If you're seeking a way to strengthen your body and build muscle, you might believe you need to join a gym or train with weights. However, nowadays bodyweight training is becoming increasing popular due to the range of movements, convenience and performance results. In fact, following a recent study from the American Collage of Sports Medicine (ACSM), bodyweight training has been ranked as one of the top 3 trends for 2021.
Body weight training is exactly what it sounds like, it uses minimal equipment to train and uses the body as the weight, which makes it an inexpensive way to exercise effectively.
There are many different reasons to start bodyweight training and here are some of the benefits:
Convenience and Flexibility
The best thing about bodyweight exercises, apart from the convenience, is the endless variations of workouts. Bodyweight exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, and sprints are examples of effective bodyweight training activities.
No matter if you need to go big or light, you can easily adjust your program. From high-intensity intervals to a cool-down walk, bodyweight workouts can provide what you need for your fitness journey, wherever you need it. With such a large variety of exercises and assistance from equipment such as suspension trainers (where you can adjust the level of bodyweight resistance required for your workout program) this level of customisation and flexibility tops the list of benefits of bodyweight exercises vs. weights.
Builds Strength
It is believed that in order to build muscle effectively, you need to exercise with more weight resistance than your body can offer. In fact, bodyweight training is believed to be more effective at building muscle in a shorter period of time than using weights.
This is because when bodyweight training, movement at any point in the kinetic chain requires the body to move other joints creating exercise across multiple areas of the body, at the same time. Whereas, using weights, you are often doing workouts with an open kinetic chain (for example, using a dumbbell to exercise a bicep) and these exercises are not as effective as ones with multiple joint movements.
Develops Endurance
Bodyweight fitness tend to have a higher number of repetitions than traditional weight training activities. Therefore, users can receive the additional benefit of building muscular endurance. There is a big difference between doing one repetition max squat and doing a hundred bodyweight squats. However, they are both important qualities for all-around fitness, strength and performance.
Supports Balance and Mobility
For many of us, we spend hours at office desks, therefore, the last thing we need is to sit on a piece of gym equipment to train! Bodyweight training requires a much broader variety of movement, challenging your body to work muscle groups which you simply can’t reach sitting down. Additionally, many bodyweight training programs combine cardio and strength elements, so you get a very effective and efficient workout completed in less time. For example, Yoga is bodyweight exercise, which is an incredibly well-rounded form of bodyweight exercise, with many different options that can emphasise strength, endurance, mobility, flexibility and much more.
Drives Consistency and Results
With bodyweight workouts you don’t need equipment, space, or lengthly workouts. You can do bodyweight exercise at home, in the park, or anywhere you travel. If you can set up a couple pieces of equipment, i.e. a jump rope or suspension trainer, these will give you endless options when combined with truly equipment-free bodyweight movements.
To view the other trends from the ACSM study, please find the table below:
Source: ACSM Fitness trends for 2021
In summary, the benefits of bodyweight training results in a broad range of fitness and a balanced workout regime. In addition, having a strong, stable, flexible, mobile, fit body increases sports performance and means you are also less likely to be prone to injury.
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