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Body Weight Exercises
~ Lift Your Own Body ~
Body weight exercises can be done using your own body weight, without any equipment. There are many excellent body weight workouts using just your body.
Body weight workouts are an excellent alternative to weight training, it's the most natural way to train your body.
These types of exercises are also known as Calisthenics. It consists of movements that use the weight of your own body as the resistance to work against.
You can work most of your muscle groups using just a few exercises, which is perfect if you're short on time.
You can easily build strength and lean muscle and stay in great shape. But note, if you really want to build big muscle, then you do need to weight train.
Body weight workouts can be done pretty much anywhere. If you love the gym, it can be done there. If you want a great workout from home, then body weight exercises are perfect for that.
These workouts put you in less danger of overworking your body, which can lead to stress, fatigue, or even injury.
• Benefits of Lifting Your Own Body
• Not Just a Workout
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Can be done anytime, anywhere - this is a huge benefit for your budget. There's no need for a gym membership, or expensive gym equipment.
Develop true strength, agility and endurance - your body's ability to perform real tasks like throwing a ball, swinging an axe to chop down a tree or moving a heavy piece of furniture up a flight of stairs. All these activities require the coordination of different muscles to accomplish the task.
Great for beginners - your own body weight will provide just the right amount of resistance to strengthen and tone your muscles. Start at your own pace and build from there.
Mix it Up - you can include both strength training and cardiovascular exercises. Build lean muscle and strength at the same time.
Lose Weight - these routines are one of the best things you can do to lose some weight. Go at your own pace and then progress as you get fitter and stronger.
Improved Speed, Coordination - perfect to include these exercises for any type of sports training program
An effective body weight exercise program can push you in ways that traditional weight training workouts don't.
It provides you a stronger, more coordinated workout that will increase your development of overall strength, flexibility, and agility.
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Body weight exercises can also be used as a warm up before participating in various sports.
A warm up usually consists of a gradual increase in intensity to "warm" the muscles and prepare it to be used in any particular activity.
This also prepares the body both mentally and physically.
If you're motivated and with a little creativity, you can get a full body workout anytime, anywhere.
The best thing is that you give your body a full range of motion and your not constricted to what a "machine" would let you do. Get creative with what you do you'll never get bored!
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The short answer: yes.
Now, you may not get bulky like a bodybuilder, but you will get lean, dense muscles, which pound for pound are much stronger than someone who just lifts weights.
Bodyweight exercises like the ones you did as kid such as pull ups, push ups, squats, etc. can be INTENSE workout exercises. There's no fancy machines, no magic supplements to take. Plain and simple.
Using your own body as resistance can get you into incredible shape. It helps to get rid of body fat, which is what's covering your muscles anyway, hiding them.
If you want to show of some muscle, you have to get rid of the fat covering them.
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Doing bodyweight exercises means you're using your own body weight as the resistance, which also means the weight you use is always the same.
To increase the intensity and give your body a challenge you would need to alter the way the exercise is done.
For example, the squat. This can be pretty easy. To intensify it, squat and then on the way up, jump in the air as high as you can and then squat back down immediately. This is called a jump squat. I guarantee that your legs will be burning after even doing 10 of these.
Or do squats with one leg, push ups with one arm, you get the idea. There are so many variations to the standard exercises, which can increase the intensity with only your bodyweight.
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