17 Mar
Blog

10 Best Bodyweight Exercises To Build Your back

Bodyweight exercises have been making the rounds for quite some time because of their excellence and potential. In the world of fitness, these exercises have largely contributed to this. So they have come to be known as the holy grail of all workouts. What's even better is that these workouts are simple, effective, and give instant results.

Since we talked about these exercises in depth on our previous blog, now we're going to help you explore the 10 best bodyweight exercises for your back!

Gluteal bridge

  1. Lie on the floor with your hands open near your hips for balance.
  2. Now try to slide through your heels and tighten your glutes. Something like this will help you get your butt off the floor.
  3. Raise your hips until your shoulder, hips, and knees are in line.
  4. In slow motion, keep your abs busy and lower them to the floor.
  5. Repeat the workout.

Row of planks

  1. Start in a plank position.
  2. Raise one arm and row your elbows in a rowing motion. Now try to bring your arm down.
  3. Repeat the workout on the other end.
  4. Switch between both sides in 30 to 60 seconds.

Pull-up

  1. Hold the bar with your hands shoulder-width apart. Make sure your palms are facing your body.
  2. Try to keep your lower body still. Make sure you use your core and top strength well enough.
  3. Pull your body until your chin is over the bar. Make sure you do this with the help of your back muscles.
  4. Now go back down.
  5. Repeat the workout.

Cobra pose

  1. Lie face down on the floor. Spread your hands on the floor and tuck your elbows into your body.
  2. Press your hips and legs firmly into the floor. Also, squeeze your hands to lift your torso.
  3. Hold this position for 15 to 30 seconds.
  4. Now try to repeat the workout in 3 to 5 repetitions.

T-Superman

  1. Lie on your chest on the floor. Extend your arms on the floor to form a T. Your body should be straight.
  2. Now squeeze your glutes and lower your back to raise your arms. Now, be sure to also press your upper back to raise your arms.
  3. Hold for a few seconds and return to the starting position. Make sure you don't drop your arms or legs.
  4. Repeat the workout.

Wide grip push-up

  1. Start in a push-up position. Keep your hands outside of your chest. Make sure your spine is straight at this point.
  2. Now bend your elbows to drop your chest down and press your back down.
  3. Squeeze your chest to get back to the starting position.
  4. Repeat the workout.

Four-legged stands up

  1. Get on all fours.
  2. Extend your right arm forward and your left leg back while keeping your back straight.
  3. Hold this position for about three to ten seconds, then lower it down to takeoff.
  4. Repeat on the other end.

Pull lying down

  1. Start in the superman position.
  2. Lift your arms and chest off the floor.
  3. Pull both arms back toward your ribs and keep your elbows up to form a W shape.
  4. Extend your arms again and lower your body to the floor.
  5. Repeat the workout in 10 repetitions of 3 sets.

Tape pulldown

  1. Secure the tape in a door frame.
  2. Now stretch your arm and hold the band.
  3. Tense your core and squeeze your glutes together.
  4. Pull down your lat muscle and keep your elbow straight. Make sure your hand is at waist level while exercising.
  5. Go back to the starting position.

Inverted line

  1. Hold the handles of a pole with your palms facing each other. Make sure your elbows are on your sides. Your weight is in your heels. Now sit back to form a straight line.
  2. Get down from the bar, then pull your back and biceps back to the starting position.
  3. Now try to repeat the workout in 3 sets of 5 to 8 repetitions.

frequently asked Questions

  1. Are These Back Weight Exercises Helpful?
    Yes. These exercises will be helpful to you.
  2. Do I also have to concentrate on my diet?
    Yes. If you can also focus on your diet, this is good for you.
06 Mar
Blog

The 15 Best Bodyweight Exercises to Ace Your Fitness

Body weight exercises are a mass favorite for their humorous benefits. For starters, they offer coordination, flexibility, stability and endurance during training. Plus, you don't need any equipment to perform them. What's even better is that you can practice these workouts without going to the gym every day.

Discover with us the 15 best home weight workouts to instantly improve your fitness game!

Bodyweight exercises are simple, effective, and give instant results. You increase the energy level and get fit immediately. That's why most fitness freaks like to start doing these workouts every time. All you have to do is maintain your body weight in order to perform these exercises. This also means that the risk of injury is minimal.

So if you are a beginner and you are worried about the workout, don't worry. Almost all of these exercises will suit you too!

1. Squats

  • Stand with your feet parallel. You can also stand with your feet facing each other at 15 degrees.
  • First, bend your hips and knees until your thighs are at least parallel to the floor.
  • Your heels shouldn't be off the ground.
  • Push through your heels to get back up.
  • This is the best beginner workout that you can do at home.

2. Push-ups

  • Get on all fours and place your hands a little wider than your shoulders.
  • Extend your arms and legs.
  • Lower your body until your chest is almost touching the floor.
  • Pause and then back.
  • Repeat the workout.

3. Last

  • Start in a push-up position.
  • Jump forward and let both legs return next to your hands.
  • Go back to the starting position.
  • Massively helps your lower body by pumping blood to almost all parts.

4. Skater hops

  • Start from the left and then jump to the right. Make sure you go as far as you can.
  • Sit back on your right foot and try not to touch the other.
  • Now repeat the step to land on the other foot.
  • It is undoubtedly an exercise done at home.

5. Burpee

  • Start in a low squat position.
  • Now kick your feet back into a push-up.
  • Do a push-up and bring your feet back to a crouch.
  • Jump up as far as you can and get back into the push-up.
  • It's one of the best beginner exercises to get started.

6. Arm circles

  • Extend your arms at your sides and stand tall. Make sure your arms are perpendicular to your torso.
  • Now make clockwise circles about 1 foot in diameter for about 20 to 30 seconds.
  • Now reverse the movement.
  • Fortunately, it's the easiest to do. So any beginner can get started with this without even thinking about it.

7. Frozen V-Sit

  • Lie on the floor with your arms and legs outstretched. Your hands and legs should be off the floor.
  • Begin the workout by lifting your torso while your legs come down to your feet.
  • Hold this position for about ten seconds.
  • If you are craving those packs of 6, this is the way to get it!

8. Step-up

  • Get a bench and put your right foot on the surface.
  • Make sure your right leg is straight.
  • Return to the starting position.
  • Repeat for ten to twelve repetitions on each side.
  • This is another potential workout for beginners.

9. Donkey whips

  • Start on all fours and lift your right leg behind you.
  • Now bring your right leg to the right side and then back to the center.
  • Repeat on the other end.

10. Dips

  • Hold the dip bars with your palms and straighten your arms.
  • Now lower until your elbows are on the right side. Make sure they don't flare up.
  • Get up again and repeat the workout.

11. Forward lunges

  • Stand up. Make sure your feet are together.
  • Now take a massive leap forward with your right foot. Bend your right leg until your front thigh is parallel to the floor. Your back knee should barely touch the floor.
  • Now push through your back front heel and stand up again.
  • Repeat on the other side.

12. Sit-ups

  • Lie on the floor and bend your knee.
  • Put your hands behind your head and contract your core as you lift your torso.
  • Lower yourself and return to the starting position.
  • Repeat the workout for the best experience.

13. Fire hydrant

  • Start exercising on all fours.
  • Now lift your right leg to the side and keep your knee bent. Your knee should be at hip height.
  • Lower yourself down and move your knee across the floor.
  • Repeat on the other side.

14. Handstand wall walk

  • Stand in a handstand position with your feet against the wall.
  • Move your hands forward and walk down the wall until you are all the way down.
  • It's a fun exercise to do at home.

15. Trunk twists

  • Start on a high plank and attack your core.
  • Your left knee should come under your body towards your right elbow by twisting your torso slightly.
  • Repeat training on alternate ends.

frequently asked Questions

  1. How long does it take to see results?
    People who exercise daily and eat healthily can see results within six months. However, there may be times when you notice changes within at least three months.
  2. Can women do body weight training?
    Of course! Both men and women can build strong muscles through daily exercise.
  3. Do I need a trainer for this?
    Not really! A guided tutorial and the instructions listed above are enough for you.
10 Aug
Blog

Spiderman Push-Ups: One Bodyweight Exercise to Rule Them All

Pushups are the gold standard in bodyweight training and at home. In fact, they probably deserve to be the first exercise from toddler to senior. They don't require any special skills or genetic predispositions at any level, they are adaptable to almost any situation, and they never let you down, get easier, or cease to be useful.

My grandfather, a veteran, would get up every morning until he died at the age of 94 and hit 20 pushups before we did anything else. No excuses. Do push-ups.

Increase your push up game

The Spiderman push-up is a variant that not only gets you out of the rut if a push-up bores you or doesn't give you the sense of achievement you long for, but also offers a full-body workout that hits a trifecta of strength, endurance and Agility in a movement that is difficult to control.

There are a few things that you need to be aware of before jumping into this move:

  1. They effectively hold a perfect plank position, top and bottom handles, throughout the position. That means whether you are in the up or down position of the push-up, you are maintaining a straight line from head to butt, you are not dropping your pelvis so it looks like you are about to hump the floor and you will feel tension through the length of your body. Just remember to avoid straining your lower back
  2. Your elbows don't try to escape and stay in place by your side throughout the movement. This is exactly what they try to do when you feel tired or lack the flexibility to get your knees in the right position. You want to feel the power build up through your arms and upper body, and then conquer those elbows
  3. You will open your hips at one point, meaning that you have an antagonistic interaction that is taking place between the tension in your body and the loose movement of your leg that opens up as your knees move towards your elbow. You want your lower body to be included, not left out. Therefore, when you raise your knees, focus on the shape and strength of your legs
  4. You need to think of this exercise as both unilateral and bilateral as it goes both ways. So try to feel the shifts in movement and tension through your body and react to the forces that are at play. You want to create variations that change the needs of this exercise and then you want to know the flow of movements

With that in mind, the instructions in this video are straightforward. As I said earlier, this is not a complicated exercise, but when you think about the technique and form requirements, there are many challenges you have to overcome to complete them.

When you're ready, you can make a pretty strong case for building a full, high-intensity workout around the Spiderman push-up. Change the pace to controlled, slower movements and you'll create constant tension in your muscles to emphasize more strength.

Increase the pace while maintaining strict form and you should be able to create a strenuous full body HIIT workout. Do it casually, including to warm up, and you could get all of your joints moving and feel like you open up a little.

Just keep that strong line that runs through your torso so that you don't twist or collapse at any point. Otherwise, adjust the rep scheme, your rest time between sets, or whatever so you don't blow away unnecessarily.

The key to bodyweight exercises (especially pushups) is how you can sit in the driver's seat and do them the way you want.

The Spiderman push-up is pretty good at giving you feedback on your entire body, and it can probably teach you a little more about yourself and your weaknesses and strengths.

09 Aug
Blog

Spiderman Push-Ups: One Bodyweight Exercise to Rule Them All

Pushups are the gold standard in bodyweight training and at home. In fact, they probably deserve to be the first exercise from toddler to senior. They don't require any special skills or genetic predispositions at any level, they are adaptable to almost any situation, and they never let you down, get easier, or cease to be useful.

My grandfather, a veteran, would get up every morning until he died at the age of 94 and hit 20 pushups before we did anything else. No excuses. Do push-ups.

Increase your push up game

The Spiderman push-up is a variant that not only gets you out of the rut if a push-up bores you or doesn't give you the sense of achievement you long for, but also offers a full-body workout that hits a trifecta of strength, endurance and Agility in a movement that is difficult to control.

There are a few things that you need to be aware of before jumping into this move:

  1. They effectively hold a perfect plank position, top and bottom handles, throughout the position. That means whether you are in the up or down position of the push-up, you are maintaining a straight line from head to butt, you are not dropping your pelvis so it looks like you are about to hump the floor and you will feel tension through the length of your body. Just remember to avoid straining your lower back
  2. Your elbows don't try to escape and stay in place by your side throughout the movement. This is exactly what they try to do when you feel tired or lack the flexibility to get your knees in the right position. You want to feel the power build up through your arms and upper body, and then conquer those elbows
  3. You will open your hips at one point, meaning that you have an antagonistic interaction that is taking place between the tension in your body and the loose movement of your leg that opens up as your knees move towards your elbow. You want your lower body to be included, not left out. Therefore, when you raise your knees, focus on the shape and strength of your legs
  4. You need to think of this exercise as both unilateral and bilateral as it goes both ways. So try to feel the shifts in movement and tension through your body and react to the forces that are at play. You want to create variations that change the needs of this exercise and then you want to know the flow of movements

With that in mind, the instructions in this video are straightforward. As I said earlier, this is not a complicated exercise, but when you think about the technique and form requirements, there are many challenges you have to overcome to complete them.

When you're ready, you can make a pretty strong case for building a full, high-intensity workout around the Spiderman push-up. Change the pace to controlled, slower movements and you'll create constant tension in your muscles to emphasize more strength.

Increase the pace while maintaining strict form and you should be able to create a strenuous full body HIIT workout. Do it casually, including to warm up, and you could get all of your joints moving and feel like you open up a little.

Just keep that strong line that runs through your torso so that you don't twist or collapse at any point. Otherwise, adjust the rep scheme, your rest time between sets, or whatever so you don't blow away unnecessarily.

The key to bodyweight exercises (especially pushups) is how you can sit in the driver's seat and do them the way you want.

The Spiderman push-up is pretty good at giving you feedback on your entire body, and it can probably teach you a little more about yourself and your weaknesses and strengths.

08 Jul
Blog

How to Intensify Your At-Home Bodyweight Workout

It is more important than ever to understand how you can customize your workout to keep getting results.

With gyms worldwide closed, the question fitness freaks keep asking is: "Can you still get results if you exercise at home?"

The answer is yes. Can you continue to get consistent results? Yes, provided you understand some important intensity strategies to effectively implement progressive overload. In this article, we give you the six most important ways to achieve results from the comfort of your own home with simple intensity adjustments.

First of all, it is important to understand that you can make serious gains with your body weight.

Though contradicting many popular fitness cultures, the gym isn't the only place where you can lose weight, build muscle, and improve your performance. Here's a quick overview of how you can use body weight training as a critical part of your fitness goal.

Is Your Weight Loss Goal?

If your main fitness goal is to lose weight, your main focus should be on creating an energy deficit – meaning that you are consuming more energy than you are consuming. An energy deficit is typically created by calorie restriction and increased physical activity.

Regardless of whether you increase your physical activity during training or during training at home, What matters is that you move and push regularly.

Body weight training can burn lots of calories, especially if you do a high number of repetitions with limited rest and intense exercise.

Is your goal to build muscle?

To build muscle, you need to stimulate muscle hypertrophy. Without going into exercise science too much, you need to know the following: Muscle hypertrophy requires three mechanisms:

  1. Muscle damage can occur if you do a workout of sufficient length with enough sets per body part.
  2. Mechanical tension can occur when you perform each exercise slowly and alternately concentrically and eccentrically.
  3. Metabolic stress can occur if you do an exercise with a high number of repetitions.

Optimally, you would use heavy weights with progressive overload, with a different repetition, and a set range to build muscle. However, it is possible to build muscle by doing bodyweight exercises if you follow specially curated workouts that promote every key mechanism for hypertrophy.

Is your goal to build strength?

Body weight training is for you. Using your body's weight as resistance is one of the most effective ways to build strength.

Performing functional movements focuses on strengthening the most important movement patterns that are transferred into your daily life and increase your physical strength.

Body weight training is not necessarily superior compared to using weights, but it is just as beneficial and probably more practical, especially in the current climate.

Strength is built by increasing strength and endurance, and body weight training is ideal for both goals. Plyometric exercises help develop strength, and high-repetition bodyweight exercises are a great way to build endurance.

What determines your results in weight training at home is your ability to implement progressive overload. It's easy in the gym. But it can get a little more complicated at home. If you are not yet familiar with the concept of progressive overload, here is a brief overview of what you need to know.

What is progressive overload?

The principle of progressive overload states that muscles have to grow, performance or strength have to increase or a similar improvement has to occur. The human body must be forced to adapt to a tension that goes beyond what it has experienced before.

Ignore anyone who has ever told you that you have to change your exercise routine every few days to shock your muscles. There is no scientific evidence to support this; Your muscles are muscles, not people. You don't know what you're doing, just that you're working under tension.

Research shows that the most effective way to build muscle is to repeat the same movements and exercises and increase the intensity of the workout to keep forcing your muscles to work and adjust.

This increase in intensity is the concept of progressive overload. The progressive overload forces your muscles to work harder each time so that they continue to tear, repair and grow.

If you want to learn more about it, read this article. So keep the exercises the same, but increase the intensity.

Logically, the best way to do this is to increase the weight you use. But if you get stuck at home training, do you still have to buy heavier dumbbells? That would make your fitness trip a lot more complicated than it needs to be. So here is what you need to do.

Implement progressive overload

  • Increase the weight – This is the most typical way to implement progressive overload. Even if you only increase the weight by five pounds, your muscles will be forced to work harder and adapt faster. Make a note of the weight you use during each workout so you don't forget it.
  • Increase the volume of the sentences / repetitions – Increasing sets or repetitions forces your body to adapt to a higher intensity. It also builds up metabolic stress, which makes your muscles look pumped. However, it also causes large amounts of muscle damage and glycogen deficiency, which takes longer to recover. Also, you can't increase your sets and reps forever, it's not practical. However, this can be an effective intensity strategy for isolation exercises with body weight or low stress. Avoid this method for compound exercises like squats and deadlifts.
  • Reduce the rest time between sets – This causes you to work harder and keep your heart rate high. This method is more suitable for endurance exercises than for hypertrophy (muscle building). So you can implement this on the upper body or lower body / HIIT superset day, but not on heavy lower body days when rest is important.

Now that we've covered the basics, what are the more advanced methods of intensifying your body weight training at home?

1. Change the pace

As mentioned earlier, this is an effective way to stimulate mechanical tension, one of the basic mechanisms for building muscle.

With mechanical tension, the time is increased under load, i. H. The time your muscles contract and the force they create to complete the movement.

Remember that your muscles do not know the size of the weights used. You only know the tension.

The pace of an exercise is the timing at which it is performedSo if you want to increase the speed of a squat, count down 2, 3 4 in your head. & # 39; break, 2 3 & # 39; and accelerate in & # 39; one & # 39 ;.

This is an example of a slow eccentric (lowering) phase, a pause at the bottom of the squat, and an accelerated concentric phase that will bring you to a halt.

If you do an exercise slowly and switch between a slower concentric and a fast eccentric, or vice versa, the time under tension increases and your muscles have to adjust.

2. Play around with fixed intensities

There are not just sentences and repetitions. There are a variety of set and rep styles:

You can do a superset for the intensity (do each exercise immediately after the other).

There are different types of supersets:

Read more about different supersets.

3. Manipulate the range of motion

Doing a weight exercise creates an axial load that can prevent a full range of motion.

For example, if you squat with a barbell on your back, your spine is in a manipulated position, so the overall range of motion may be less.

Without external weight, your range of motion will likely increase. So play with the depth and breadth of the movement planes.

4. Manipulate your posture

Similar to the above, you can change your shape to activate different muscles. Following the example of a squat, narrow squats aim at your quads, while wide squats aim at your glutes.

With only minor changes in your posture or position, all exercises can feel different.

5. Change the position of your torso

This does not work with all exercises, Some body weight exercises can be made more intense by changing the position of your torso.

For example, on the next push-up try to put one hand behind your back and shift your weight to the grounded side. This slight displacement of the trunk changes the plane of movement and the rotation of your shoulder joint to beat differently.

6. Use partials and constant tension

When you do an exercise, you play around with partial repetitions and constant tension.

For example, when doing a squat, you can try to generate constant voltage pulses while coming up a quarter of the way from a normal squat and pulsing there for repetitions.

Now you have six tips. Let's put this into practice to get the most out of your body weight training. whatever your goal is

Example workout:

exercise Sets Representative attitude tempo
Body weight squats 5 25th Wide Slowly concentric, quickly eccentric
Pushup superset

a) Conventional push-up

b)

Push constant tension upwards

3rd

3rd

20

AMRAP

a) The standard for the first exercise

b) Keep the voltage constant by staying low and not getting all the way up

 Quickly done for metabolic stress to failure
Burpees 5 fifteen Can be plank burpees, floor burpees or push-up burpees Performed as quickly as possible to increase heart rate
Push-pull superset

A dip

b) chin-up

2nd

2nd

25th

25th

a) N / A.

b) Can be wide or narrow

 Slowly concentric to increase intensity and muscle damage
plank 2nd error N / A N / A
Bulgarian split squat 5 50 per leg Wide default
08 Jul
Blog

How to Intensify Your At-Home Bodyweight Workout

It is more important than ever to understand how you can customize your workout to keep getting results.

With gyms worldwide closed, the question fitness freaks keep asking is: "Can you still get results if you exercise at home?"

The answer is yes. Can you continue to get consistent results? Yes, provided you understand some important intensity strategies to effectively implement progressive overload. In this article, we give you the six most important ways to achieve results from the comfort of your own home with simple intensity adjustments.

First of all, it is important to understand that you can make serious gains with your body weight.

Though contradicting many popular fitness cultures, the gym isn't the only place where you can lose weight, build muscle, and improve your performance. Here's a quick overview of how you can use body weight training as a critical part of your fitness goal.

Is Your Weight Loss Goal?

If your main fitness goal is to lose weight, your main focus should be on creating an energy deficit – meaning that you are consuming more energy than you are consuming. An energy deficit is typically created by calorie restriction and increased physical activity.

Regardless of whether you increase your physical activity during training or during training at home, What matters is that you move and push regularly.

Body weight training can burn lots of calories, especially if you do a high number of repetitions with limited rest and intense exercise.

Is your goal to build muscle?

To build muscle, you need to stimulate muscle hypertrophy. Without going into exercise science too much, you need to know the following: Muscle hypertrophy requires three mechanisms:

  1. Muscle damage can occur if you do a workout of sufficient length with enough sets per body part.
  2. Mechanical tension can occur when you perform each exercise slowly and alternately concentrically and eccentrically.
  3. Metabolic stress can occur if you do an exercise with a high number of repetitions.

Optimally, you would use heavy weights with progressive overload, with a different repetition, and a set range to build muscle. However, it is possible to build muscle by doing bodyweight exercises if you follow specially curated workouts that promote every key mechanism for hypertrophy.

Is your goal to build strength?

Body weight training is for you. Using your body's weight as resistance is one of the most effective ways to build strength.

Performing functional movements focuses on strengthening the most important movement patterns that are transferred into your daily life and increase your physical strength.

Body weight training is not necessarily superior compared to using weights, but it is just as beneficial and probably more practical, especially in the current climate.

Strength is built by increasing strength and endurance, and body weight training is ideal for both goals. Plyometric exercises help develop strength, and high-repetition bodyweight exercises are a great way to build endurance.

What determines your results in weight training at home is your ability to implement progressive overload. It's easy in the gym. But it can get a little more complicated at home. If you are not yet familiar with the concept of progressive overload, here is a brief overview of what you need to know.

What is progressive overload?

The principle of progressive overload states that muscles have to grow, performance or strength have to increase or a similar improvement has to occur. The human body must be forced to adapt to a tension that goes beyond what it has experienced before.

Ignore anyone who has ever told you that you have to change your exercise routine every few days to shock your muscles. There is no scientific evidence to support this; Your muscles are muscles, not people. You don't know what you're doing, just that you're working under tension.

Research shows that the most effective way to build muscle is to repeat the same movements and exercises and increase the intensity of the workout to keep forcing your muscles to work and adjust.

This increase in intensity is the concept of progressive overload. The progressive overload forces your muscles to work harder each time so that they continue to tear, repair and grow.

If you want to learn more about it, read this article. So keep the exercises the same, but increase the intensity.

Logically, the best way to do this is to increase the weight you use. But if you get stuck at home training, do you still have to buy heavier dumbbells? That would make your fitness trip a lot more complicated than it needs to be. So here is what you need to do.

Implement progressive overload

  • Increase the weight – This is the most typical way to implement progressive overload. Even if you only increase the weight by five pounds, your muscles will be forced to work harder and adapt faster. Make a note of the weight you use during each workout so you don't forget it.
  • Increase the volume of the sentences / repetitions – Increasing sets or repetitions forces your body to adapt to a higher intensity. It also builds up metabolic stress, which makes your muscles look pumped. However, it also causes large amounts of muscle damage and glycogen deficiency, which takes longer to recover. Also, you can't increase your sets and reps forever, it's not practical. However, this can be an effective intensity strategy for isolation exercises with body weight or low stress. Avoid this method for compound exercises like squats and deadlifts.
  • Reduce the rest time between sets – This causes you to work harder and keep your heart rate high. This method is more suitable for endurance exercises than for hypertrophy (muscle building). So you can implement this on the upper body or lower body / HIIT superset day, but not on heavy lower body days when rest is important.

Now we've covered the basics. What are the more advanced methods of intensifying your body weight training at home?

1. Change the pace

As mentioned earlier, this is an effective way to stimulate mechanical tension, one of the basic mechanisms for building muscle.

With mechanical tension, the time is increased under load, i. H. The time your muscles contract and the force they create to complete the movement.

Remember that your muscles do not know the size of the weights used. You only know the tension.

The pace of an exercise is the timing at which it is performedSo if you want to increase the speed of a squat, count down 2, 3 4 in your head. & # 39; break, 2 3 & # 39; and accelerate in & # 39; one & # 39 ;.

This is an example of a slow eccentric (lowering) phase, a pause at the bottom of the squat, and an accelerated concentric phase that will bring you to a halt.

If you do an exercise slowly and switch between a slower concentric and a fast eccentric, or vice versa, the time under tension increases and your muscles have to adjust.

2. Play around with fixed intensities

There are not just sentences and repetitions. There are a variety of set and rep styles:

You can do a superset for the intensity (do each exercise immediately after the other).

There are different types of supersets:

Read more about different supersets.

3. Manipulate the range of motion

Doing a weight exercise creates an axial load that can prevent a full range of motion.

For example, if you squat with a barbell on your back, your spine is in a manipulated position, so the overall range of motion may be less.

Without external weight, your range of motion will likely increase. So play with the depth and breadth of the movement planes.

4. Manipulate your posture

Similar to the above, you can change your shape to activate different muscles. Following the example of a squat, narrow squats aim at your quads, while wide squats aim at your glutes.

With only minor changes in your posture or position, all exercises can feel different.

5. Change the position of your torso

This does not work with all exercises, Some body weight exercises can be made more intense by changing the position of your torso.

For example, on the next push-up try to put one hand behind your back and shift your weight to the grounded side. This slight displacement of the trunk changes the plane of movement and the rotation of your shoulder joint to beat differently.

6. Use partials and constant tension

When you do an exercise, you play around with partial repetitions and constant tension.

For example, when doing a squat, you can try to generate constant voltage pulses while coming up a quarter of the way from a normal squat and pulsing there for repetitions.

Now you have six tips. Let's put this into practice to get the most out of your body weight training. whatever your goal is

Example workout:

exercise Sets Representative attitude tempo
Body weight squats 5 25th Wide Slowly concentric, quickly eccentric
Pushup superset

a) Conventional push-up

b)

Push constant tension upwards

3rd

3rd

20

AMRAP

a) The standard for the first exercise

b) Keep the voltage constant by staying low and not getting all the way up

 Quickly done for metabolic stress to failure
Burpees 5 fifteen Can be plank burpees, floor burpees or push-up burpees Performed as quickly as possible to increase heart rate
Push-pull superset

A dip

b) chin-up

2nd

2nd

25th

25th

a) N / A.

b) Can be wide or narrow

 Slowly concentric to increase intensity and muscle damage
plank 2nd error N / A N / A
Bulgarian split squat 5 50 per leg Wide default
28 Apr
Blog

5 Reasons Why High-Rep Bodyweight Workouts Are Hurting You

5 reasons why high-rep weight workouts hurt you - fitness, functional fitness, body weight, cortisol, volume, high-intensity workouts, home workouts, high reps, pushups. Lunges, squats, claps, jump squats, reverse plank

While the world of functional fitness has consistently tended to do hundreds of squats, burpees, and lunges in the past six weeks, trainer James Fitzgerald warns that this will do more harm than good. Fitzgerald, winner of the first CrossFit games in 2007 and founder of OPEX Fitness, said:

"They are not functional and cause cortisol dependency. Performance drops during body weight circles, although they look chic on a zoom call with a class, result in poor motion compensation and a depth of 1,000 repetitions," he added.

Although 200 lunges for the time could lead to a "sweaty workout" that many people seem to yearn for, according to Fitzgerald, the five main reasons to avoid programming training such as squats, pushups, lunges and burpees "for the time" are as follows:

  1. You do not achieve sustainable results
  2. They reduce immunity and resilience
  3. They lead to poor movement patterns and compensations
  4. They are not functional
  5. They cause cortisol junkies and poor behavior when exercising

So 200 lunges for the time are up, what's in?

Fitzergald explained that there are safe and effective ways to program body weight training that can make long-term progress. This is possible if you follow the basic principles of programming.

He gave the following as an example of a more effective way to use body weight movements than four laps over time:

  • Max set of gossip pushups. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 20 squats. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 60 seconds back plank. Pause 60 seconds.

Repeat four times.

Why is this a better approach?

Fitzgerald asks you to consider the following principles of body weight training:

The dose response of body weight training

To achieve effective body weight training, you need to understand the “dose response,” that is, the stimulus or outcome of each workout. According to Fitzgerald, these are three things:

  1. Intent: What is the goal of this program and what is the customer working towards?
  2. Modality: What kind of movements does the client do?
  3. The single person: Who am I programming for? What are your individual skills, abilities, limitations, training age?

If you understand who (i.e. person), what (i.e. modality) and why (i.e. intention), you can control the dose response and ultimately the resulting adjustments and results.

The limits of body weight training

Before you put together a body weight program, you also need to understand its limits.

These restrictions mainly concern activities with a closed chain and relative strength, ie strength against body weight, and strength endurance, ie the ability to do repetitions at submaximal loads.

They also have relatively little variability because they have no access to equipment and novel means of performing movement patterns.

As a result, many trainers prescribe many repetitions of very similar types of muscle contractions, which can become a problem for most as poor movement patterns are then repeated for a large number of repetitions.

In addition, body weight training effectively lacks intensity, at least in terms of maximum exertion, since you have no access to external stress. For stronger and fitter customers, this means that endurance efforts are sometimes converted into metabolic efforts that become glycolytic. In other words, they are starting to take advantage of the anaerobic milk system, which is a great way to lower immunity and bring about negative metabolic adjustments as it promotes the use of sugar as a fuel.

Three final tips for an effective design of the body weight program

Once you understand the above, you can start thinking about how to program body weight training effectively.

Fitzgerald recommends programming whole body resistance, which includes upper and lower body movements as well as core movements.

From there he says:

Tip 1: Create a progressive program

As with any effective program, be it a strength or endurance program, a body weight training program should be progressive over time, building up from the previous one every week. Three ways to do this include:

  1. Increase the volume over time and add repetitions for every session and every week.
  2. Increase the speed of contractions over time, from motor control to endurance to dynamic movements
  3. Adjust the pace and increase the eccentric or lowering phase of an exercise

Tip 2: split the days

For most lifestyle athletes, Fitzgerald recommends adhering to a simple exercise program that focuses on durability and alternates between full-body resistance training days and aerobic training days.

Regarding # 3: consider the individual long-term

Just make sure you understand your client's physical abilities, goals, and intentions, and then design workouts that are “within your client's abilities”.

If you would like to learn more from Fitzgerald, you can find out about its various training options at OPEX Fitness.

27 Apr
Blog

5 Reasons Why High-Rep Bodyweight Workouts Are Hurting You

5 reasons why high-rep weight workouts hurt you - fitness, functional fitness, body weight, cortisol, volume, high-intensity workouts, home workouts, high reps, pushups. Lunges, squats, claps, jump squats, reverse plank

While the world of functional fitness has been tending to do hundreds of squats, burpees and lunges over the past six weeks, trainer James Fitzgerald warns that this does more harm than good. Fitzgerald, winner of the first CrossFit games in 2007 and founder of OPEX Fitness, said:

"They are not functional and cause cortisol dependency. Performance drops during body weight circles, although they look chic on a zoom call with a class, result in poor motion compensation and a depth of 1,000 repetitions," he added.

Although 200 lunges for the time could lead to a "sweaty workout" that many people seem to yearn for, according to Fitzgerald, the five main reasons to avoid programming training such as squats, pushups, lunges and burpees "for the time" are as follows:

  1. You do not achieve sustainable results
  2. They reduce immunity and resilience
  3. They lead to poor movement patterns and compensations
  4. They are not functional
  5. They cause cortisol junkies and poor behavior when exercising

So 200 lunges have expired for the time, what's in it?

Fitzergald explained that there are safe and effective ways to program body weight training that can make long-term progress. This is possible if you follow the basic principles of programming.

He gave the following as an example of a more effective way to use body weight movements than four laps over time:

  • Max set of gossip pushups. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 20 squats. Pause 60 seconds.
  • 60 seconds back plank. Pause 60 seconds.

Repeat four times.

Why is this a better approach?

Fitzgerald asks you to consider the following principles of body weight training:

The dose response of body weight training

To achieve effective body weight training, you need to understand the “dose response,” that is, the stimulus or outcome of each workout. According to Fitzgerald, these are three things:

  1. Intent: What is the goal of this program and what is the customer working towards?
  2. Modality: What kind of movements does the client do?
  3. The single person: Who am I programming for? What are your individual skills, abilities, limitations, training age?

If you understand who (i.e. person), what (i.e. modality) and why (i.e. intention), you can control the dose response and ultimately the resulting adjustments and results.

The limits of body weight training

Before you put together a body weight program, you also need to understand its limits.

These restrictions mainly concern activities with a closed chain and relative strength, ie strength against body weight, as well as strength endurance, ie the ability to do repetitions at submaximal loads.

They also have relatively little variability because they have no access to equipment and novel means of performing movement patterns.

As a result, many trainers prescribe many repetitions of very similar types of muscle contractions, which can become a problem for most as poor movement patterns are then repeated for a large number of repetitions.

In addition, body weight training effectively lacks intensity, at least in terms of maximum exertion, since you have no access to external stress. For stronger and fitter customers, this means that endurance efforts are sometimes converted into metabolic efforts that become glycolytic. In other words, they are starting to use the anaerobic milk system, which is a great way to lower immunity and bring about negative metabolic adjustments as it promotes the use of sugar as a fuel.

Three final tips for an effective design of the body weight program

Once you understand the above, you can start thinking about how to program body weight training effectively.

Fitzgerald recommends programming whole body resistance, which includes upper and lower body movements as well as core movements.

From there he says:

Tip 1: Create a progressive program

As with any effective program, be it a strength or endurance program, a body weight training program should be progressive over time, building up from the previous one every week. Three ways to do this include:

  1. Increase the volume over time and add repetitions for every session and every week.
  2. Increase the speed of contractions over time, from motor control to endurance to dynamic movements
  3. Adjust the pace and increase the eccentric or lowering phase of an exercise

Tip 2: split the days

For most lifestyle athletes, Fitzgerald recommends adhering to a simple exercise program that focuses on durability and alternates between full-body resistance training days and aerobic training days.

Regarding # 3: consider the individual long-term

Just make sure you understand your client's physical abilities, goals, and intentions, and then design workouts that are “within your client's abilities”.

If you would like to learn more from Fitzgerald, you can find out about its various training options at OPEX Fitness.

27 Mar
Blog

The 8-Minute Bodyweight Circuit: Does It Actually Work?

I love research that makes movement more accessible to everyone. An article from the American College of Sports Medicine [1] does just that. Researchers reviewed the literature on high-intensity circuit training and developed a cycle of bodyweight exercises that can be done anywhere in less than eight minutes.

The exercises in the circuit are carried out continuously for 30 seconds with high intensity, with a 10 second break and transition between the exercises. The 12 exercises in the circuit are:

1. Jumping Jacks

2. Sit on the wall

3. Pushups

4. Crunches

5. Step-ups

6. Squats

7. Dips

The 8-minute bodyweight circuit: does it actually work? - Fitness, bodyweight exercises, bodyweight, squats, circuit training, lunges, dips, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, wall seats, step-ups

8. Planks

9. Run on the spot

10. lunges

11. Pushups with rotation

The 8-minute bodyweight circuit: does it actually work? - Fitness, bodyweight exercises, bodyweight, squats, circuit training, lunges, dips, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, wall seats, step-ups

12. Side plank

While this short won't make anyone a top athlete, it could help break down training obstacles for those who don't have time to go to the gym. It could also be a great option for traveling athletes. Athletes who need even more challenges can repeat the route several times.

High-intensity circuits also depend on the athlete working with high intensity. This is difficult for people who are deconditioned or new to the exercise. I often read mainstream articles like this from the New York Times that trumpet the fact that you can get a complete workout in just a few minutes.

I don't think most of these authors really understand the requirements of 4-7 minutes of very high intensity work. It is neither comfortable nor pleasant, but they pretend that a few minutes of intensive work is preferable to 20 minutes on a treadmill.

I remember a quote from The Princess Bride that was applied to the phrase "high intensity": "You continue to use this word. I don't think it means what you think it means. "

But for the right audience at the right time, this could be a useful circuit to maintain your fitness on vacation or to start training on a limited time and budget. Try it out and let us know what you think!

References

1. Brett Klika and Chris Jordan. High-intensity circuit training with body weight: maximum results with minimal investment. ACSMs Health & Fitness Journal: May / June 2013 – Volume 17 – Issue 3 – pp. 8–13. doi: 10.1249 / FIT.0b013e31828cb1e8

26 Mar
Blog

The 8-Minute Bodyweight Circuit: Does It Actually Work?

I love research that makes movement more accessible to everyone. An article from the American College of Sports Medicine [1] does just that. Researchers reviewed the literature on high-intensity circuit training and developed a cycle of bodyweight exercises that can be done anywhere in less than eight minutes.

The exercises in the circuit are carried out continuously for 30 seconds with high intensity, with a 10 second break and transition between the exercises. The 12 exercises in the circuit are:

1. Jumping Jacks

2. Sit on the wall

3. Pushups

4. Crunches

5. Step-ups

6. Squats

7. Dips

The 8-minute bodyweight circuit: does it actually work? - Fitness, bodyweight exercises, bodyweight, squats, circuit training, lunges, dips, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, wall seats, step-ups

8. Planks

9. Run on the spot

10. lunges

11. Pushups with rotation

The 8-minute bodyweight circuit: does it actually work? - Fitness, bodyweight exercises, bodyweight, squats, circuit training, lunges, dips, planks, jumping jacks, pushups, wall seats, step-ups

12. Side plank

While this short won't make anyone a top athlete, it could help break down training obstacles for those who don't have time to go to the gym. It could also be a great option for traveling athletes. Athletes who need even more challenges can repeat the route several times.

High-intensity circuits also depend on the athlete working with high intensity. This is difficult for people who are deconditioned or new to the exercise. I often read mainstream articles like this from the New York Times that trumpet the fact that you can get a complete workout in just a few minutes. I don't think most of these authors really understand the requirements of 4-7 minutes of very high intensity work. It is neither comfortable nor pleasant, but they pretend that a few minutes of intensive work is preferable to 20 minutes on a treadmill. I remember a quote from The Princess Bride that was applied to the phrase "high intensity": "You continue to use this word. I don't think it means what you think it means. "

But for the right audience at the right time, this could be a useful circuit to maintain your fitness on vacation or to start training on a limited time and budget. Try it out and let us know what you think!

References

1. Brett Klika and Chris Jordan. High-intensity circuit training with body weight: maximum results with minimal investment. ACSMs Health & Fitness Journal: May / June 2013 – Volume 17 – Issue 3 – pp. 8–13. doi: 10.1249 / FIT.0b013e31828cb1e8