Body Weight Exercises - First Principles


You're On The Right Track
Many people are searching online for "Body Weight Exercises" or "Body Weight Conditioning" routines. You may be one of them doing this because you are seriously interested in strength training without weights or just finding a good workout without weights exercise program to do at home.
Doing bodyweight calisthenics is a good way to build muscle and endurance in a natural way. But, there's more to exercise than just building muscle or being able to lift a lot of weight on a machine or bench press.
Don't Get Sidetracked
Doing body weight exercises is not about mastering the hack squat machine, or the latissimus pull down or the knee extension or ham curl machines. It's about learning to master your own  body and how it moves. It's about tapping into your brain, isolating muscle groups, and then being able to tell those muscles to stop and start when you want them to.
I want you to envision this and let your imagination paint this picture when I ask you this question. Let me set up the scenario first: You're at the gym watching some guy do lateral raises with 50 pounds each. He cranks out 12 reps and finishes his sets. Then you watch another guy come up who may not be as big, but picks up the 50 pounders, raises them out to either side and holds them there for 1 minute without batting an eye. Which do you think is more impressive? And, for all the guys, which do you think would impress the ladies more?
Your Starting Point
The first thing to understand about body weight exercises is this: The reason for doing them is to learn how to control your body so that you can tell it to do what you want it to do when you want it to do it. When you keep this in mind, you will gain strength faster and you will be ready to move on to more challenging routines and movements.
Think about this: Who isn't amazed and secretly envious of the bodies of Olympic gymnasts? When you are watching those guys and girls tumble across the floor back flipping, front flipping, side flipping (!), who can't be impressed? When watching the guys press to a hand stand, or, hold an "Iron Cross" for a week, which one of us doesn't secretly say, "I sure would like to be able to do that!"?
These people aren't from another planet. They aren't "super men". They  are all examples of ordinary people that have put in the time to do bodyweight exercises and learning to control their bodies. That's all.
Point To Remember
These are important things to remember when you are searching for "body weight exercises" and "workouts without weights". While you want to build muscle without weights you will build it a lot faster as you are able to master and control how your body moves.
Bryan W. is a physical therapist and fitness professional. With over 16 years experience he teaches his clients how to maximize their fitness level using simple and effective training strategies. In addition he teaches his clients extremely powerful Workouts Without Weights and maintains a blog at http://www.workoutswithoutweights.net

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