THE BENEFITS OF BODYWEIGHT RESISTANCE EXERCISE

If you’re struggling to find a new workout routine because your gym was closed and you don’t have much equipment at home, you’re not alone. Knowing that you’re not alone should help. Facing a big challenge is scary, but when you have support from others in the same circumstance, it can become a bit more manageable. There are bigger things to worry about than your workouts during this unique time. That combined with many gym closures and the stress of the COVID-19 circumstances can make it very easy to scrap your normal workout routine. Keep in mind that as we all try to find ways to be healthy and sane during this period, exercise is one of the best tools for that. 

It’s as important as ever that we find a way to remodel our fractured workout routines and start new exercise habits. The other thing that should help to ease your mind is that you don’t need much equipment (if any) to make progress, gain strength, improve your fitness, and stay healthy through working out. When you’re looking to develop a new habit or routine, you need to make sure it’s simple and sustainable. That is one of the wonderful features of bodyweight resistance exercise: You don’t need any equipment or large spaces to make it work for you. This simplicity factor is key. Less equipment and space required is one less hurdle to stop you from building your workout habit. 

Let’s discuss some of the other big benefits of bodyweight resistance training. Bodyweight exercises tend to be exercise where you’re connected to the ground. This is called closed chain exercise. Closed chain exercises like push-ups or squats are key for loading your joints and making all of your body work together during a movement. During a push-up your shoulders and chest are targeted, but your upper back, triceps, core, and even your hip flexors all have to work to control your body. Speaking of controlling your body, this is a big benefit of bodyweight training. It will help you to learn how to control and move your own body better. This is referred to as kinesthetic awareness.

Check out this quick at-home workout from TDAE Director of S&C Matt HERE

Learning to control your own body better leads to better balance, more smooth movements, and better posture during your movements. This can help you to do your activities, workouts, and exercises with better form. Having better form during exercises helps you to fend off nagging injuries from doing movements with improper form. Here’s something to consider as well, how many times have you run into trouble at the gym because you went right to the heavy weights during an exercise without demonstrating great control or form during the bodyweight version of that exercise. Let’s use the push-up and squat example again. Most people want to go straight to the bench press or barbell squats before they’ve shown efficiency during a push-up or a bodyweight squat. Fast forwarding steps is a recipe for injury and for creating habits that can’t be sustained. 

Read a great article HERE about how consistent bodyweight resistance exercise has been shown to promote general health and lower mortality risk just as effectively as other modes of exercise or weight-bearing exercise.

You can’t keep adding weight forever. I’m as big of a proponent of external resistance through free weights, cable machines, or bands, but you can’t keep adding loads on everything. A responsible resistance training program should include plenty of bodyweight exercise because this acts as a way to develop overall strength and proficiency during movements without overdoing things. You need to have calculated deloading strategies during your workout programs. Bodyweight exercises allow for that without stripping the resistance stimulus all together.

Let’s look at two last benefits of bodyweight resistance exercise. They both have to do with joint health. Healthy joints are joints that get regular loading and exposure to full ranges of motion. Bodyweight resistance exercises do both of those things. Think about a single leg squat.his exercise is providing critical loading to your ankle, knee, and hip joints. Loading your joints in this way makes them stronger, more durable, and it even creates better quality of the structures of the joint. 

When it comes to moving your joints through full range of motion, bodyweight exercises are great for this. Think of a Yoga Pike. This exercise provides incredible loaded range of motion to your shoulders as you pike your butt up to the ceiling. You also get great ankle mobility during this exercise. Moving your joints through full ranges of motion in a controlled way allows them to be healthy, nourished, and strong. 

These are all factors we took into account when we created the 4-WEEK EDGE ESSENTIALS BODYWEIGHT WORKOUTGUIDE. This program is designed for people of all ages and abilities and it can be done from anywhere without any equipment. It has over 30 full instructional videos, 3 total body bodyweight workouts per week, and even provides written descriptions for each exercise to let you know the benefits and where you should feel it. You will love the variety and the fun variations that we’ve programmed for you as you track your progress on the provided workout templates. You can purchase your copy of the 4-Week Edge Essentials Bodyweight Workout Guide HERE.