Jan 15 2009
Benfits of Body Weight Exercise
I have become a real fan of Body Weight Exercise over the last couple of years. It is probably as a result of a variety of factors. The first is that I came across an alternate definition of fitness from Crossfit workouts. Crossfit is not exclusively a body weight exercise protocol but they incorporate many body weight exercises in their workouts. They include a number of Olympic lifts, running, gymnastics, and kettlebells as well. I will do a post of Crossfit shortly for those of you who are not familiar with them.
The second thing that influenced me was a program called Turbulence Training by Craig Ballantyne. Craig has been a contributing author for Men’s Health for years and developed Turbulence Training. I began performing a few of his workouts without much in the way of expectation and was pleasantly surprised at the workout that it gave me. It worked my muscles to a great level and elevated my heart rate.
I hate running. I understand that value that it may have in the overall scheme of your fitness but if I could find a replacement for it and still accomplish the same level of fat burning I would never run again. As I have gotten older now (44) my joints like running even less than I do. So body weight exercises were a heaven sent gift. A 20 - 30 minute body weight exercise routine builds muscle and burns fat at the same time. This is quite the powerful combo.
In the future I will post some body weight exercise routines. You will find these quite challenging and difficult. You will be amazed at the results and thrilled at the amount of fat that is being burned. So stay tuned as we explore the benefits of body weight exercise for your fitness.
