Body Weight Exercises

For some reason a large majority of the fitness gurus today preach the benefits of workouts with machines, weights and other equipment.  Most are involved in selling the machines, weights and other equipment or they want you to start paying them monthly to come to their establishment.  Do you really need all of this to get and stay fit? 

Believe it or not, you can achieve a high level of fitness without any equipment using a small amount of space in your house, apartment, room that you rent or some space outside at a local park or playground.  Having an exercise mat is nice, but not mission critical.  This is the beauty of body weight exercises.  You can truly do them just about anywhere, and you can do them anytime to suit your schedule.  They are great for people on the go.  

What are body weight exercises?  They are motions and positions that use your own body weight against gravity, a very powerful force.  They are as simple as push-ups and pull-ups.  They also include squats and lunges.  The possibilities are almost endless since there can be many variations of a basic exercise.  Push-ups include military style push-ups and Hindu push-ups.  Both of these exercises can be varied with different arm and leg positions.  The speed of the exercise can also make a huge difference as well.  Try doing 10, or as many as you can do, traditional military style push-ups very slowly and see how different that feels from doing 10 or so very quickly?

One of the major drawbacks to exercising with weights is that muscles tend to get isolated.  Weight and machine exercises for biceps or triceps and other muscles tend to concentrate and focus on one or a couple of muscles.  A lot of the smaller support muscles and the joints around them get ignored and underdeveloped.  Injuries like muscle pulls and strained and torn ligaments and tendons can result. 

Bodyweight exercises workout the entire muscle group.  The groups also get worked out at different and varying angles hence more overall strengthening of all muscles in a group, not just the big show ones.  Joints and connective tissue are much stronger and less injury prone.

Find the time and stay fit.  15 to 30 minutes a day can work wonders if done consistently.  Google body weight exercises and see what you find.  There are a lot of great programs and books available and a lot of great free resources as well.  Check out power yoga as well.  Some of those workouts and exercises are very powerful.

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