Posted on February 03, 2015 by Jenny Cromack

In the fitness industry there are camps, clicks and groups dedicated to every form of training. I’ve had the privilege (?) of meeting many of these interesting creatures. I’ve been told you should that dance is the best for sculpting legs, you should hoola hoop to drop body fat, yoga classes are the cure for bingo wings, and even that you should only train barefoot because that’s the way we were designed.. You’ve probably seen these individuals in your local gym, they’re normally balancing on a swiss ball, while skipping at the same time as balancing a barbell on their head…..

Anyway, back to my blog, a recent article published by the American College of Sports Medicine showed the health and fitness trends for 2015. Can you guess what the number one spot was? Pilates ….nope, Yoga…..nope, HIIT…..nope, in fact it was Body Weight Training, so this blogs is going to look at the benefits of body weight training.

So, the first question….is body weight training beneficial?….Yes

Secondly, is it optimal for most peoples goals?…No

Body weight training is a convenience based approach to training for the majority of people.  I’ts a great form of training that can be completed anywhere, you can work the majority of the body efficiently, however there are some down sides. Here are the benefits of body weight training, and the downsides too.

 

THE BENEFITS OF BODY WEIGHT TRAINING

1. You Can Literally Train Anywhere: You don’t need any fancy equipment, you need some space on the floor and something to pull yourself up to (if possible, but don’t worry if not). Simples….no more excuses about getting time for the gym. All that is required is some creativity and a reasonable understanding of anatomy.

2. Proprioception and Skill Acquisition: If you’re involved in sport, or have terrible body awareness body weight training is extremely beneficial. Learning how your body moves and responds to exercises only achieved during body weight training can be an amazing learning experience.  A great example would be, a one arm push up teaches the individual how to stabilise the thoracic spine and pelvis much more efficiently that hours of core training.

3. Stabilisers Are Developed In Harmony With Joints: Now this is a general statement and by no means definitive. However in general if you have good posture, understand a little how your body works and moves, you can train exercises like pull up variations, squats and presses much more efficiently than say on machines at the gym.

DISADVANTAGES OF BODY WEIGHT TRAINING. 

1. Limited Potential: yes you can develop a reasonable amount of strength doing body weight exercises, but you can build better using external resistance. Why limit yourself to body weight exercises when there is so much weight in the world to lift.

2.Neglected Muscle Groups: Its very hard to work certain muscles using body weight exercises, shoulders are a good example. You can either do handstands or you can’t the progressions from push-ups to standing shoulder presses is difficult. Another example is the hamstrings, there quite easy to train eccentrically, however concentric contractions are difficult to perform concentrically without equipment.

3. Lower Body To Upper Imbalances: Due to the nature of where weight in the body is distributed the strength in the legs is always going to be limited by the weight of the individual, yes you can progress onto pistol squats. But guess what there are other training approaches that are more beneficial.

In conclusion, yes body weight training can be beneficial especially if you don’t have access to a gym but, don’t use it as a sole training approach build it into part of an overall program.