BODYWEIGHT: SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Using Body Weight Exercises is one of the most effective ways for burning a lot of fat and maximizing muscle gains for extraordinary strength. Besides, Body Weight Exercises are the most affordable way to workout and get in shape. This is because it requires very little or no equipment at all and can easily be done in your home.

The problem is, people have yet to understand exactly how bodyweight training works and how it can be used to build up muscle mass. Admittedly, if your ultimate goal is to acquire the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger, you cannot achieve this with bodyweight training alone. However, you can build impressive muscle mass and give your functional strength a tremendous shot in the arm (and everywhere else) with consistent bodyweight training.

Bodyweight utilizes Functional Muscle; this is the muscle that actually works to improve your health instead of working against your health. To put this in perspective, have you ever heard how some of the most beefy bodybuilders were not actually as healthy as they looked on the outside? Instead, they all had some thing or the other wrong with them. This is because they build up muscle mass by working against their muscles instead of with them. So, while they may look impressively bulky, they are not doing their health any favors.

Why Use Body Weight Training Techniques?  

ü  All forms of sports and athletics at their very core involve mastering the ability to control your body’s every movement

ü  Body weight training is safe enough to train anyone of any fitness level. By making a few small changes you can make an exercise as hard or as easy as you like                

ü  When you gain excess body fat you are instantly penalized by reducing the amount of repetitions you can perform

ü  When you lose excess body fat you’re rewarded by gaining the ability to perform more repetitions of an exercise

ü  Instantly lower your costs! Body weight training requires very little to no equipment and can be done safely and effectively in large groups.

ü  All body weight exercises demand core strength and tension, developing it more effectively than just about any other form of exercise

ü  Body weight training develops essential athletic attributes such as balance, mobility, agility, grace and stability

ü  Body weight training can be used to facilitate fat loss, increase strength, gain muscle, or increase athletic conditioning.

ü   Body weight exercises can be easily combined with free weights to develop a unique and well rounded fitness program.

To begin your bodyweight workout, lightly execute some warm-up exercises. Do this by walking, stepping or running in place for about 10 minutes. This has the effect of increasing blood circulating through your body and rising your body temperature is the whole point of warming up. Doing this gets you ready for higher intensity exercises and prevents injury. Perform some stretching exercises to prepare the muscles for the exercises to come.

To maximize the benefit of Bodyweight exercises you first have to define what success means to you. Once you know what success is to you then you can plan towards that goal. Spend some time thinking what success is to you. Crystallize this in your mind. Assuming you know what success is to you, the next step is to be single-minded in the pursuit of your goal.

Being single-minded means to be focused on your goals. When you focus your energy on your goal, you get more out of your effort. You inch closer to your goals. When you are single-minded other things do not distract you. You know what you want and you power yourself towards it as best as you can, so you can clearly see what you want.

For example, if your desire a nicely shaped body, you could set the following goals, to be achieved by the end of the year.

100 pushups in a row
30 pull ups
40 chin ups
20 handstand pushups
50 tricep dips
40 calf raises

Plank for 5 minutes.

Hyperextensions

Body Weight Leg Workouts:

Squat

This works the muscles of the legs, with emphasis on the Quadriceps (the large muscle at the front of your thighs).

• Stand with your feet just greater than shoulder-width apart.
• Clasp your hands behind your head. Keep your elbows back and shoulder blades pulled together to work the upper back. Start the movement at the hip joint. Push your hips backward and “sit back into a chair”. Make your hips go back as far as possible; visualize that you want to knock something over with your buttock muscles.
• Squat as deep as possible, but keep your low back tensed in a neutral position. Don’t let your lower back become rounded.
• Push with your glutes (the buttock muscles), hamstrings, and quadriceps to return to the start position.

The single leg squat, or "pistol squat", can be used to make the exercise significantly harder as it requires one to have a great deal of balance, flexibility, and strength.

Forward Lunge

• Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart
• Clasp your hands behind your head. Keep your elbows back and shoulder blades pulled together to work the upper back.
• Step forward with your right leg, taking a slightly larger than normal step.
• Keep your left toe on the ground and use it to help keep your balance. The left knee should also be bent. Lower your body until your right thigh is parallel to the ground.
• Keep your upper body upright and your lower back flat.
• Push with your right leg to return to the starting position.

Calf Raises (Two Legged and One Legged) 

Standing calf raises are executed with one or both feet on a raised surface with the heel lower than the toes. The exercise is performed by raising the heel as far as possible. The exercise can be made harder by performing the exercise on one leg.

Body Weight Arm Workout

Pull-ups

Take an underhand grip on the bar with palms facing you. Pull your body up until the chest reaches bar level. Slowly lower yourself but do not let your body swing and do not use momentum. This places more emphasis on the biceps than its counterpart, the chin up.

Chin-Ups

This is similar to the pull up, except that you take an overhand grip and you raise yourself until your chin rises above the bar. Hanging from a bar with arms extended and palms facing away from the exerciser, the body is pulled up until the elbows are bent and the head is higher than the hands gripping the bar. This exercise works the Latissimus Dorsi, Erector Spinae, rear Deltoids (back of the shoulders), biceps and Trapezius muscles (i.e. the hanger like muscles extending from your neck to your shoulders, forearms and the abdominals.

Tricep dips

The dip is an awesome exercise for targeting your upper body with an emphasis on the chest, shoulders, and triceps. Full body weight dips are an excellent exercise to master if you intend to strengthen and build muscle in the upper body or if you're looking to progress to more advanced upper body exercises. Using a chair, or any other solid object of comparable height, position your hands at the edge of the object behind you. Keeping your body straight, lower your buttocks to the ground without resting them there, forming a right angle. Return to the starting position and repeat as many times as possible.

The intensity of the dip may be heightened by positioning two chairs of equal height back to back with each other at shoulder width. Position yourself between both chairs with an hand on top of the backrest of either chair. Hanging form the chairs with the arms straight and the shoulders positioned above the hands, the body is lowered until the arms are bent at a 90 degrees angle and the body is pushed back to the initial position.      

With both kinds of dips, you lean forwards to emphasize the chest muscles, while you lean backwards to emphasize the tricep muscles.

Body Weight Back Workouts

Hyperextensions

This works the hip flexors and erector spinae. Lying face down on the floor, the torso and arms are lifted up at the same time using the contraction of the lower back muscles for lift. Slowly return to the starting position, taking at least 5 seconds to do so.

Plank Pose

This is an isometric exercise which works the abdominal and lower back muscles that constitute the core of the body. Lying on the stomach and lifting the body by keeping the toes and forearms on the ground. Hold the position for as long as possible, working up to 5 minutes or longer. The plank may be done sideways to work the oblique muscles.

Inverted Rows

Set a bar at hip height between the seats of two chairs; Lie underneath the bar and grab it a few inches wider than shoulder-width apart. Row yourself up the top position with your upper back and latissimus dorsi alone for lift. Keep the abs braced and body in a straight line from toes to shoulders. Slowly return to the start position and repeat.

As your strength increases you could try more adventurous activities gymnasics, capoeira, parkour or breakdancing for an aggressive bodyweight strength program. I shall go into these activities in more detail in later posts.

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