Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The benefits of bodyweight exercise

Bodyweight exercises allow you to adjust difficulty in infinitesimally small increments by altering body position to increase or decrease torque, and they minimize the chance of injury by eliminating external load which could cause injury if out of control. They also increase coordination relative to machines or free weights with benches. This is the case because one most learn new positions to advance and access more demanding bodyweight exercises, while free weights or machines allow difficulty to be adjusted via increased external resistance.

If you think you're too strong for bodyweight exercises complete the following:

one-arm legs together push-up
one-arm pull-up
one leg glute ham raise
one leg squat (with back straight and upright, and working knee behind toe)

These are tough but if they're too easy I can prescribe way tougher.

4 comments:

  1. Your fans are waiting for a follow-up with interest.

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  2. It would be nice to have a permanent record on your thoughts on torque and bodyweight exercise. They are essential, as they strike to the core of the physical reality being considered, and I haven't seen them elsewhere. So yeah, post up a manifesto!

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  3. I'm doing Operation Sierra Oscar (just for fun), which, as I understand it, calls for 10 consecutive days of a 10-minute pushup/pullup session (pretty painful, but it's only 10 minutes). For this particular diversionary summer-fun-thing-to-do, I can do it 10 days consecutively, right?

    Bodyweight Exercise

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