Doing exercises using your own body weight is a great way to improve your overall fitness. Check out a previous article that I posted for the best lower body exercises to do without weights. I recently received an email from Harvard Medical School, which provided several advantages to doing body-weight exercises. Below are the advantages mentioned.
1. Convenience
The reason why I created the previously cited article about lower body exercises using your own body weight was so that I could personally refer back to it when I was away from my home, such as when I am camping or on vacation. Body-weight exercises are truly convenient – you can do them just about anywhere.
2. No Equipment Required
Using your own body weight to exercise is cheap, being that it doesn’t require any equipment. You don’t have to set aside space in your home for a home gym, nor do you have to go to a commercial gym. You can do body weight exercises in a field if you want to.
3. Less Intimidating
“You can do these exercises solo. You don’t have to walk into a gym full of buff exercisers and complicated-looking weight machines that require adjustments and may still not fit you properly.” Harvard Medical School pointed out in the email that I received.
4. Effectiveness
“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 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 of the parameters. The biggest 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.” Harvard stated in the same email.
5. A Little Goes A Long Way
A study in Japan with participants in their 60s found that “eight simple lower-body exercises increased the participants’ muscle strength and power by about 15% after 10 months.” Additionally, the participants “achieved these gains by doing only six workouts a month.”
6. Comprehensive
“Most body-weight exercises work multiple muscles at once 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 at a time, engaging balance, and mimicking everyday activities.” Harvard states.
7. Easy To Modify
Modifying fixed equipment, whether it is at home or at a gym, is not an easy task. Many machines have fixed ranges of motion. Body weight exercises are easy to modify for newbies and people coming back to working out after a long layoff. For example, if you can’t do standard pushups, you can do them while standing up and pushing off of a wall to build your strength.
8. Helps Prevent Injury And Disease
“Literally 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 your mood, reduce your stress level, and improve your sleep. Body-weight exercise is no exception.” states Harvard Medical School.
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