It has been two months since I last touched a Kettlebell, Dumbbell, or Barbell over 45lbs. In the last few months, I have used my bodyweight, sometimes a lowly 8lb Kettlebell. I found lying around the gym after we let all our clients borrow our equipment, but besides that, it has been bodyweight.
I wake up everyday sore; my legs are tired, my feet hurt, I never had this feeling when I used weights unless it was the first week of a program.
If there is a lifting method that has gained my respect over the past eight weeks, it has to be bodyweight exercise.
1st Truth: Bodyweight Exercise Is Advanced
Just because you can lift weight in a Back Squat does not mean you are a technically strong Squatter. I have seen plenty of athletes over the years put up massive numbers, but when you ask them to do a Bodyweight Squat, their form falls apart.
Weights can mask your movement dysfunctions; it can also exacerbate them as well. The cool thing about weight is it forces your body to engage the muscles you are going to be using by preloading them, which creates greater stability in the trunk, hips, and legs. When you do bodyweight training, you have to create that same tension, but with no weight. You need some level of tension to execute movements correctly.
The Push Up is an advanced exercise. Plenty of athletes can Bench Press their body weight, but few can perform a clean Push Up. That is because they are strong in their arms and chest when they are supported with a bench, but when asked to produce similar loads with their own weight their backs collapse causing them to do a movement that looks like they are trying to make love to the ground or like a cat coughing up a furball.
To master bodyweight training you need to be aware of what you are asking your body to do. From there, you need to anchor yourself to the ground and create tension through the whole body as if you were lifting an external load.
It is not easy, that is why there are more people lifting weights then doing gymnastics for their regular exercise.
2nd Truth: Bodyweight Exercise Will Make You Strong
When I come back to the gym, I promise you, me doing three sets of ten reps with a 45lbs weight is going to leave my legs sore for days. I am not bragging, just giving you all a heads up that you will be in the same boat, too.
You will lose some gym strength, like your ability to lift an external weight. What you will have gained instead is a strength only seen by those of superheroes. Your ability to pull yourself up, crawl over large distances, and leap small and narrow stream beads with almost comical ease will astound you and safely distanced onlookers.
Your new strength will show itself in the ways in which you do everyday activities. I know this is not sexy, but when were you going to Squat 200lbs in front of your friends and not look like a dick in real life anyway? Now you can walk upstairs with arms full of groceries unscathed by the physical effort. No, people will not see how easy you did it, but superheroes don’t do it for the recognition.
3rd Truth: Bodyweight Exercise Has A High Carry Over
Bodyweight exercise has a high carry over because you literally do everything with your body every day. I hope you all know this fundamental fact of existence.
If you can’t control your own body, when you fall you will try to catch yourself and break something; when you Squat down to pick something up, you will be putting greater stress on your joints and ligaments than your body can handle.
Yes, weights are cool and fun but don’t look at bodyweight exercises as second rate, because most times they are not, they are just more challenging and harder to quantify, and that leaves us to label them as stupid and dumb. Just because your 10 year-old thinks math is stupid, does that make math any less important? No. So we, as grown people, need to admit that bodyweight workouts are a respectable form of exercise, even if it’s easier to call them names like boring and lame instead of performing the actual workout.
Your Fitness Sherpa,
