Your Own Body
Ancient warriors and athletes did not have access to nautilus or smith machines, fancy dumbbells, bosu balls and the like. They used what they had, their own body and simple tools and that was far more than enough. Spartans, Vikings, Gladiators, Martial Artists anyone?
Here's what Pavel and the folks at dragondoor have to say about that.
A quick digression: I thank gravity for its existence for it is the ultimate force - unyielding, unwavering, unchanging, independent of circumstances, situations, time, place, & space. Without gravity we could not train or exert force upon the body. Even with weights and all other modalities their fundamental principle is to act against gravity. Moving weights in space (vacuum) does not provide any stimulus. Thus why astronauts loose muscle mass rapidly if there is no resistance provided to their body. The same holds true for bodyweight. We move our own bodies through space challenging the force of gravity. Insane levels of strength can also be built just as with weights or any other modality. They are all tools in the same toolbox. I believe the bodyweight tool carries with it more benefit and a more specific application in real world - you will always use your body to move through space, not necessarily moving external weight/mass.
The benefits of bodyweight training:
- always there, no equipment needed - complies with the law of simplicity
- trains movement and skills as a whole unit
- no monetary investment required
- strengthens mind-body connection, promotes body awareness
- limitless levels of progression, challenge and neurological-motor sophistication
- strengthens joint, tendons, ligaments, & connective tissue
- develops balance, coordination, agility, flexibility, ROM
- trains skill of generating full body tension
- works within the matrix of relative strength-weight ratio
- emphasizes natural movement patterns not isolated, limited ROM movement
- obeys law of balance by exposing asymmetries / imbalance in body
- allows all to participate: young-old, elite athletes-sedentary office jock, women-children
- fully scalable from beginner to elite level
- near infinite variety of movements skills and complexity - always room for improvement
- programmable to any goal within entire strength <--> endurance spectrum
- requires in depth knowledge and detail to specifics
- incremental progression not easily as measured (compared to weights, 0.5 lb plates)
- requires commitment, dedication & discipline in order to reach advanced levels
Many of you may be wondering how is it possible to build high levels of strength when your own bodyweight is more or less fixed. True, but here is the answer from Coach Sommer as he puts it more eloquently than I:
First of all, exercise is exercise. Period. The name of the game is resistance. A muscle contracts against resistance and, with perseverance, over time, becomes stronger. For strength to increase, the amount of resistance or load worked against must also increase over time. Hence the problem with bodyweight conditioning - as the resistance (weight of the body) is fixed, how to continue to increase strength? Surprisingly the answer is simple - by decreasing the amount of leverage it is possible to exert on an exercise, the resistance of an exercise becomes increasingly greater. For example, a hanging straight leg lift is much harder than a tucked leg lift. In both exercises the weight of your legs remains constant, however by reducing your leverage (i.e. in this case straightening your legs) we are able to greatly increase the resistance. By straightening the legs we have effectively doubled the difficulty of the exercise even though the weight of the body has remained constant.
In essence:
- manipulate ROM
- vary leverage
- redistribute weight throughout body
Don't take his word for it, try it yourself.
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