Many, many years ago in a galaxy far away I was in high school. While I was there, I was not only the most handsome, smart, cool young man, I was also on the wrestling team.
During my senior year, wrestling at a thick 125lbs and about 5′11″, I injured my knee. How bad? Who knows? I grew up on a farm and never had been to the doctor. And after the knee injury, I didn’t go either. All I know is that it swelled up light a balloon and hurt like hell. From that point on it started a downward spiral of compensations and avoidance that I am still paying for today.
Many people don’t realize the benefits of bodyweight training because every magazine you see, there are dudes in the gym hitting weights.
But
With all training, there is a regression and progression to every exercise. For example a regression for hanging leg lifts is performing a plank. The progression would performing the movement with a med ball between your feet.
Another example would be a bench press. Many people can’t do a conventional bench press because of existing shoulder issues, their form is bad or they just don’t have access to the equipment.
Push-ups are a great alternative. Not only can you perform push-ups with various hand positions but you can also do them from an elevated surface extending the range of motion for the shoulders and engage more muscle fibers.
Bodyweight Training Benefits:
free
versatile, many different variations
can be done anywhere
improves movement
improves relative strength
can improve reactive strength
Here Are My Top 5 Bodyweight Movements
Which ones did I miss? Leave a comments with your favorites!
You’ve probably heard of using foam in the weightroom. Previously, you might have only thought of using it for resting your knee on, while your stretching your hip flexors.
Well, a recent talk with Mike Hanley of HanleyStrength.com changed that.
He told me that he had his clients marching on thick foam to help with their knee and hip problems. He said Louie Simmons had told him about it. How he has been using it for activation and rehab purposes.
It is also well recognized in the powerlifting community that foam can also be used on the box squat, and we will talk about this too, later in this article.
Now, this of course got me thinking about other uses of foam. I ordered a few blocks and started incorporating it into my program and the program of my clients.
Let’s look at a few different ways that you can incorporate foam into the weightroom.
Unstable foam surface = not good for power development
Studies from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) confirm my publication:
“Instability resistance exercises induce high muscle activation of postural limb and trunk muscles. The increased activation has been attributed to the increased stabilization functions. Instability resistance training with its high muscle activation and lower external stress on joints could also be beneficial for general musculoskeletal health and certain types of rehabilitation.”
“Unstable conditions can lead to decreased force and power output, decreased range of motion and velocity. Furthermore ground based weight training exercises such as squats and dead lifts can provide equal or greater trunk activation than using instability devices. Another study has also reported that highly trained individuals do not experience greater trunk activation when performing exercises under light or moderately unstable conditions.”
“Since many of the benefits of instability devices can be achieved with high resistance involving ground based free weights, advanced resistance trained individuals may not need to emphasize this type of training in their strength and power training programs.”
“The benefits of instability resistance training may be more pronounced for those individuals pursuing primarily general health and rehabilitation benefits and not participating in training with free weights involving high loads.”
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