Is bodyweight training the new in thing?
Did you know you don’t actually need to have a gym membership to stay fit. You don’t need a gym membership to develop lean muscle. And you certainly don’t need a gym membership to live a healthy lifestyle. How then do you achieve fitness greatness without that golden gym membership? Simple, through body weight exercises. Research recommends to incorporate some sort of strength training into your weekly regime. However many are often fearful of attempting weighted exercises for fear of injury or burnout. Bodyweight exercises, are in their most simple form, the easiest of movements to complete. Not to mention their added health benefits.
Help build and maintain lean muscle
Building lean muscle allows you to burn extra calories, especially following exercise, whilst improving your overall quality of life. Not to mention, building lean muscle mass decreases the risk of injury from occurring due to the non weight bearing load of the movements and the protection they maintain around joints.
At any level it can be challenging
This is the great thing about bodyweight exercises, no matter the starting point or level of intensity, you will be challenged. Eventually though your muscles become used to the movements and will no longer respond to the training stimulus. This is when you know you either need to increase the intensity at which you are working or try incorporating with new movements.
It’s free
Free is my favorite dollar sign. If you want to start you health and fitness journey but have always put it off because of cost, you don’t need to use that excuse any more. If I asked you to try a completely free, proven form of exercise that will not only benefit your sleep patterns but boost immunity and metabolism levels, wouldn’t you want to try it? I know I would.
It is a great place to start
You need to start somewhere, and this is a great way to gain an understanding of fitness movements and your reaction to exercise. You may find that when attempting a squat for the first time you are only able to get to half the depth of a full range squat. That is a great starting point and as you progress with the movement you will find you ROM will increase. As there is no added pressure of working with weights, you can purely focus on technique development.
No restrictions
With weighted and machine exercises you are restricted to where you complete them and how you move, with all you really have control over is time under tension. Body weight exercises allow you to take your movements outdoors, into your living rooms or even to you desk at work.
So if you are new to exercise in general and are looking to gain lean muscle mass, improve your health and fitness and maybe lose the few extra kilos we all gain during winter. Give bodyweight exercises a go. Whether it is squats to lunges through to pull ups and burpees, you’ll find your body is more forgiving and allows you to adjust the exercises to your ability level.
