While people flock to gyms and fitness classes to lose weight and get in shape, you can get an effective fat-burning workout in your home with no equipment. According to the American Council on Exercise, many people underestimate body-weight training, but it's free, can be done anywhere and at any time and is an excellent way to gain strength, flexibility and improve your physique.

Jump Squats

You might be familiar with body-weight squats, where you stand with your feet hip-width apart and your knees and toes turned slightly outward as you squat down by pushing your knees out and hips back. The jump squat is slightly different. Follow the same procedure on the descent, but instead of standing up, jump up as high as you can and land softly. Jump squats are a plyometric exercises, since they involve the exertion of maximum power and jumping off the floor. UK Athletics coach Brian Mackenzie recommends doing no more than 40 repetitions per session if you're new to plyometric training.


To perform a lunge, stand with your feet together, take a big step in front of you and bend down until your back knee is just above the floor, then push back up. Lunges focus mainly on the quadriceps muscle at the front of your legs but also work your hamstrings, glutes, calves and core. Build up to doing three sets of 10 lunges per leg and then try more advanced variations such as reverse lunges, where you step backward, or static lunges, where you place your rear foot on a box or chair.


Dips work your chest, triceps, shoulders and core muscles and can pack on upper-body muscle. Legendary bodybuilder and gym owner Vince Gironda was such a fan of dips for muscle development that he substituted all the bench press stations in his gym in favor of dip bars. Dips can be difficult to start with, so ask a partner to give you some support, or do negative-only reps, where you start in the top position and lower yourself as slowly as you can.

Body-weight Routine

These three exercises together can create a challenging, fat-burning, muscle-building routine. However, for your program to remain balanced and prevent plateaus, you may want to add more exercises. Chin-ups or inverted rows are needed to work your back muscles and balance the work that your chest, shoulders and triceps do during dips. Extra core work in the form of planks and reverse crunches will increase core strength, and conditioning exercises like burpees and sprints will improve your fitness.

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