Bodyweight, the way to growth

Bodyweight, the way to growth?

I've been recently rewriting my programmes and am trying to more and more utilise bodyweight training into my programme. There are many reasons for this:

Every bodyweight exercises falls into the bracket of a compound in exercise. This is therefore recruiting a large number of muscles, thus you're hitting not only the main target groups but also the secondary muscles. This surely is going to put more stress on the muscle, thus seeing further growth. Let's take the pull up for the example. The main target group would be lats and rhomboids however, the bicep, forearm, posterior delt and traps are all assisting muscles in the movement. Depending on hand placement, width etc these can be recruited more or less in the movement. This is the same in a squat, dip, push up and lunge. Many secondary muscle groups are used to perform these exercises. The more muscles recruited, the more efficient your workout. Furthermore the more muscles being worked the more calories needed to fuel these muscles meaning they're also great as a fat burning tool.

Bodyweight exercises is also great because no matter where you are you can literally do them anywhere. You can cover every muscle part through every exercise. Make them into a HIIT circuit, concentrate more on hypertrophy or just add them into the end of your routine as a final finisher, they have a purpose in every environment.

Everyone says 'but you can't get the same contraction when doing a bodyweight exercise as you do using cables or dumbbells'. My answer to this is then you simply aren't performing the correctly. Use TEMPO. Any exercise where you really focus on the tempo will promote a better contraction. This automatically puts more strain on the muscle which in turn will make it a stronger muscle. 

Bodyweight training can go hand-in-hand with building strength through flexibility. Completing bodyweight exercises through a full range of motion ensures your joints are moving freely. Plus, it can lead to improved posture and might reduce the chance of exercise-related injury. Yoga, the fave no-equipment workout for many, is another great way to to improve flexibility while also significantly improving strength. Flexibility is a component of fitness and can help in numerous ways to getting stronger. The flexibility for example of the hamstrings and lower back will aid you when it comes to deadlifts. Getting lower, recruiting more lower body power and speed to the movement, overtime increasing the weight able to be lifted. 

Lastly don't forget bodyweight is free. So no gym membership required.

Jack