Why Bodyweight Exercises?

Most pin-loaded weight training exercises or gym machines isolate only certain muscle groups, requiring a fairly small portion of your body's total muscle mass. Bodyweight exercises incorporate multiple muscle groups at once, with the added benefit of being much more demanding of core strength than exercises that require weights and machines.

Body-weight exercises use motions that develop muscle strength and keep you safe from the many chronic injuries, like joint problems, that come over time with weightlifting and other unnatural exercises which have little functional value in our daily lives.

For an exercise or workout to be functional, it must resemble the event being trained for as closely as possible. Keeping this in mind, the performance demands of the average person consists mainly of manipulating their own bodyweight throughout daily tasks, therefore the most functional way to develop strength in day-to-day activities is logically, bodyweight movements.

I believe that in today's society, gyms, training systems, and fad diets are mostly the result of excellent marketing rather then a genuine attempt to help a generally out of shape society.

Aside from running and swimming, most people have not been raised to use their bodyweight alone to exercise. My personal opinion is that popular fitness culture, for far too long, has not realised the numerous benefits bodyweight exercises have to offer. The exploding popularity of yoga and pilates are a wonderful example of the worth of bodyweight exercises.

Benefits of Bodyweight Exercises

* Bodyweight exercises require something you are never without: Your Body
* This style of exercise can be done anywhere, anytime, and without costly gym equipment
* Bodyweight exercises increase strength, power, and muscular endurance
* With bodyweight exercises you will develop balance, coordination, and flexibility
* Bodyweight exercises incorporate multiple muscle groups to develop overall strength
* It is necessary to activate and stabilise your core muscles when performing bodyweight exercises

There is a common myth that surrounds bodyweight exercise routines; Bodyweight exercises don't allow you to adjust the difficulty of an exercise.

Last week I was having a discussion with a fellow trainer about different training methods. When we discussed bodyweight exercises as a form of strength develop it was obvious that we were polar opposite in our beliefs. My belief is that it is pointless and illogical to add extra weight to a person if they are unable to complete an exercise or movement using their own bodyweight. My peer was adament that bodyweight exercise options are very limited and not enough to develop strength. My peer's retort was consistent with the misconception of bodyweight exercises throughout the fitness industry. 

As an advocate of bodyweight exercises for strength development programs, I like to encourage my peers to incorporate more bodyweight exercises and training methods into their sessions. I often find myself telling clients and peers that the only limiting factor with bodyweight exercises is the individual's creativity.

Here are four simple ways of changing the difficulty of an exercise without adding weights:

1) Increase or decrease the amount of leverage
2) Perform an exercise on an unstable platform
3) Use pauses or pulses at the beginning, end, and middle of movement
4) Turn the exercise into a single limb movement

For example, consider a push up, a standard exercise that works your chest, shoulders, triceps, abdominals, obliques and lower back.

If you do push ups against a wall, the exercise is pretty easy.

Option 1 - Wall push up

You can then progress to performing the push ups on an elevated surface, such as a table top, you increase the level of difficulty for the exercise.

Option 2 - Push up on a elevated surface

The lower the surface you use, the harder the exercise becomes. Most people believe that performing a push up with your hands on the floor is the hardest option available for this exercise, however this is when creativity becomes important.

Option 3 - The classic push up (Ladies perform on knees to reduce pressure on PFM)

Option 4 - Push ups with feet on an elevated surface 

If you place your feet onto a telephone book, coffee table or chair the exercise becomes significantly more difficult. This is using leverage to increase the exercise's difficulty.

To further increase the level of difficulty for an exercise you could place your hands on one or two balls. By introducing the balls into the exercise you are using an unstable surface. If this is still not difficult enough, incorporate pauses or pulses within the movement.

Option 5 - Push ups on an unstable surface

If this still isn't difficult enough apply the 4th trick to increase the difficulty of a bodyweight exercise and perform one-handed push ups.

Option 6 - One-handed push ups

The beauty of bodyweight exercises are that you have total control of the resistance, something that you simply do not have when you use pin-loaded weights or gym machines. The difficulty of bodyweight exercises can be tailored to suit the needs of virtually anyone, can be performed anywhere and at anytime. Bodyweight exercises truly are the most versatile, cost

effective, and accessible form of exercise. Ask your trainer to put you through a training session using only your bodyweight and experience for yourself this truly underrated and underused method of training.

Please let me know your thoughts and/or experiences with bodyweight exercises in the comments section below.

Do you think bodyweight exercises are useful training method?

SAFE Strength Training - YES, it is possible!

 

-Use the BODY YOU HAVE to build the BODY YOU WANT-

Millions of women needlessly suffer from damaged pelvic floor muscles even though their suffering is preventable and curable through appropriate exercise.

There is a lot to be said about using the body you have to build the body you want. Using your own bodyweight for strength training is the key to a pain and leak free life. Bodyweight strength training will assist you to maneuver throughout your daily tasks with ease, pain free, and leak free whilst maintaining the elegance and poise of Grace Kelly.

Divert from mainstream weights training to prevent interruptions to your training routines, stress urinary incontinence and prolapse by using Bodyweight exercises for your strength training. 
Regularly engaging in strength training using your own bodyweight allows yourself and your body the chance to live a pain free, leak free, and fulfilling life unaffected by stress urinary incontinence or prolapse.

Working in gyms, I have witnessed many women training with heavy weights. I have watched women groan, strain, break and cry whilst trying to push, pull and lift weights.  It pains me to consider how many of these women are now suffering from prolapse as a result of the unnecessary downward pressures placed upon their pelvic floors.

Strength training can be achieved without lifting a single dumbbell.

Being a women, retired athlete and trainer, who has worked in the fitness industry for 10 years, I find the mainstream approach to training extremely frustrating. As a retired elite athlete and professional trainer, I know that many women who use pin-loaded or free weights do not need to push, pull or lift heavy weights on the gym floor or group exercise classes.  Personally I have been using my own bodyweight for the majority of strength training since I was 8 years old. 

My aim is to help women realise that their own bodies are the cheapest and easiest tools they have to sculpt the functional and sexy body they want.

Why bother with pointless, limiting gym exercises when their daily tasks do not require such vigorous training methods? 

Effective and safe strength training can take place in the comfort of your own home, a local park, on a plane or in a hotel room, your driving seat at a red light, and the line at the supermarket. It is as simple as the saying ‘Use the body you have, to create the body you want’.

It is my job to teach every woman that her body is her secret weapon.

Instead of punishing your body with heavy weights at the gym, try using you’re own body’s weight to become stronger. With bodyweight strength training you will gain an understanding of your physical abilities, prevent osteoporosis, increase your metabolism, develop lean muscles and tone. Instead of risking injuries by adding weight to exercises, focus on your posture, alignment, activation of the deep abdominal muscles and pelvic floor when you perform bodyweight exercises.

Krysia's top 3 lower body weight exercises for women: 

 

1) Body-weight squat with pulses

 

Bodyweight Squat

 

A bodyweight squat is more than just a basic lower-body motion. Your core is heavily relied upon during each repetition to keep your torso strong and tall, and because some of the largest muscle groups in your body - your glutes, for example - are targeted, this exercise rewards you with a higher calorie burn than a leg extension. Adding smaller partial reps at the bottom of the movement will bring up the burn even faster!

What to do: Stand with your feet no wider than hip-width apart feet, shoulder-width apart, and bend your knees and hips to squat. Make sure that your heels remain on the ground and that your knees do not go past your toes. Stop when your thighs are parallel to the ground, then pulse up and down (moving only a few inches) 10 times before standing. Do three sets of 15 to 20 reps.

TRAINER'S TIP: make sure to activate your core throughout the movement. I always have my clients pause after each repetition to re-activate their core before the next repetition.

 

2) Forward lunge with kick

 

Forward Lunge with Kick

Lunges are king when it comes to eliciting delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).  DOMS is that achy feeling you get in your muscles in the days following your workout.  I love lunges as this bodyweight exercise requires the individual to work through a large range of motion, recruit multiple muscles, incorporate dimensions of dynamic stretching, and places emphasis on the quads, a smaller muscle group than the glutes. Tacking a kick onto the movement gives your gultes a bit more incentive to change and grow, whilst also incorporating a dynamic stretch within the hamstrings. Lunges are a terrific exercise thanks to the recruitment of multiple muscle groups, the more muscles being used and developed equals more calories burned, even at rest.

What to do: Take a large step forward with your left foot and bend both legs until they form 90-degree angles. Make sure that you keep your front heel on the ground throughout the movement, ensuring  that your front knee does not go past your toes of the front foot (Your rear knee should be an inch or two off of the ground and the heel of your back foot lifted off the ground.) Push through left front foot to return to the start, but instead of planting your foot, raise your leg as high as you can in-front of you, being careful not to slouch forward and loose your core activation. Plank the foot and then perform the same movement on the other leg. Do three sets of 15 to 20 reps on each leg.

TRAINER'S TIP: Often when clients start to fatigue or are learning how to perform lunges they break through their mid-sections (core). When performing lunges it is essential to maintain an activated and strong core, I like to get clients to imagine there is a pole dissecting their bodies which is forcing them to stand upright throughout the movement. 

 

3) Glute Hip Raise with Knee Raise 

Glute Hip Raise with Knee Raise

This exercise is a pelvic floor safe, bilateral glute and hamstring strengthening exercise. Completed with correct technique, this exercise has the potential to strengthen the lower limbs whilst also developing strength in the abdominal muscles and the muscles of the lower back.

What to do: Starting the exercise laying on your back, lift your hips up towards the sky by squeezing your glute muscles together. Once your hips and buttocks are lifted off the ground, alternate lifting one foot off the ground at a time. To increase the difficulty, and to recruit your hamstring muscles further, lift your toes off the ground so that your heels are your anchor.

TRAINER'S TIP: It is important to maintain glute activation throughout this movement, if not your hips with drop and you will loose activation and stability through your core.