying to build muscle, this bodyweight workout for teens can help you burn some body fat, build some muscle, and improve your overall health. Building muscle as a teen can be hard due to lack of gym equipment, no way to get a consistent ride to the gym, or you may not have enough money for a gym membership.

Fortunately, there are exercises you can do at home to build lean muscle and burn some body fat without any weights.

Bodyweight Squat

If you can get your hands on some dumbbells, the added resistance can improve your gains.

Protip: Grab some plastic grocery bags or fill your backpack full of bottled waters for weight. A 16.9 ounce bottle of water is around 1 pound. A couple of cases and some creativity and you have yourself a decent cheap home gym.

Full Body Bodyweight Workout for Teens

The CDC recommends children aged 6 to 17 years to perform 60 minutes or more of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity each day. Along with your 60 minutes each day, the CDC recommends 3 days of activities that build muscle, and 3 days of activities that strengthen bones.

In short, you should get 60 minutes of running, jumping, playing, jogging, shooting hoops, playing a sport, or otherwise sweaty activities every day and three days a week of climbing, doing pushups, bodyweight exercises, and other strength-focused activities.

This bodyweight workout is designed to be used daily — alternate between Workout A and Workout B. Take a day off if you need to or if you plan on getting some other form of exercise in.

Consistency is key, so find a schedule that you can hold yourself to.

ExerciseSetsReps
Push Ups420
Bodyweight Squats420
Pushup Position Planks3As Long As Possible
Sit Ups420
Mountain Climbers420
Jumping Jacks330
ExerciseSetsReps
Burpees210
Dips420
Elevated Pike Pushups320
Side Planks3As Long As Possible
Russian Twists420
Pull Ups3As Many As Possible

Workout Tips

If you’re willing to use objects as dumbbells, you can substitute the elevated pike pushups for traditional exercises like front and side lateral raises.

Calisthenics

Exercises Using Objects as Dumbbells

  • Overhead press
  • Arnold Press
  • Skull Crushers
  • One Arm Tricep Extensions
  • Curls
  • Hammer Curls
  • One Arm Bent Over Rows
  • Shrugs
  • Goblet Squats

Pull Ups – This is a great exercise to build a solid back and nice biceps. Save up some money and get yourself a decent pull up bar. You’ll be able to train in a doorway and remove the pull up bar without any damage to the door frame.

Pull Up

Nutrition

It can be hard to control everything that you eat. You don’t always have the choice of eating home cooked meals full of fresh vegetables and lean protein.

Do your best to eat all of the vegetables, fruit, and whole foods you can. Instead of eating a drumstick ice cream cone, grab a couple of apples and a salad. You’ll feel fuller longer and replenish vital nutrients your body needs.

Related: 23 Muscle Building Foods You NEED in Your Diet

Weigh yourself around the same time on the same day each week and log your food.

You’ll be able to control your bodyweight, build muscle, and get healthier. After a few weeks, you’ll know exactly how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight. If you need to lose weight, eat 300 fewer calories per day. If you want to build muscle, eat 300 extra calories per day.

Be consistent, push yourself, and strive to do better every workout.

166 thoughts on “Bodyweight Workout for Teens”

    1. Whole foods. Buy chicken, fish, beef, pork, sweet potatoes, fresh fruits and vegetables. Throw in a little bit of what other stuff you like, but mostly eat whole, nutritious foods.

    1. Make an account at myfitnesspal.com and start inputting what you eat. You’ll need to start measuring your food some if you want to get accurate.

  1. Also it is really difficult for me to do the chest and triceps workout I couldn’t do the close grip push up and the diamond pushups.

    1. Put your hands on an elevated surface or do them on the ground but use your knees. As your strength gets better doing them, you’ll eventually be able to do them regularly. Bodyweight exercise is hard, trust me.

    1. Aim for .5 or 1 pound per week. Any more and you’re going to put on a lot more fat than you want. If you were in the gym, you could aim for more… but bodyweight exercises can only elicit so much of a growth.

  2. Also on myfitnesspal what should I put down for the add exercise. For example when I do my chest and triceps there are no variations of the push ups.

    1. Just put regular push ups.. the calories burned are going to be different for all of us. The trick is to accurately capture what you can. For instance, someone who is 250 doing pushups will burn more calories than someone who is 180. There’s a lot of variables, but if you have a benchmark of what you are doing versus what’s happening… you can start figuring out what you need to do.

  3. Hi I’m 16 years old and weigh about 90 kg. I play tennis and was wondering if this program could help me lose weight and be more efficient in playing.

    1. Yes, start cleaning up your diet and working to get more fresh fruits and veggies into your diet. Focus on every move and exploding with great form.

  4. Hi, program looks good.
    Just wondering how I might go about progressing it when the movements start to get easy. Would I do this by simply increasing the reps/sets or would I find a way to add more weight to each exercise?
    Also how often should the progression change? – e.g. I add an extra set per week to the program.

    1. If possible increase the weight you use. If you can’t do that, increase the sets/reps or you can lower your rest periods and push yourself to do the same sets/reps in a quicker amount of time. Hope this helps!

  5. Hi, I’m 15 and looking to gain some muscle and definition. i weigh 60kg and I’m around 5’6 (short :( ), I”m relatively built and have been active for most of my life. i ca do a maximum of around 50 pushups in a row and 13 pullups in a row. is this workout good for me or di i need to alter it?

    1. Sorry for such a late response, this pandemic is putting a hurt on my content.

      You’re pretty well-trained so you could use this and add to it. If there are some exercises you haven’t done, it will challenge you. But I imagine you won’t have much of an issue getting through this workout.

    2. Good luck man. If you can get a weighted vest or other items to put more resistance on your muscles, it will help. Try out some different variations of exercises like one armed push ups, pushups with your feet up higher, etc. Add in some explosive movements to build power and you’ll be set.

  6. Hey Cutty! Thanks for the workout, i’m just wondering about the cardio part of the routine. How should I do my cardio? I’m 14 years old that can’t really go to a gym cause in our country it costs A LOT I.’ve been doing HIIT for a while now before discovering this, and I was completely sold on this. I hope you’re doing well, especially in these trying times. Thanks!

    1. Just think of cardio as heart health. HIIT is great, anything that keeps your heart elevated. Run, boxing, anything that keeps you moving. Find some things that are fun and it won’t feel like exercise!

Leave a Reply to Lance Lee Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *