When one thinks of bodyweight exercises they usually think of pushups and perhaps chinups. They also think that bodyweight exercises are good to "just stay in shape." Nothing can be further from the truth. Bodyweight training can completely transform your physique when done correctly. If your goal is weight loss, bodyweight training can get you to that goal. If you goal is to build muscle, bodyweight training can do that as well.
One of the benefits of bodyweight training is that the gym is always with you... your body! Anywhere you go, you have access to "the gym." I've done chinups at a playground while my daughter plays. There is always something available to push off of or pull up on.
If you have the room in your home, I highly recommend a piece of equipment usually called a "power tower." This is a self standing unit that allows you do chinups, dips, pushups and leg raises for your abs. This one lone piece of equipment, which doesn't take up much room, can transform your body.
As a matter of fact, I've sold most of my weight training equipment and rely mainly on my power tower for a complete bodybuilding workout.
What about exercising your legs you may ask? Bodyweight squats are great for your legs and for a challenge you can do them one leg at a time.
Although all you need is your bodyweight to get a good workout, there will come a time when your own bodyweight doens't offer enought resistance to make the workout challenging enough.
Sure you can just keep doing more and more reps each workout but if you goal is to build some muscle you will need to keep the reps under 15 and if your bodyweight is not enough, you'll need to add resistance somehow.
This is where a weighted vest and/or dip belt comes in handy. A dip belt is just a leather or fabric belt that hangs around your waist with chains in the front to hold weight plates. This will allow more than enough resistance to be added to make dips and chinups more challenging. The weighted vest can be used for pushups and squats.
So for a few dollars you have all you need to get in tremendous shape. I can hear some people now wondering where are the curls, the tricep exercises, and so on. How will I get huge biceps if I don't do my million curls? If you can do chins with your bodyweight plus an additional 50lbs - 100lbs around your waist, I can guarantee you will not have small biceps.
All that's left is to design a routine based around pushups, squats, dips and chins. There are other bodyweight exercises you can do, like handstand pushups that will blast your shoulders but that is a bit more advanced and out of the scope of this article.
A routine can consist of bodyweight squats, dips and chins done 2 - 3 times a week. Just like any weight training routine, more is not better. You need time to let the muscle recover so 2 - 3 times a week is more than enough. Especially when you start to add resistance to the exercises.
If your goal is weight loss, bodyweight training can do the trick while still buidling some muscle along the way. All you need to do is take less time between sets in order to activate the fat burning process in your body.
If you do bodyweight squats for 5 sets of 25 reps with very little rest between sets, I guarantee your heart will be up and you'll be burning fat. Same thing goes for dips and chins. Take less time between exercises for fat burning and take more time to recover when muscle building is your goal.
I hope you can see the benefit of bodyweight training in terms of overall health and cost effectiveness. You don't need the latest home gym or infomercial product to get in fanstastic shape. As a matter of fact, all I do these days are bodyweight based routines, after years of traditional weight training, and at 45 I'm in good shape as you can see if you visit my website HomeMadeMuscle.net.
