How I Transitioned From Weightlifting to Bodyweight and Was Still Gaining Strength
Two months ago, I was about to start a nomadic lifestyle with a suitcase and laptop in tow, knowing that I also say goodbye to a real gym. But fitness is important to me, so I had to settle for the most important “equipment” of all: my own body. I made this work and you can too.
At first I was skeptical about progress. I used to think that bodyweight training was silly, that the only way to build the strong body I wanted was to lift weights in the gym. However, I went ahead. For science (and for my convenience).
Arguments in favor of bodyweight training
Of course, I’ve always been aware of the benefits of bodyweight training . They are beginner-friendly and perfect for a post-gym change. But most of all they are great if you don’t have access to the equipment. You just need your body and a few other things that can usually be found in your living space, in the park, or even in your hotel room.
However, this question haunted me: can I still maintain my strength gains and current aesthetics – and, in an ideal world, also gain strength and muscle – with one body weight? I was so used to lifting heavy weights in the gym that the idea of ”going” from heavy to lightweight for a long time worried me.
According to JC Deen , fitness trainer at JCDFitness:
Your own weight will definitely help you maintain strength, and some of it will be transferred to the gym. However, you will be limited in the enormous amount of strength that will be transferred into barbell exercises for two reasons: insufficient resistance and different movement patterns. The best way to get stronger in a particular exercise is to simply do that exercise.
The consensus on bodyweight training was also optimistic. One suchstudy, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, found that strength gains were similar across three leg exercises – squats, Romanian deadlifts, and calf raises – between traditional strength training, plyometric workouts (usually involving explosive movements such as like jumping) and a combination of high and low intensity strength training.
Much to my relief, areview of sports medicine research also confirms a number of benefits of both short-term and long-term intense bodyweight training for healthy individuals. These benefits include increases in strength and power, bone mass, and overall athleticism. It all sounds good to me! Backed up to some extent by encouraging evidence, I decided that I could make the program with its own weight work. Just a question of how.
Bodyweight training still tears my ass
Before I left my precious home and gym, I trained four days a week doing intense strength training for all of my major muscle groups – chest, back, legs and shoulders. I also ate with the goal of slowly losing weight (which means that I ate slightly less than my body needed). In this new program, I focused on preserving what I had.
So I started the bodyweight program five days a week , giving one day of “harder work” in the gym whenever I got to one. My bodyweight program includes four different workouts – two for the upper and two for the lower body, which I simply alternate, alternating between upper and lower body days. Each bodyweight workout takes me about 30-40 minutes.
The plus is that these 30-40 minutes are really, to put it mildly, unpleasant. It’s not about the duration, but how hard you train. One of the major drawbacks of self-weight programs is that you can easily pass them, but the common #fitspiration phrase “You get as much as you put in” actually makes a lot of sense here. As much as it takes a lot of effort to make a high-intensity interval session beneficial, you need to deliberately push yourself out of your comfort zone to continue to see results, especially in a bodyweight program.
So I keep my metabolic stress, or “burn,” as the tough guys say, high by lengthening the workout (adding one or two more sets), combining several exercises and treating them as one giant set with little or no rest. in between, making the exercise more difficult, or all of the above. By the end of each workout, I’m in zombie mode (but of course at my best).
Bodyweight training reminded me that training is fun.
When I first started out, I expected to lose a lot of the strength I fought for in the gym. But I was pleasantly surprised: in some areas I am getting stronger, and in others at least. I get more practice with certain movements (particularly lunges, push-ups and squats), and as a result, I have become better at using them; improving awareness of your body and control over your body.
And I am very pleased with my progress: I can do 25 push-ups in one set with relative ease, squat harder than ever (thanks to bodyweight training), do a couple of pull-ups with a wider grip. , and successfully holding the crow pose for a longer period – all improvements over my previous achievements!
More importantly, I’m enjoying myself again.
The world has truly become my oyster hall these days. The freedom from the gym allowed me to get creative and see almost everything as a fitness opportunity. Branch of a tree? I can use it as a pull-up bar. Stairs? Rises, crawls, and calf raises. Bench? Oh my god, this is the jackpot of bodyweight training. I could do it all on the bench: push-ups, thighs, split squats, lift-ups, box jumps, one-legged box squats, and more! Additional (portable) equipment – the suspension trainer or TRX straps – gives me a greater arsenal of creative bodyweight movements on top of anything else I come up with. You get the idea.
Things get even more interesting when I’m working on some difficult tasks, like trying to do the perfectpistol squat . One of the reasons I initially turned my nose up on bodyweight exercises was that over time they became too light and … boring. But proper development works wonders by increasing resistance, difficulty, and intensity.
Plus, I love the convenience and timing aspects of these workouts: I get them done quickly, without worrying about tedious commuting and constantly waiting for the squat rack to open during peak hours .
How to make a great bodyweight workout
While my own goal was to maintain my strength and continue my exercise habits , bodyweight training is a fantastic starting point if you want to get in shape but don’t know where to start.
There are many ways to build a bodyweight regimen . You can set it up for the traditional number of sets for any repetition style, combine them into large sets (called supersets or giant sets), finish as quickly as possible for a time, or do any combination of these sets. Here’s a simple template to follow and Greatist has tons of great bodyweight workout ideas.
In creating my own, I focused on challenging exercises like pull-ups, push-ups, squats, inverted rows, push-ups, and so on. They all target larger muscle groups, require more effort, and generally yield better results. Once you master the big movements, you can supplement your workout with things like planks, side lunges, bike kicks, and so on. “Think of this more as ancillary work for your main lifts and use them to add volume,” adds JC. Also keep these points in mind:
- Quality is more important than quantity: As I wrote earlier about lifting weights , focus on quality movements and being in good shape, even if you move through them fairly quickly. Bodyweight exercises should be no exception.
- Keep the workout challenging: The basic tenet of muscle growth is that you need to fatigue and overwork it, or gradually increase the weight, reps, or total amount of work you can do (volume). Since you can’t easily add more weight, and there comes a point where simply adding more sets or reps does little to improve continually, focus on making your workout harder by adding additional sets, shortening rest times, and moving on to advanced variations (see below). … This is important to keep your workouts fun.
- Make these exercises harder! With certain exercises, even changing the angle and position of the body in relation to the exercise can increase the difficulty. For example, in push-ups, you will ease them by pushing off the bench (tilt); conversely, you complicate them by resting your feet on a bench, hands on the ground (tilt). Experiment with the angle, change the grip, pause in the middle of the exercise, or even do the exercise with one arm or leg, and so on.
- Train often and consistently: Follow your bodyweight program like any other training plan: consistently and trying your best to stick to your schedule. Since the loads are not heavy, you can replenish the weight with more sets and more frequencies. JC says, “You can probably do a workout every day – either full-body exercises or alternating upper and lower body.”
- Add variety: not only to your exercises, but also in the plane of motion: you have vertical and horizontal thrusts (overhead presses and push-ups), vertical and horizontal rows (pull-ups and pulls), crunches (Russian crunches), and hips. hinge (like deadlifts and bends to lift something right). Consider including several sets of different types of exercises at different angles and intensities to help your body move more freely and like an athlete!
If there is something that taught me thevideo onYouTube about the athletes who do crazy things with my weight, and my own experience, there is no single way to get fit and build a strong body. Bodyweight exercises are just one trick in a big trick package. Best of all, they are free.