Body Weight Excersises

When thinking of strength training, typically people will think you will need to go to the gym and use weights, however this may not be the case. Strength can also be built by doing bodyweight exercises and workouts which require no external resistance equipment. Instead, your bodyweight combined with gravity becomes the resistance.

If you’re a beginner, starting out with basic bodyweight exercises can be a effective way of establishing that foundation of strength before performing more free weight exercises. However, these exercises can also be a great way of adding variety to workouts for the more experienced people in the gym.

Calisthenics

Calisthenics is the more technical term for bodyweight exercises. They are exercises which only incorporates the use of your own bodyweight appose to free weights however, can include equipment such as dip bars, pull up bar and gymnast rings.

Although weightlifting is great for strength and building muscle, calisthenics will train your body to manipulate your own bodyweight offering a more practical sense of strength as well as aiding balance, flexibility, coordination and endurance.

To summarise, calisthenics can offer similar results to weight training but can be done with little to no equipment, especially at a beginner level.

Benefits

Bodyweight exercises can often be overlooked, however can offer a number of different benefits to you work out plan and lifestyle.

Convenience - Possibly one of the biggest benefits is the convenience, bodyweight exercises can be performed almost anywhere meaning if you're unable to access a gym you can create your own workout from your living room, local park or perhaps a hotel room.

Physical - There are a number of exercises you can do which will allow you to target your whole body as well as isolating specific muscle groups. An added benefit to this is that you're learning how to stabilise and control your own weight when performing these exercises.

Variety - Unlike weightlifting, it may not be as easy to increase the amount of resistance when using bodyweight, however not only there numerous of different exercises for you to try, but you can also practice other physically demanding activities. This could include, rock climbing, kayaking or cycling to name a few.

Exercises

There are a number of exercises you can do with calisthenics with or without equipment. If you're a beginner, you'll want to put time in to building a foundation of strength and functionality. Simple basic bodyweight exercise include:

Standing Squats
Lunges
Press Ups
Plank
Crunches
Pull ups

These exercises are the basics you will want to master before progressing into more advanced movements. Even if you struggle with the above, there are ways which you can simplify and make easier. An example would be press ups - Instead of having your legs elevated off the floor, rest your knees, in turn reducing the amount of weight you are pressing.

Once you have a foundation of strength and beginner exercises become less challenging, you're going to want to start and progress just like you would by upping the weight if you using free weights.

Some more advanced exercises include:

Handstand wall climbs
Wall push ups
Muscle ups
Jumping lunges
Close Grip Pike Push up

Combining the two styles of training

In terms of building strength and muscle both are effective methods with pros and cons. Admittedly in the long run, you may achieve greater strength with weightlifting as you can consistently up the weight and apply progressive overload. However, one option would be to combine the two.

How you would want to do this is up to you and personal preference, you could incorporate both styles of training into the same session, alternating between or you could to alternate days/weeks of each style.

A benefit of switching the styles of training over a period of time will allow you to shock your body and muscle groups into something they aren't particularly used to, aiding further growth and functionality.