If the tail-end of 2024 left you exhausted, you can still hit your January fitness goals without spending hours at the gym. Instead, all you need is this short bodyweight session to work your entire body and strengthen your core.
Designed by fitness trainer Tom Peto, this strength training session uses just your body weight and gravity as resistance, so it’s ideal for completing at home and can be over in 15 minutes.
Of course, the best home gym equipment is well worth investing in to help you build strength without heading to a studio. However, when time or motivation is lacking, a bodyweight session like Peto’s can be just as effective.
No equipment is needed in this bodyweight session, but we would recommend rolling out a yoga mat to help cushion your joints, as most of the exercises are floor-based.
Watch Tom Peto’s 15-minute calisthenics workout
Containing just 15 exercises, Peto has designed this workout into an easy-to-follow interval session. The trainer recommends completing each bodyweight exercise for 40 seconds followed by 20 seconds of rest.
As is often the case with calisthenics workouts, most of the moves are compound exercises which means you’ll work multiple muscles and joints simultaneously, which can help you build strength more quickly.
In this workout, Peto starts off with push-ups (or negative push-ups for those who are working towards mastering the full bodyweight move). He also adds narrow split squats and a reverse Nordic curl to strengthen your hamstrings.
He also uses time under tension (TUT), which involves slowing down an exercise and performing it for longer, extending the total time worked. Doing so can help build muscle mass alongside progressive overload.
It’s easy to think that bodyweight workouts don’t have a lot of bang for their buck, but research, like this article published in the Isokinetics and Exercise Science journal, proves otherwise. Researchers concluded that calisthenics training is a “feasible and effective” training solution to improve strength, body composition and posture.
What are the benefits of calisthenics?
For starters, unlike weight training, you won’t need to buy any weights, like the best adjustable dumbbells or kettlebells. But you could always invest in an at-home pull-up bar or some of the best resistance bands to help intensify your workout.
Secondly, research in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning found that following a calisthenics regime can result in “significant increases” in upper body strength.
Calisthenics can also help you build functional strength, the type you need to perform everyday activities, like picking up luggage. That’s because it mimics day-to-day movements like pushing, pulling, squatting, bending, and jumping.
More from Tom’s Guide
- Drop the weights — this 5-minute calisthenics workout will strengthen your core in 4 moves
- This 6-move calisthenics workout builds functional muscle and endurance in 12 minutes
- I'm a personal trainer who prefers strength training to bodyweight workouts — here's why I love this 20-minute calisthenics routine for beginners
