Top 3 best multi-joint bodyweight exercises

Whether you are a soldier, a gendarme, a police officer or you simply want to develop your physical condition, let's discover together the best multi-joint bodyweight exercises. The advantage of these exercises is to use the weight of one's own body as resistance in order to perform, at home and with minimal equipment, complete strength training sessions.

Summary:

• Squats

• Push-ups

• Pull-ups

The leg flexion, more commonly called " squat " is a multi-joint exercise very useful for strengthening the lower body.

Muscles worked by the squat

Among the muscles worked by the squat, we obviously find the thigh muscles, the quadriceps and its antagonists, the hamstrings, as well as the glute muscles. To a lesser extent, the squat allows you to work the calves, the lower back and the abdominals.

How to perform a perfect squat?

To perform a perfect squat, stand upright with your feet slightly wider than your hips. Making sure to keep your back straight and your abdominals engaged, lower your pelvis as you would to sit on a chair. If possible, go below parallel. Look straight ahead and keep your arms extended if needed to counterbalance and maintain balance. Exhale on the return by straightening up to return to the initial position. Once the form is well mastered, you can perform sets of 10 to 20 repetitions with one to two minutes of rest between each set.

On the side of gestures to avoid: putting the knees inward, lifting the heels off the ground, looking down. A poorly executed squat will not activate the right muscles at the right intensity, will force you to strain your joints and increase the risk of injury.

Squat variations

To vary the pleasures, you can also perform jump squats or " squat jump ", which consists of performing an extension jump between each repetition to add difficulty. The " sumo squat " is performed with legs spread apart forming a triangle in the starting position, so as to emphasize the inner thighs. If difficulty doesn't scare you, you can try to perform the single-leg squat. This is what we call the " pistol squat ". Be careful, this exercise is not recommended for beginners.

If squats put you off, you can also opt for lunges which also constitute an interesting exercise for the entire posterior muscle chain.

Another great classic of bodyweight training : push-ups.

Muscles worked by push-ups

Push-ups allow you to work mainly the pectoral muscles and incidentally the arm muscles, shoulders and abdominals.

How to perform a perfect push-up?

To perform a perfect push-up, the feet should be at the width of your pelvis, hands flat on the ground, just below the shoulders. The starting position is with arms extended and you must bring your chest toward the ground without letting it touch before going back up. Make sure to keep your back straight, abdominals engaged and maintain a right angle at the elbows. The gaze should be directed toward the ground so as not to arch the neck.

Push-up variations

If you can't do push-ups, you can make the exercise easier by placing your knees on the ground. If, on the contrary, you find the exercise too easy, you can try incline push-ups by elevating your feet or close-grip push-ups by positioning your hands under your chest with the index fingers and thumbs touching together. This variation is also known as the " diamond push-up ".

The Army has recently evolved its military physical condition control (CCPM). In the video below, discover the part dedicated to the series of push-ups without interruption. For this push-up, the body must be straight, the chest touches the ground then the soldier must lift their hands before starting again. 

Pull-ups are among the most effective bodyweight exercises for building your back muscles.

Muscles worked by pull-ups

Pull-ups mainly work the back muscles : the latissimus dorsi, the trapezius and the rhomboids. Like squats and push-ups, pull-ups being a multi-joint movement, they recruit other muscles secondarily such as those of the arms (biceps, triceps, forearms) and the abdominals.

How to perform a perfect pull-up?

To perform a perfect pull-up, hang from a fixed bar then slightly bend your arms and engage your core. Your head, back and legs must be perfectly aligned. Pull until your chest reaches the level of the bar. For a classic pull-up, the hands should be barely wider than shoulder-width. Pull-ups can be performed in pronation or supination. With an overhand grip, the palm of the hands faces outward while an underhand grip orients the palms inward, facing you. For the latter, the bar grip will be at shoulder width.

Pull-up variations

If you can't perform pull-ups, you can start with " negative pull-ups ". In other words, using a chair, you start from the finishing position then you must let yourself fall while controlling the descent. Another possibility is the Australian pull-up or " inverted row ". Instead of being in a vertical position, you must place your body in a horizontal position to perform the pulling movement. This is an exercise that can be performed with a table if you don't have a pull-up bar.

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