Too many people complicate exercise and feel like you have to belong to a gym or own a bunch of fancy expensive equipment to get a good workout. This is just not true: you can get an amazing workout with just your body. When I workout in my gym I have very simple equipment that gets the job done perfectly and I try to teach this philosophy to the people that I work with. You don't have to have a lot of space, or spend a ton of money to be in great shape.
Doing body weight exercises are so much better for you than sitting behind a piece of equipment. When you are using a machine to work a muscle, only that muscle is being worked - as soon as you jump into a body weight exercise all of the sudden you are working that muscle along with a million other muscles along with it. You are creating a stronger core, working on balance and coordination, and engaging the entire body instead of just one part of it.
Dr. Mercola has an awesome website called Peak Fitness. Last week he posted an article on just this mind set that said it all perfectly. He give the reasons why body weight exercise is so important, posted several videos on some great body weight exercises and gives variations of some exercises you might be doing to make them more effective.
Take a look at Dr. Mercola's post, it's very good with informative videos:
