Are Body Weight Exercises Worth A Damn?
How Do They Compare To Traditional Weight Training?
Medicine Balls, RAGE balls, sand bells, kettlebells, dumbbells, barbells, BOSU Balls, Swiss Balls, cable pulleys, elastic bands, elastic tubing…
*GASPS FOR AIR*
Okay…enough of that. My point is, there are a lot of fancy toys at the gym that we think we need to be successful. In truth, all of these things are just a means to an end. Although they’re all unique and special in their own ways, and I love them all equally, at the end of the day they can all be grouped under the same umbrella: added resistance.
Added resistance is a logical next step after we’ve developed enough strength to crank out dozens of reps in all of our bodyweight exercises because after a while it just stops making sense to keep adding reps to them. Sure, we’ll continue to build endurance and that’s fine and dandy, but most of us are not aiming for 100+ push-ups per set.
We want to increase lean muscle mass or increase our total body strength. Simply doubling down on what we’re already great at simply won’t get us there.
So you’re saying bodyweight exercises are effective for muscular growth and strength, but only to a point?
Wrong-o.
What I am trying to say is that doing the same bodyweight exercises the same way you’ve always done them is a waste of time if your goal is to continuing progressing in the strength and/or muscle growth departments.
Say you can bang out 50+ push-ups with ease. You’re ready for a new challenge.
You could move over to the bench press. It’s a big compound movement that allows ample room for progression and an opportunity to move heavy weight that you couldn’t replicate in any isolation movement like a chest fly, tricep extension, or shoulder raise.
This isn’t the only available route, however. Bodyweight exercises still remain a viable option after you’ve crushed the basics. You just have to change how you do them.
- Throw your feet up on a couch, chair, or bench and you’ve got decline push-ups.
- Perform a plyometric push-up. It’s like a normal push-up, but you explode out of the bottom portion of the movement, into the air before landing. Add a clap or two while you’re in the air when you get good at this.
- Isometric Push-Ups — simply lower yourself to the ground like you normally would, but this time hold it for as long as you can. Try to top your best time.
- Pause push-ups. It’s almost like an isometric push-up, but you the hold at the bottom is temporary. It can be 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 20 seconds even. Set a target rep range and you’re off.
BOOM! Four ways to challenge yourself after mastering push-ups. I bet you the biggest muscle heads in the gym would be gassed after a few rounds of these “wimpy” body weight exercises.
Okay, I’ll be a world champion push-up master. But how will I gain muscle without heavy weights?!
In my previous article I said that the gym itself was just a tool. Let me correct myself.
The gym is a toolbox filled with tools. These tools are all the heavy free weights, colorful kettle bells, thick resistance bands, and complex cables and machines. All of these tools serve a specific function in building muscle, indeed, but they are not the only tools we have available.
Body weight is still resistance and therefore is a tool just like the others. If a standard push-up or body weight squat becomes easy, that doesn’t mean that the tool is broken. It just means the job you’re using it for is simply no match for the strength of that tool.
You don’t need a bigger, badder tool. You just need to find a tougher job.
Muscle growth requires consistently overloading your muscles with a new, more challenging stimulus. Whether it be adding 5 more pounds to your bench press or progressing from standard push-ups to decline push-ups. As long as your muscles are being exposed to a new stimulus that’s at least 1% more difficult than the one it faced before, they will adapt in the way of increased size and contractile strength(this also depends on other variables like nutrition, genetics, rest, sleep, etc. but the roots of my point remain).
Is there then still a need for things like barbells and dumbbells if bodyweight exercises are truly that great?
Absolutely.
I think there’s something to be said for both the person who can squat 350lbs and the person who can do weighted pistol squats.
I also believe that strength built off the backs of free weight and bodyweight exercises translate quite well to each other.
The more I can bench press the more push-ups I’m likely to be capable of. On the other hand, if I’ve worked up to the point where I can crank out 5–10 one-handed push-ups, I bet that kind of relative strength would help tremendously in the bench press.
For the sake of building muscle, nothing builds muscle better than lifting heavy weights. Have you ever seen a large, muscular guy/girl only lifting light weights? Have you ever seen a powerlifter that didn’t have the size to match the strength? The answer to both of those questions, is no.
Does that mean that bodyweight exercises can’t build muscle or can’t build muscle as well as added resistance? It’s not quite the black and white answer that you’d be hoping for.
Added Resistance vs Body Weight — The Difference
Strength built from advanced bodyweight exercises and strength built from heavy weight lifting are two different things.
One deals more with relative strength and the other more with absolute strength. Relative strength is the amount of strength to body size, or how strong you are for your size. Absolute strength is the maximum amount of force you can exert, regardless of muscle or body size.
Generally speaking, smaller individuals have greater relative strength levels than larger individuals because they have less weight to move and control whereas larger individuals tend to dominate in the absolute strength because their weight is a function of their strength, not the other way around.
You could take a 250lb powerlifter that can row his bodyweight and a 160lb cross-fitter that couldn’t row half of that, ask them both to do as many pull-ups as possible, and the cross-fitter will more than likely take the crown. Even though the bear-like powerlifter’s brute strength is far greater than the measly 160lb cross-fitter’s, he’s going to lack the muscular endurance to keep pace with the cross-fitter past a certain point in this hypothetical pull-up competition.
Who Do You Want To Be: The Powerlifter or the Cross-Fitter?
You don’t have to weigh 250lbs to be like the powerlifter. You also don’t need to do cross-fit to be like the cross-fitter.
My point is: What are you after? Do you want to lift heavy weights and set your own personal records in big lifts like the row, deadlift, squat, and bench press? Do you want to be adept at L-Sits, pistol squats, and one-arm push-ups? Both?
Your goals will ultimately dictate which direction you wish to head down.
If improving overall physical fitness is your goal, either will do, but the point here is don’t discount the effectiveness of bodyweight exercises. Because if you can bench press 315lbs but you can’t do this:
Then who are you to say what strong is?
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About The Author: I’m Zach Newman. Conversation is insanely important to me. Its why I love creating things because creation sparks discussion and discussion is the best way to learn from each other and create community. So please, hop in the comments and respond to the article, ask a question, or simply tell me what you had for lunch today — seriously, I’m curious. What DID you have for lunch today?
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