The Weight Debate (about weight training)

[Lani]

I found this is one of my martial arts magazines and found it really interesting and a way to make an informed choice about how you want to do your weight or resistance training.

Weight Versus Bodyweight-training - Which Works Best

Weights versus bodyweight: this debate seems to have been going since man did his first push-up and hoisted his first weight, and its no more prevalent than in the martial arts and combat sports. Blitz fitness expert Matt Jones weighs in to settle the argument once and for all.

High-rep Hindu squats, low-rep pistols, body-flow neck-rolls, clubbells, kettlebells, barbells what exercises and equipment should the martial artist choose? For those trying to put their fitness plan in order, it can be very confusing, so Ill lay this all out as objectively as possible and just remember, if anyone tells you that theres only one way to train, theyre either uninformed or after your money!

The most important factors in deciding between bodyweight exercises or weights are: becoming familiar with the various types of bodyweight training; and being able to identify what each style of training offers.

So lets look at the various methods of bodyweight training that are floating about these days and who the major players are in these areas. There are three major types of bodyweight exercise:

High-repetitions, low-resistance (HR/LR)
Low-repetitions, high-resistance (LR/HR)
Acrobatics/agility and body-awareness

In the box to the side of the page I have provided descriptions to help familiarise you with the three major themes in bodyweight exercise. While these various forms of training have long been used by many great fighters, athletes and performers, the modern day proponents of these systems have done a great job refining them and putting them into an organised training system.

Bodyweight exercise type one: High-rep/low-resistance

Major players in this area: Almost every military, martial arts, wrestling and boxing organisation in the world. Wayne Fisher and Matt Furey have also been big advocates of their own versions of this style of training.

Common exercises: High reps of push-ups, squats, sit-ups, burpees and wrestlers bridges.

Positives of high-rep/low-resistance bodyweight training:

This style of exercise has one major advantage for the trainers and that is the fact that the movements are relatively simple to learn, compared to many weight-training exercises, and therefore require little instruction. This means that people can usually dive right into a hard training session of HR/LR exercise after only a very brief period of instruction. This is an important point when one considers that instructors of martial arts, sports, or military physical training will generally have little time to teach their pupils the very technical aspects of exercise performance. If you want the average Joe (who has little or no training experience) to undertake a hard training session where they can gain a mixture of endurance, strength and mental toughness, few things will fit the bill as simply and easily as HR/LR bodyweight exercise.

This style of training provides good improvements in muscular endurance, which can carry over to other activities, and can burn a great number of calories, which is quite helpful for those trying to get leaner. Keep in mind, though, that ones nutritional habits are by far the biggest determining factor in getting lean (genetics play a big part too).

Negatives of high-rep/low-resistance bodyweight training:

Theres a legitimate risk of overuse injuries from performing very high repetitions of any one exercise. Some people will find this a real problem, while others will not the only way to know how youll cope is to try some high-rep training. There are some well-structured bodyweight endurance programs that actually use low-to-moderate reps of a large variety of exercises, thus reducing the risks associated with performing many reps of the same few exercises. This circuit style of bodyweight training may be the best option for most people.

Contrary to some marketing hype, HR/LR training is unlikely to improve a persons strength to anywhere near the same degree as a well-designed low-rep/high-resistance program. My opinion is based on my real experiences as a trainer and trainee, and is also supported by many of the great strength-training and physiology texts. If you want strength endurance, then high-rep training is great. However, if you cant yet do a one-legged squat with an additional 20 per cent of your bodyweight, dont be fooled into believing youll get there by building up to 500 bodyweight squats on two legs. Many wrestlers are very strong despite not doing any weight-training, but consider throwing around a person of your own bodyweight for a couple of hours several times a week, and youll realise that they cant help but get strong.

Bodyweight exercise type two: low-rep/high-resistance (LRHR)

Example of a major player in this area: Pavel Tsatsouline with his Naked Warrior concepts.

Common exercises: one-arm push-ups, one-legged squats (pistols).

Positives of low-rep/high-resistance bodyweight training:

This style of exercise is good for gaining increases in strength and even power. Youll be able to strengthen almost every muscle group, every movement and every bone structure in your body with LR/HR bodyweight training, using basically no equipment.

Negatives of low-rep/high-resistance bodyweight training:

The one area that will likely need an extra boost is whats known as your posterior chain, which basically covers all the muscles along the back of your body, such as your glutes, hamstrings and spinal erectors. Im very impressed with Pavel Tsatsoulines honesty in his book The Naked Warrior, in which he states: The biggest disadvantage of bodyweight exercising is that this approach doesnt enable you to perform full-body pulling movements, such as the deadlift, the snatch or the clean. Such moves are fundamental to training in most sports. While you could develop the muscles of the posterior chain with back bridges, back-extensions, and reverse-hypers, training the muscles and training the movement are very different.

A great fix for the posterior chain are swings with a clubbell, kettlebell or dumbbell (all of which can even fit under you bed, like a good infomercial product). Deadlifts are great, but few people have the discipline and knowledge to perform them safely. A great pulling movement for the posterior chain using only bodyweight is to lift another person up off the ground. If you can get a good instructor to teach you the fundamentals of lifting someone, as is commonplace in grappling sports, you can combine that lift with some one-legged squats to give you a terrific workout. Throw in some handstand or one-arm push-ups and you can become stronger than most people youll ever meet.

Theres a great deal of skill involved in performing LR/HR bodyweight exercises. You must be committed to learning the technical performance of the exercises youre going to use for your program. Although you should endeavour to do all types of exercise with excellent form, many people think, Oh, its just bodyweight exercise; I wont hurt myself even if my technique is kinda sloppy. Wrong! Its just as easy to hurt yourself as it is with any other form of exercise. Pay attention to your technique and give each rep the respect it deserves; failure to do so will see you learn the hard way through injury.

Bodyweight exercise type three: Acrobatics/agility training.

Example of a major player in this area: Scott Sonnon and his Body-Flow system.

Common exercises: Various forms of tumbling, rolling, bouncing and contorting. If youve seen the Rickson Gracie documentary Choke, you may recall seeing Rickson rolling around in all sorts of groovy-looking ways on the beach. This acrobatic/break-dancing type of bodyweight training can (as a by-product of intense practice) provide gains in strength and endurance, but that is a side-effect, not the primary aim. The aim is to improve ones agility and body-awareness to enable them to move more smoothly and safely. You could liken this to learning how to breakfall or to safely negotiate and recover from seemingly injurious positions.

Positives of acrobatics/agility training:

The biggest positive of this style of training is that it provides one of the only ways Ive ever seen for a person to improve their grace, agility and co-ordination in a systematic and incremental manner. Body-Flow is actually the evolution of a system called The Grapplers Toolbox, which was originally designed as a method of solo practice for those looking to improve their performance in wrestling and grappling sports. BJJ and wrestling practitioners will see many similarities to switching base, the overhead guard, being stacked and many other situations one often encounters when wrestling.

Weve all seen people who are strong and fit but move like planks of wood; they lack grace and agility and, as such, fall well short of their physical potential. Such people would benefit tremendously from this style of bodyweight exercise. In my many years of training athletes, Ive noticed how some people seem to naturally have grace, poise and agility, while others dont. Like most of us, most coaches resign themselves to the notion that grace is something that cant be trained you either have it or you dont. Thankfully, Sonnon wasnt willing to accept that some people are just destined to be unco and he developed Body-Flow as a systematic method of training people to become graceful great news for all of us with the natural grace and agility of a hippo on skates.

Improvements in grace, agility and body awareness are usually accompanied by a reduction in the risk of injury.

Negatives of acrobatics/agility training:

Just like LR/HR bodyweight training, which requires special attention to technical proficiency and safety, so too does agility training. Sonnons Body-Flow system is unsuitable for those who want to just perform a bunch of exercises with little attention to detail. The result of unfocused practise in agility training/Body-Flow will almost certainly result in injury.

This style of training can certainly deliver improvements in endurance, strength and body composition, but you need a good level of proficiency before you can work intensely enough to get any fitness gains from this style of training. To get a grasp on this, think of people learning to breakdance: first, theyll spend most of their time figuring out the movements; they wont even break a sweat as they focus on learning how to let their bodies move in the prescribed manner. Once they advance and get a solid grasp on some of the moves, they can then jump into a vigourous session of breakdancing, which will give them some excellent strength, endurance and calorie-burning benefits.

Now for the million-dollar question: which is better weights or bodyweight exercises? The answer is neither. For any training program to work, it must be chosen to meet your specific needs. In simplest terms, strength is built with low reps and low-to-moderate volume. Endurance is built with high reps and high volume. Muscle mass is built by getting stronger while performing a moderate amount of sets and reps, and eating a diet with a caloric surplus the type of resistance you use is not really the issue.