When most people discuss working out, they are almost always referring to the act of increasing the size and strength of their muscles. But that ignores are huge percentage of gym attendees, who are at the gym to do workouts to improve their bodyweight, not necessarily to look better in a tight shirt.
Whether you are simply trying to burn away a few vanity pounds or you have found yourself to be markedly overweight and are concerned for your overall health, bodyweight workouts are generally the same, and involve not only specific types of exercises, but commitments and an assurance that you perform all of the exercises you need to perform to get the entire workout to come together. If you can put together the effort it takes to do a true bodyweight workout, there is a very good chance you are going to like the results.
Basic Tenet: Activity
One thing you will notice when you see any list of bodyweight workout exercises is that they are generally very active. For example, one of the best workouts involves using an exercise ball. This is because while you perform any standard workout on the exercise ball, you are also balancing yourself and moving your body to keep your body steady, which results in extra calorie burning.
This also shows, however, that one of the best exercises for improving your bodyweight is to do cardio workouts like running on a treadmill. The constant movement by your body leads to not only better physical exhaustion (as well as working your muscles), it is also a way to burn a severe amount of calories away. The more calories you burn with the exercises themselves the more your muscles and improve metabolism can burn away all of the excess calories and fat as well.
Second Tenet: Muscle Work
The second key to a good bodyweight workout is that your muscles are getting denser and stronger. What most people forget is that their metabolism is directly related to the amount of energy their muscles need. These workouts are improving muscle strength, which will also improve the amount of calories your body burns.
All of these exercise are very well known, but that is because they work so well at improving your weight. You burn calories when you do them, but you also are increasing your muscle mass which will help burn more calories over time.
One Word of Advice
The final word of advice, however, before you perform any of these activities is to not look at a scale to find out if the workout is effective. Muscle mass weighs more than fat, even though it is significantly leaner (and thus will not give the appearance of fat).
Far too many people start a bodyweight workout in order to "lose weight" and use the scale to find out if the workout is having a positive effect. They see they only lost .5 or 1lb and assume the workout failed. If you depend on the scale to find out if your workout is effective, you are going to be disappointed, because even if your workout is a tremendous success you are very likely to see more pounds on the scale than you would if you looked in the mirror instead.
Richard Black helps people design their own 
