Anyone can benefit from bodyweight training. That’s right, regardless of age, fitness level, or experience, everyone can gain from doing bodyweight training.
What is Bodyweight Training?
Bodyweight exercises are strength training exercises that use your weight to provide resistance against gravity. This adds strength, mobility, and more.
Bodyweight training has been around for a long, long time – thousands of years. Before the invention of weight training equipment, body weight was all people had to train with.
The Ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Indian Wrestlers, Shaolin Monks, and even the military today used (and the last three still use) bodyweight training as a primary source of physical fitness.
Why? There are two reasons: it can be done anywhere, and it works!
Let’s look at five ways almost anyone can benefit from bodyweight training.
5 Ways You Can Benefit From Bodyweight Training
1) Weight Loss Management
While bodyweight training is not known for its calorie-burning ability, it is known for building muscle, and muscle mass burn calories. The more muscle you have, the more calories are burned even when at a resting rate. So bodyweight training should be viewed as having more of a long-term result when it comes to weight loss or management.
2) Stay Flexible
Older adults benefit greatly from bodyweight training because as we age, we tend to lose bone mass and become more inflexible.
However, because bodyweight exercises use eccentric and concentric contraction, they tend to work a joint through its full range of motion, thus improving flexibility. This translates to less joint pain making the Golden Years more enjoyable.
3) Make Life Easier
Just doing all the things of daily life, such as laundry, vacuuming, and carrying in groceries is more difficult if the muscles used in these tasks are not toned and developed. Because bodyweight exercises are a functional type of training program, they develop the muscle you use most, thus making daily tasks easier.
4) Better Mental Health
Wait, how can bodyweight training help me mentally? When we exercise, our heart rate goes up and the blood in our veins and arteries pumps faster, thus taking more waste out of our cells and bringing in more oxygen and hormones necessary for good health. Not only does this happen in the cells of our muscles, but also in the brain cells. Consequently, you can think more clearly and have less stress.
5) Sleep Better
Bodyweight training helps reduce the stress hormone cortisol. With reduced stress levels, less will be on your mind when you go to bed, meaning you will go to sleep quicker and get a more restful quality of sleep.
With being well rested the next day, and looking great from the toning and defining bodyweight training does to your muscles, confidence and self-esteem will exude from you. Soon people will notice and ask what you are doing to look and feel as good as you do. Tell them – bodyweight training!
Hi! I’m Chris! Just a Midlife Wife sharing about life’s journey; screaming and kicking through it while supposedly aging gracefully…
Focusing on healthy living, low carb & keto, things I am loving right now, and life in general.