Body weight vs Free weights

[thedougaller]

A lot of people know that I usually dismiss body weight training right away as a waste of time. In hindsight, I should've been a little more clear on my stance.

So, here goes.

    First let me define a key term that most of you already know: Progressive overload.
From wiki - "Progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise training."
Simply put, your body adapts to your training. At some point you need to increase your workload to continue getting results.

    Body weight training is a category of exercises that pertain to using only your body as resistance (duh). Pushups, situps, you get the idea. The problem with most of these exercises are, they become TOO EASY TOO FAST. Your body adapts quickly, progressive overload stops & you plateau. A person who can do zero pushups can progress to doing 20 pushups in a relatively short span of time. At this point, you're only training muscles for endurance, not hypertrophy (growth) or strength. And that's my main issue with most body weight exercises, it's too easy to progress to a point where endurance is only thing being subjected to progressive overload. Compare that to a bench press, where you can keep adding weight in a simple and easy manner to ensure you stay in a rep-range where hypertrophy/strength is maximized.

    Now you may argue that BW exercises can be made harder just like free weight exercises and I agree, to an extent. But it just becomes too easy to get past the 10-12 rep range. Sure you can work your way up to doing 1-hand pinky pushups, but now you've changed the muscles used from the original exercise. It just becomes very inefficient and not optimal for most athlete's goals.

So, do we stop body weight training altogether? No.

    Bw training has it's place, and that is for those athletes just beginning to strength train, or for athletes who are endurance-based. Pushups, dips, pullups, chinups are all GREAT exercises that will allow you to build up a base level of strength. Just don't expect to continue making strength/size gains after you've passed the 10-12 rep range for these exercises. At that point you need to start increasing the stress if you want to continue growing/getting stronger.

I'm not a very good writer, but I hope I shed some light on the topic for you guys.

[snoozin]

While I agree that bodyweight training can get you but so far, You can add some equipment to it to increase the difficulty and its cheaper than paying to go to a gym. For example, an adjustable weighted vest 50 pounds or so. You can use that for all your bodyweight exercises and its almost like your starting all over again from that 1 pushup or pullup you couldn't do. Also resistance bands are also a way to increase the difficulty of bodyweight movements. Right now, I have no access to a gym, and probably will not for the next 5 months. I'm using a bodyweight routine with the above equipment. So far, I have gotten some nice results. I dont know about the future but ill see. So dont completely disregard bodyweight training. Besides, how big do you have to be to be a basketball player? Speaking for PGs, Maybe SGs. I understand the higher positions need a little more bulk but yea.

[thedougaller]

Ok, but what happens when you adapt to that weighted vest, or the bands? You have to buy more stuff? It's expensive & inefficient to keep progressing this way vs paying for a gym that allows you to simply & easily add weight to EVERY exercise for EVERY muscle group. The weighted vests in my local wal-mart are $159.99, that pays for almost 4 months of my gym membership. How big you have to be depends on your position, I was more focused on strength gains though.

[staymotivated]

Thanks for this thread!! Helped a lot!

[snoozin]

I can see your point, but I got my weighted vest for about $35 and once you get used to that, then I do not know. I guess its a temporary solution for strength but adding weights increases the time you have no gym to use.

[snoozin]

IDK if i worded that last part correctly, but you know what I mean.

[Anthem]

The thing is you can get SUPER strong in the upper body using progressive gymnastics exercises thats how gymnasts are so strong using only bodyweight however i do agree after a while you do need weights for the lower body but i mean for some people are they really nessecary if you do sprints, agillity exercises, jumping, plyos

[quickaintfair]

Ya I heard Tim Hardaway sr. just did pushups for his upper body and he's ripped and he just did weights for his legs. Also my track coach has me on a gymnastics upper body program and ive gotten alot stronger so far and ive been doing it for only about a week so far I think this is where he got it from tnation.t-nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_strength/olympic_gymnastics_strength_building

[quickaintfair]

Also added on for my legs i do pistol squats and king deadlifts

[2fast2strong2good]

I always keep an open mind and doug addressed that you can keep progressing with bw movements. BUT. its honestly simpler to add weight to the bar. I do upper body 2x a week, and I still include pullups, pushups and sometimes dips (shoulder prblm). I am also trying to learn to do muscleups cause they are bandanas and an explosive movement.

Mix both trainings, there is no one best.

[shockfill]

Well Most Coaches would agree that bodyweight exercises are superior for younger athletes also before lifting weights you should be able to do bodyweight exercises easily. I cringe when i see my friend lift weights yet he can't even do 10 pushups you should have a guidline of bodyweight strength first something like 30 pushups, 10 pullups, 10 dips, 5 pistol squats, 5 king deadlifts kelly bagget has a really good article refferring to the subject www.higher-faster-sports.com/singlelegpower.html

[2fast2strong2good]

I completely agree with what u r saying. Right now I am trying to teach my 12 year old bro about working out. I am just doing bw stuff with him until he is around 15-16. Bw is still pretty awesome for younger ppl or weaker ppl

[snoozin]

Well then, if he keeps it up, hes gonna be one swole 15 year old. 3 years of bodyweight exercises.

[thegreatest30]

to me body weight training is superior, there ways to make an exercise harder, for example, once you master a regular pushup for about 20 reps, go into a close grip pushup, after you master that, work on a pushup that has one arm on a basketball and the other arm doing a pushup after you master that, you can assisted one arm pushups, after you master one arm assisted pushups, you can try one arm pushups, you can do the same thing for pullups, pullups, close grip pullups, assisted one arm pullups, half way one arm pullups, one arm pullup negative, one arm pullups

you see where I'm going with this? by the time you master one arm pullups and pushups, then you can add weight, once you master pushups altogether, you can go into handstand pushups, there's so many variations of pushups, pullups, squats, don't be close minded, and talk about the basic variations of a pushup or a situp,

[thegreatest30]

you can take a look at the book Convict Conditioning or Ross Emainait's Never Gymless

[thedougaller]

^ Did you even read the first post?

"Now you may argue that BW exercises can be made harder just like free weight exercises and I agree, to an extent. But it just becomes too easy to get past the 10-12 rep range. Sure you can work your way up to doing 1-hand pinky pushups, but now you've changed the muscles used from the original exercise. It just becomes very inefficient and not optimal for most athlete's goals."

[thegreatest30]

pinky pushups, thats funny lol, but if an athlete is able to master a one arm pushup, not with legs wide apart, with legs close to each other, and a one arm pullup, do you know how rare of a feat that is? the people that master those are plenty stronger than those who lift, thats a mastery of bodyweight and mastery of movement, making you less injury prone as well

[thegreatest30]

look at gymnasts for example, that should be enough proof there too, they develop their bodies with just bodyweight exercise, and don't say that we can't be gymnasts, because there are plenty of message boards and forums on the internet, that offer great gymnastic workouts and people have seen great results from

[thedougaller]

Except gymnasts definitely do NOT develop their bodies with just bodyweight exercises. Do you seriously think gymnasts don't lift weights?

[thegreatest30]

im sure they do once in a while, but exercises like muscle ups and lever are the staple exercises for building gymnastic strength not a bench press or an overhead press etc. , i suggest the book Building the Gymnastic Body by Coach Sommer, great read