These two exercises are king when it comes to building lean muscle and increasing anaerobic endurance as well as improving your cardio conditioning and boosting your metabolism and burning body fat.
But that's not all.
They are also two of my favorite ab exercises.
I've written before about the best abdominal exercises are not the traditional stomach exercises like crunches, but good multi-joint weight lifting exercises, where you need to keep your core stable to perform the exercise.
In fact, you can completely change our body, build muscle, and get six pack abs, with nothing but squats and deadlifts.
Yes, seriously.
A couple of other bodyweight exercises that are great ab exercises include mountain climbers (remember those from gym class?) and the burpee.
With the burpee you stand in place then squat down, place your hands on the floor and kick your legs back behind you so you are in the top pushup position.
Do a pushup, then bring your legs back under you to the bottom squat position.
Proceed to stand back up and jump in one motion.
That's one repetition.
Here's a great overall workout that works every muscle in yoru body, gives you a cardio workout, and really works the abs hard, too.
Workout 1 After a few good warm up sets do one all out set of barbell squats that consists of 20 to 30 reps.
Rest one minute, then perform the following circuit.
- Bodyweight Squat - 25 reps
- Mountain Climbers - 30 reps (15 per leg)
- Burpee - 8 reps
Workout 2 After a few good warm up sets do one all out set of barbell deadlifts that consists of 20 to 30 reps.
Rest one minute, then perform the following circuit.
- Bodyweight Squat - 25 reps
- Mountain Climbers - 30 reps (15 per leg)
- Burpee - 8 reps
As your conditioning improves you may do more than one circuit of the bodyweight exercises.
If you don't think that looks like much, I urge you to give it an honest try.
I think you'll be surprised.