As fashionable as the weight room is these days, the world dumbbells and barbells it can be quite a scary place. There are gym bros grumbling. There is a clang of metal. And heavy equipment looks like an injury. So what about strength training without all of that, just using your own body with movements like air squat and boards?
Officially known body weight exercisesthis type of exercise can offer legitimate benefits. For starters, it’s super accessible. “Bodyweight is a great free exercise that can be done anywhere” Kristie Larson, CSCS, founder of Tension, a women’s strength training studio in Brooklyn, New York, tells SELF. It doesn’t matter if it’s stormy outside or you’re traveling, you can pull some out recliner or eruptions without any equipment (or even much space).
But can you really build muscle and get stronger through weight training alone? Well that depends. Here’s what experts want you to know before ditching the dumbbells altogether.
Body weight load may vary
Not all bodyweight exercises are created equal. Depending on which muscles an exercise targets and which part of the body acts as the “weight,” the difficulty can vary from completely manageable to brutally hard.
Think: “You won’t benefit from bodyweight bicep curls” Meredith Witte, MS, CSCS, is the founder of functional strength-building platform The Playground, tells SELF. Since the only thing you would be moving up and down is the forearm and hand, there is virtually no stress on the muscles.
However, to perform a push-up, you need to support up to 75% of your body weight, according to study the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. For a 150-pound person, that means you’re moving 112.5 pounds—which is why the push-up is so freaking hard, even if you’re not putting weight plates on your back.
Then there are the lower body moves like lunges and squats, which also use a large part of the body as a load. But since you’re working the biggest muscles in your body—like your glutes and quads—it’s quite a challenge to create small tears in the muscle tissue that get stronger and therefore grow. “For the average person, bodyweight squats are not going to be enough,” says Witte. “Our legs are very strong, so body weight will feel challenging, but it still won’t be enough to build adequate muscle unless you’re really untrained or an older adult who hasn’t trained.”
