Eight Reasons to Start Body-Weight Exercises

Body-weight exercise is a form of physical activity in which you move your body against gravity resistance. This can be equipment-free cardio exercise or strength training in which you use your body as a weight. The absence of equipment requirements makes these exercises an excellent option for people who want to workout at home or on the go.

All exercise is beneficial. But even stacked against other workouts, body-weight exercise has much to offer. It provides an excellent workout and can help you overcome common excuses for avoiding exercise, like "I don’t have time to go to the gym" and "I don’t have space for a stationary bike at home." All you have to do is move your body.

Convenience

No matter where you are, you’ve got your body, so you can start exercising anywhere, anytime—in your bedroom when you wake up, in the kitchen while you’re waiting for water to boil, in your hotel room when traveling. That makes it easy to find the time.

No Cost

With body-weight exercise, there’s nothing to buy other than shoes. You don’t need stylish clothing. You don’t even require a yoga mat, much less an expensive gym membership, although you can certainly do these workouts at the gym, too. You might want a few props, such as a chair, bench, or counter, to modify some moves, but these are all items you have on hand.

Low Intimidation Factor

You can do these exercises solo. You don’t have to walk into a gym with a total of buff exercisers and complicated-looking weight machines that require adjustments and may still not fit you properly.

Effective

Research published in the journal Physiology and Behavior found that, as a form of resistance training, body-weight exercise helps build muscle "independent of an external load." But it does more than that. When Polish researchers looked at the effects of 10 weeks of body-weight exercises on various physical fitness parameters in a small group of young women, they found improvements in seven out of nine parameters. The most significant gains were in aerobic capacity, with a 33% improvement. Muscle endurance, particularly in the core, increased by 11%, while lower-body power posted a 6% gain. Even flexibility was better after the training.

Practical

While it’s good to meet the Physical Activity Guidelines, smaller amounts of body-weight exercise can also deliver results. In a small study of active people in their 60s, Japanese researchers found that a workout consisting of eight simple lower-body exercises increased the participants’ muscle strength and power by about 15% after ten months. That may not sound like much, but strength and power often decline during this stage of life. Moreover, the participants achieved these gains by doing only six workouts a month.

Functional

Most body-weight exercises work multiple muscles simultaneously rather than training an isolated muscle or muscle group, as many exercise machines and dumbbell exercises do. Therefore, body-weight exercises are considered more functional, using more muscles and joints simultaneously, engaging balance, and mimicking everyday activities.

Adjustable

It may not be obvious how to do this at first. When using your body as the weight, you can’t just remove 10 or 20 pounds as you can with machines or dumbbells. However, there are ways to modify moves to decrease or increase the resistance. You can adjust your body position—for example, doing push-ups against a wall rather than the floor—or you can change the number of times you repeat an exercise or modify the pace you’re working at.

Health Benefits

Thousands of studies have shown that the more you move, the lower your risks for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, multiple types of cancer, joint pain, and Alzheimer’s disease. Exercise can also lift mood, reduce stress, and improve sleep. Body-weight exercise is no exception.

Building Body-weight Exercises Into Your Workout Routine

If you are new to workouts, start with the basic exercises and gradually include the advanced ones. To get started, refer to my other blog post.

If you have any questions about incorporating body-weight exercises into your workout schedule, Contact Me. I would also love to hear your feedback on this post through the comments below.

Note: Research findings referred to in this post are sourced from Harvard Health Publishing