You could try it, and decide it's not for you. But a lot of self-professed nerds disdain it, assuming it's something only stupid jocks do.
It's not. Getting strong has been one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. It's also had lasting effects in pain reduction, how other perceive me, and my self-confidence.
I don't see how this would ever be possible - is there a specific method you're referring to? Coaches don't put football players in front of a p90x DVD, they stick them under a barbell add some heavy weight to it.
Example of a planche. http://www.crossfitgymnastics.com/uploads/gymnastics/image/T...
http://www.livestrong.com/article/141152-what-muscles-do-pus...
Muscles targeted by bench-press.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/167707-the-muscle-groups-u...
Am I wrong or do these two exercises seem to target the same muscle groups?
Also, the muscle groups targeted by both exercises depends largely on hand placement. The same would apply for hand-stand push-ups, just to a lesser degree.
I bench a "measly" 286lbs, about 1.3 times body weight, which isn't all that amazing. I can trivially easily get up to substantial numbers of regular push ups in a few weeks. But getting to that 400lbs range, there's a whole set of progressions towards being able to do planche push ups etc. that I'm not able to do at all at my current strength. But most people doing body weight exercises just end up adding a few extra push ups or doing slight variations that don't overload them much more.
I think that's one of the largest benefits of lifting weights for most people: It's very, very easy to track progress and make sure you're not cheating yourself. Even so, enough people still manage to cheat themselves (and wonder why they're not getting bigger muscles...)
I'm 5'6", and by doing only basic bodyweight exercises, push-ups, pull-ups, and dips, I could bench press 180lbs 10 times at a body weight of 155. That's not bad at all in my opinion.
What kind of body weight routine do you have, and does it depend on any equipment such as dip bars? I'm looking for a good one for when I go traveling.
In addition to the pull-ups, I would do the Army's regular work out. This would involve running 2-3 miles 2-3 times a week, and performing general calisthenics(similar to the 7 minute workout originally posted, just at a slower pace.) 2-3 times a week.
But my point is that even people who want to get bigger seem to fail to progress more often with body weight exercises than with weights because the progress is so easy to measure: Either your numbers go up, or they don't, and while people do certainly cheat themselves with poor form or range of motion, I see less of it with weights than with body weights. Perhaps the biggest problem for people getting started with body weight exercises is that they don't know how to progress and so a lot of them end up dicking around with the same basic exercises with the same rep ranges without ever getting anywhere.
Conversely if you do know how to progress and is strict, you can do amazing things with body weight exercises - it's not unusual for high level gymnasts to be able to go straight in and put weight lifters to shame without ever lifting regularly, for example.
The other example I have is from Christopher Sommer, a famous U.S. gymnastics coach. He mentioned an athlete that could benchpress 400lbs either in an online article or his book. I can't remember which, but I haven't been able to find it. I did find an article where he mentions a young athlete trained solely through bodyweight exercise, that managed to deadlift 400lbs at a bodyweight of 135.
http://www.dragondoor.com/articles/building-an-olympic-body-...
I forgot another source. When I was in the military we had a martial arts instructor that was about 6'3" and 250lbs of muscle. He claimed that his only other source of exercise was Yoga.
Also, couldn't you say the same thing about professional weightlifters?
The pissing contest between weightlifting and other types of strength training is pretty ridiculous. As I said in one of my original comments, both methods are completely viable. Whether you use weights or bodyweight exercise, a person who exercises is going to be far better off than someone who doesn't.
Edit: I looked up some of the claims about strength gains of Sommer's athletes. He's bragging about 400lb deadlifts, 75lb pullups after years and years of training. For reference I hit those numbers for reps in less than 18 months at a bodyweight of 145 with an actual lifting routine, and I consider my progress to be slightly slow compared to a lot of other lifting logs on fitness sites. I expect any other numbers I find to be similarly unimpressive. In general I find that the claims about bodyweight exercise follow this pattern, proponents simply do not understand what constitutes genuine impressive numbers once you are talking about a legitimate strength training program (one used by professional athletes across many sports).
Edit2 found some more claims: Double bodyweight dead lift
Military press with 110% bodyweight
Chins with 50% of his bodyweight for reps
Dips + 60% of his bodyweight for reps
There's nothing here not reachable within 2 years by a young male following a decent program (and that's assuming a start from sedentary).
If I woke up one day and decided that the most important thing in my life was to one day bench-press 400 lbs, I would grab a copy of Starting Strength and hit the weights. There really isn't any debate about that.
The original argument against bodyweight exercise was that it's a complete waste of time. It clearly isn't. When I started basic training, about 20 percent of us could actually pass a PT test. Some people could only perform a couple of push-ups. After 8-9 weeks of doing nothing but running and body-weight exercise, nearly everyone passed.
If you took a cycle of recruits, tested them on the bench-press on day 1 of basic training, and then did so again on the last day, I'd be willing to bet that on average, their numbers would be significantly higher.
>This is a waste of time.
He then goes on to explain that the only way to get real and lasting benefits from an exercise routine is to go to the gym and lift weights.
I agree that the part about "only real and lasting" is wrong.
There are ways to get incredibly strong using only body weight exercises (inmates and yoga practitioners do it, after all), but to my knowledge these all require a greater time investment due to the higher number of reps, and the results materialize over a much longer time span. I imagine that most HN readers are more interested in a time-efficient form of exercise.
Unless you want to avoid sports or paying for a gym membership entirely, the only real benefit seems to be that you can move up very slowly and conservatively, with little risk of injury.
Basically this.
I was a gymnast for 18 years (from 2 - 20 years old). Obviously, it wasn't professional level the entire time, but starting a bit before high school, workouts would be 5 or 6 times a week, for 4-5 hours. There was never any weightlifting, only body weight exercises. Those guys you see on TV doing Still Rings, Pommel Horse, etc., they didn't get that strong through weight training. It's just hours and hours of practice and so-called 'endurance' conditioning. I say 'so-called endurance' because most gymnasts that I met were pretty bad endurance wise, judging on ability to run for awhile. A lot of us topped out at a couple of miles, before we needed to walk.
Gymnastics is a sport that isn't assisted by weight training. There are a few exercises that use weights, like wrist therapy using 5-10 pound free weights. But all those physiques you see on TV are just thousands of hours of work, and those hours make for some of the leanest, strongest people.
Here are two videos of some good, professional-level routines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScgJJDYeqqg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRDzQX6MzHo
You literally can not learn to do that through weightlifting. You cannot gain the strength those two use through weightlifting. It's not because the positions themselves are difficult, those are usually the easy parts to train and practice. It's the transitions between two different positions that is difficult, and cannot be trained by weightlifting. Gymnastics is a dynamic sport, weightlifting is a static exercise. The best that weightlifting can do is make the holds a bit easier, but that isn't really necessary, because those aren't as hard to train as the fluid transitions.
> Gymnastics is a dynamic sport, weightlifting is a static exercise.
I dunno, man. The snatch seems to happen fairly quickly.
The fact is that any given person will be significantly stronger after N months of training using "optimal" barbell training than using "optimal" bodyweight exercises assuming an appropriate diet.
You will get stronger using bodyweight exercises or P90x but it will take longer and you will never get as strong as using barbell training so why do it?
bullshit.
those are INCREDIBLY difficult to get. you're not going to get those just by lifting big with deadlift/squat/presses a couple of times a week.
it's like when women say they don't want to lift because they don't "want to get bulky".
100% pure nonsense. it's VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY difficult to get big muscles.
let me say that again...
it's VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY DIFFICULT to get big muscles. it has to be nearly a full time job for YEARS and YEARS of your life.
When I stopped ballroom dancing and started working out more, I did not get bulky in any way, however it surely felt that way!
Gone was my coordination, my elegance, my posture!
Isolated, limited movement with weight is the exact opposite of rhytmic dance movement with lots of body tension.
It annoyed me, but I can imagine that this matters a lot more to women. In dancing I've seen women who might have been a little overweight, moving around gracefully.
Just wanted to point that out, because I have noticed several comments like yours around the 'net recently - maybe people getting a little touchy that the work they put into their body is not appreciated sufficiently?
After I started barbells, I noticed I got MUCH better at yoga and any activity that requires balance. You cannot lift 250 pounds safely without some measure of balance and grace.
When I look around the gym, I see a lot of people bouncing around when lifting lighter dumbbell weights or using weight machines. It's very possible to lift weights unbalanced, to a point.
However, the most efficient weight training will also train balance.
I'm guessing two things happened in your case:
1. Your form was off, and you unbalanced yourself 2. Your elegance stopped because you had stopped training elegance. It was lack of dance, rather than weight lifting.
Proper weight training does not destroy grace, it augments it.
Lifting requires form and balance and all that, and is beautiful in itself, and for elegance you gotta keep training elegance.
I do maintain that people look bulky and uncoordinated if they are only lift weights and doing nothing else (i.e. excluded people who do other sports, or women in the acrobatic bodybuilding categories etc.). This can be normal/cool for men, but is noticable in women in my opinion.
While we're in a general fitness/workout thread, I want to recommend activities that require coordination and skill. If you are looking for an activity, see if you can find a broader challenge than just a weight - learning a skill in martial arts, experiencing progress more vividly in climbing, swimming and learning all 4 styles etc.
The attitude of articles like this (7 minutes) often feels like "how little do I have to do this dreaded activity for my health conscience". Meh.
There's something quite beautiful in watching a skilled lifter. Lifting a 200 pound bar without the slightest wobble takes no small amount of coordination, as does merely doing a powerclean at all.
When, due to injury, I became unable last year to perform either the snatch or the clean and jerk, I was relegated to being able to do whatever it is I could. Lots of less complicated exercises that don't share any patterns in common with either of those two lifts.
At a recent experimental trial of my technique after 15 months away from the two lifts, it came as no surprise that I came kinda bad at them now.
Do I blame the other weight training? No: I realise that these two lifts require constant practice to remain smooth, precise and efficient. It's the same for other inter-muscular coordination tasks. If you stop doing them, you get worse at them.
My flexibility, coordination and posture has all improved substantially through lifting - I needed a lot of work to get flexible enough to carry out e.g. deep squats and correct deadlifts without hurting myself.
Do primarily isolation exercises, and yes, you will not spend time maintaining and improving your flexibility and coordination. Do exercises with large range of motion and complex movements, like deep squats, clean and jerk or power clean (power cleans are "easy" compared to clean and jerk), or kettlebell exercises, and add in some dynamic stretches for mobility (separate by time from the lifting), and most people will get far more flexible and coordinated.
Personally I'm annoyed at people worrying about getting bulky for two reasons: Yes, it is annoying seeing beginners be all presumptuous about how easy it'll be, but I also find well trained but non-bulky women more attractive. And I happen to know that most of them will never, ever get into bulky territory without a combination of cutting their body fat to unhealthy levels and steroid use, so I would love more women to lift weights..
"Double" your strength, sure, in the sense that beginner gains due to improved coordination and better understanding of your actual limits means it's not uncommon to double or triple the weight you can lift in the first few months (I tripled most of mine in the first month I exercised - these days I'm lucky if I can increase my max by 2.5kg per month from starting points ranging from 90kg to ca. 200kg depending on lift; often the increase takes longer than a month by now).
Almost all of the people you see pictures off with really huge muscles today are/were heavy steroid users. Arnie looks "normal" compared to modern bodybuilders, and he used lots of steroids and put in massive amount of effort (another thing a lot of non-lifters don't understand is that steroid users don't get it easy, what they get is much faster and better recovery, letting them work harder and keep improving beyond a point where non-steroid users plateau) year after year after year. He first won a competition in 1965 after many years of exercise, and got his last Mr Olympia's in 1975 and 1980. The entire competitive field moved massively in that period with
Even more so, you usually see pictures of them that are nothing at all like what they normally look like. When training for Conan, Arnold decided to take one last shot at Mr. Olympia, and went on to win the 1980. Here's what he looked like: http://www.ironmanmagazine.com/blog/johnhansen/2011/12/27/th...
But he looked like this, minutes to hours at a time at most, while covered in oil and dark colouring to bring out his definition. This is Arnold near or at his peak, after months of gruelling competition preparation, followed by making sure he is hydrated just right and his muscles are pumped for competition.
Outside of competition or exercise situations most lifters will be much less lean (especially power lifters) and will ironically often look smaller as a result of less definition and for many a less V-shaped torso that masks some of the development. I even find myself impressed by guys at the gym that I know for a fact are less muscular than me when they happen to be leaner so their build is more noticeable.
I just did heavy (for me) bench sets this morning. When I do, my chest and arms swell enough that my normally well fitting t-shifts stretch noticeably. I have to keep adjusting my polo shirts. This lasts for a couple of hours, and the swelling wears off.
I'm roughly Arnie's height, and weigh as much as he did at his peak. My body volume is bigger than he was at his peak, but I look much smaller because I have about 15kg more fat than him and 15kg or so less muscle... (I can claim my volume is bigger because muscle is more dense than fat - his overall volume would have been smaller, but concentrated in more muscle on his arms, chest and legs rather than as more evenly spread fat; I believe his waist was 34" when he was competing; I'm 36" to 38").
This is after 8 years of "recreational" lifting, starting at 30. I'm consistently in the gym 3-5 times every week outside of perhaps 2-3 weeks a year. If I started younger, and lifted more seriously, I might have gotten closer in size, but without steroids and far more work I'd have no chance of getting close to that kind of muscle volume and development. I'm not even at competitive levels for regional competitions in either power lifting or body building.
Yet I look more muscular than most guys who worry about getting bulky ever will, but I look tiny compared to well developed body builders much smaller than Arnold, despite a similar body volume.
Another thing most people that worry about this don't realize is that they eat way too little to ever get to even my size no matter how much they exercise. Currently I'm gaining strength at a good rate without increasing my weight thanks to mostly following intermittent fasting with a very high protein diet. Most days I eat 180g-230g of protein... Most people will find they'll be so stuffed they can hardly push more food down if they try that, pretty much irrespective of total calorie intake - getting most of it via lean chicken to give me some flexibility for other meals, still means I have nearly a kilo of chicken for lunch... I'm sick of chicken...
And I am not eating enough to get steroid-eating body-builder big, by far - I currently eat at roughly maintenance levels but varying up and down to get me in a slight deficit on non-exercise days and slightly above on exercise days.
(Can't remember which one it was, but I read it in a book by decathlete Dan O'Brien when I was about 10.)
Before I started barbells, I had a fair amount of muscle mass. My muscles got a bit bigger, but I got a lot stronger.
I'd also like to clarify that I didn't really increase my gym time to do barbells. It takes about 3 hours per week. 1 hour, 3 days per week.
The main difference is the type of exercise done, and making sure that I sleep and eat in such a way to promote muscle repair.
This is the main time suck for me in weight training. Eating like a combination horse/tiger is pretty time consuming.