Abstract In the present paper, we focus on studying the bifurcations and the traveling wave solutions (TWSs) for the regularized Schamel equation. Based on the bifurcation method of a dynamical system, a complete phase portrait analysis is given in various parameter conditions and some novel TWSs with the same energy of the Hamiltonian system are discovered. Various significant results on exact expressions of TWSs, including solitary waves, periodic waves, cusp waves, weak kink waves, loop solitons, compactons in different conditions are obtained.