workiing out without weights

[Wynton]

It occurs to me that I might exercise more frequently if I could do it just as effectively without weights, simply because then I'd be able to do it at home or when I was out of town.

I was about to solicit routines here (for strength-building without weights), but I figured I might as well provide my own links I found first.

If anyone has the time, let me know what you think of the advice given at these links, and even better, let me know whether you have other suggestions.

Or tell me whether you think it's really not possible to replace weights. If it makes a difference, my personal goals are just to lose a little weight, maintain some decent tone and get stronger for the purpose of avoiding injuries. Getting bigger is not important to me.

Visualized Resistance Training

Suggestions from Fighting Arts forum

Paul Becker suggestions

Lee Haney suggestions

[cbloom]

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Visualized Resistance Training


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This is totally retarded.

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Suggestions from Fighting Arts forum


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This is pretty good.

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Paul Becker suggestions


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This is moderately retarded.

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Lee Haney suggestions

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All this flexing against your own resistance is pretty retarded.

I just did a quick web search and this looks much better :

http://www.trainforstrength.com/exercises.shtml
BODY BY FISH

I'll post my routine in the next post.

[cbloom]

I used to do a lot of bodyweight training back when I was doing Kung Fu. The big problem with bodyweight training IMHO is that it's really hard to get your rep count into hypertrophy range consistently, and it's also really hard to steadily increase the intensity as part of a programming cycle. However, for general fitness it's superb. If you're very mentally strong in your workouts you can definitely do bodyweight work for hypertrophy.

Anyway, my favorite stuff :

PUSHUPS : obviously, but not just flat pushups, inclines, declines, feet up the wall, claps, wide, narrow, pushups with a plus, hindu pushups - tons of good stuff.

PULLUPS : and chinups, and pullups with ab work like knees to the bar, leg lifts, pullups then a muscle-up, kipping pullups, jump up and negative, wide and narrow grip, pullups to your belly button.

ABS : there's so much bodyweight ab stuff I'll hardly mention it. The best stuff imho is combining it to make it more full body. One I've been doing recently is plank (hover) to side plank to side bends to pushups cycles for as long as possible. Also pilates is a great resource for tons of awesome hard core work.

LEGS : burpees, squats, plyometric jumps, box jumps, step ups, but also mainly just sprint intervals, uphill sprints, stuff like that.

If you have a kids jungle gym in a park you can do all this stuff and also more stuff like hypers and reverse hypers and lots of core stuff by using the monkey bars like a roman chair.

[2/325Falcon]

Home workout stuff from Ross Enamait.

[smallworld00]

I usually follow some related books

[AcTiOnJaCsOn]

i think theres no substitute for weights

[Blarg]

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I used to do a lot of bodyweight training back when I was doing Kung Fu. The big problem with bodyweight training IMHO is that it's really hard to get your rep count into hypertrophy range consistently, and it's also really hard to steadily increase the intensity as part of a programming cycle. However, for general fitness it's superb. If you're very mentally strong in your workouts you can definitely do bodyweight work for hypertrophy.


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Yeah, basically the emphasis in the context of martial arts for most bodyweight exercise is mental toughness -- going as hard as you can and then gutting it out until you pretty much can't move anymore, rest and repeat until you think you're on the verge of hurting yourself, and stop before you do. There's no cycling in the way you think of weightlifting routines -- you just go balls to the wall always, and when you get to the point where you can do more, you just do it. When you get in good enough shape, you can cut the length of your work-outs somewhat because you can generate higher intensity in a short period of time.

Not very good for hypertrophy because it leads to constant overworking both in individual sessions and because you work out so many days a week. The recovery time isn't there. You could feed shaolin monks five steaks a day and they still wouldn't get big.

[Blarg]

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i think theres no substitute for weights

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There's no substitute for anything, really, though. You always give up something when you choose something else.

[Mister Havisham]

You can do pushups and some other exercises on a mattress to make them harder.

[Blarg]

Or do them more explosively, like when you push off hard so you can do clapping push-ups.