Myths of Bodyweight Training

When I hear people talk about training I can tell a lot about how they see certain types of fitness. Their preconceptions, biases, and beliefs (which we all have) about fitness are usually reflected in how they describe the purpose and use of specific methods of training. One in particular has recently caught my eye, bodyweight training.

Of course I am a big fan of bodyweight exercises, but there seems to be some odd comparisons of bodyweight training to weight training. I wanted to take this post to dispel many of those misconceptions so that you can learn how to benefit from both bodyweight training and weight training.

Myth 1: Bodyweight Training is More Athletic Than Weight Training

Truth: Any form of training is really dependent upon how you use the techniques. Gymnasts obviously are great athletes and use bodyweight training extensively. They are also athletes training for a very specific sport that takes years upon years to get really good at while also requiring a body type that fits the sport. Having worked with gymnasts I can tell you that they are great athletes, but that body control they demonstrate in their sport doesn’t always translate as seamlessly as you would think to other movements, exercises, and patterns.

We like to think that DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training we are capable of bringing the great aspects of a sport like gymnastics to an approach that is both more applicable and can be brought to more diverse fitness goals. We have as many ways of helping you be more athletic, but may have more angles and progressions to you being mobile, strong, and powerful. If you use weight training in the manner of bodybuilding or even powerlifting you are going to find yourself somewhat limited. Bodybuilding trains muscles in isolation which goes against much of how we see functional training and powerlifting, even though you can get quite strong, largely works us in our strongest positions and doesn’t challenge our mobility or movement in other planes of motion.

The reason that many people see bodyweight training as more athletic than weight training is because many bodyweight movements require you to learn how to integrate all segments of the body at once, combine stability and strength, and often progress to powerful exercises. Hmmm, if you have followed the way we teach DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training you will see that DVRT has many similarities to bodyweight exercises. However, in DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training we can progress in smaller increments and introduce variables that are just not possible with bodyweight training. That includes using load not only as a manner of teaching strength, but also HOW to move better!

Myth 2: Bodyweight Training Teaches You How to Use Your Body and Weight Training Teaches you Just How to Lift Weights.

Truth: If you understand how to strength train properly, you will find that no matter what form of training you decide to use you should be using very similar principles. I often question if people really understand the differences in training with principles rather than just exercises. Most people can’t explain why they are using a specific exercise and often recite vague information such as “strengthening the core”, or “developing power”, even “functional strength”. These are terms that often don’t give us any real direction with our training and can’t explain why we are using one of a possible hundreds of exercises.

In DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training we look at ideas such as asymmetrical loading through how we hold the Ultimate Sandbag in various positions, stand when we train, and angles in which we move. We can use somewhat similar concepts in bodyweight training rather than just leap frogging from one hard bodyweight training drill to another. Why use that push-up variation? How do different plank variations correspond different strategies in core stability and strength? Once you gain the ability to answer these questions then all your training becomes clearer and far more effective.

 

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Answering the simple question why THIS exercise is one of the most important things you can do to help you training

Myth 3: Bodyweight Training is the Most Versatile and Cost Effective Means to Strength Train

Truth: While bodyweight training provides many options, it has severe limitations as well. How do you train horizontal pulling exercises like rowing? How do you train the posterior chain, especially if you don’t immediately possess the flexibility and mobility to perform a lot of the single leg exercises? In most of these cases we would hear people speak about adding in other small forms of equipment, whether floor sliders, gymnastic rings, suspension trainers, ab rollers, etc. At this point, we see that bodyweight training really does need equipment itself! All of a sudden the idea of JUST using your bodyweight doesn’t become that realistic. The cost effectiveness begins to change as well as we have to bring in other tools to progressively make bodyweight training more challenging.

Bodyweight training is also not as progressive as many would make you believe. There is often a rather large jump in one level of an exercise to another. If you have worked coached people long enough, you realize that having more options to progress helps tremendously in making them successful. Let’s look how the options of progressing bodyweight training compare to DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training.

Means in progressing bodyweight training:

-Speed

-Body Stability

-Leverage

-Holding Position of USB

-Body Stability

-Leverage

-Speed

-Implement Stability

-Load

-Plane of Motion

-Dimension

When you now break it down, DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training has over double the options of bodyweight training, hmmm, seems like versatility is relative to our understanding of these different systems. Cost becomes relative to what you can achieve and how much you can accomplish right?

My point is not to discourage you from performing bodyweight training. I think combining DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training and bodyweight training into a comprehensive system is the ultimate answer. However, not just throwing exercises together because you don’t understand how they fit together. Not just doing stuff because it is “difficult”. Rather, having even a foundational understanding of how principles and movements work together, you will find your results exponentially improve.

Don’t miss finding out more great DVRT workouts like DVRT UK Master, Greg Perlaki shows below in our Ultimate Sandbag Training workout library. We have workouts integrating great tools like kettlebells and bodyweight training to just Ultimate Sandbag workouts. There isn’t much time to save 30% on these programs, just use code “follow” HERE and also check out our NEW follow along workouts!

Myths of Bodyweight Training is a post from: Ultimate Sandbag Training Fitness System by Josh Henkin