Body resistance vs weights?

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  • SweatLikeDog
    SweatLikeDog Posts: 272 Member
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    Look at a gymnast, a powerlifter and a bodybuilder. The gymnast is stronger in his/her ability to use muscles in a coordinated fashion to move the body against gravity - a high strength to weight ratio. The bodybuilder is concerned primarily in maximizing the size of each muscle regardless of the quality of motion. The powerlifter is maximizing the weight he/she can lift with a particular task in mind. Different goals, different training.
  • jself325
    jself325 Posts: 13 Member
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    yogicarl wrote: »
    If you follow a good progressive bodyweight strength program you may find you don't need to "progress" to weights to keep building strength. Along with Convict Conditioning and You Are Your Own Gym, look up Al Kavadlo and Frank Medrano on the internet - both bodyweight trainers, both impressively strong within their chosen discipline.

    I'll have to check out 'You Are Your Own Gym.' It seems to be popular. And cheap?

  • JeffseekingV
    JeffseekingV Posts: 3,165 Member
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    SweatLikeDog wrote: »
    Look at a gymnast, a powerlifter and a bodybuilder. The gymnast is stronger in his/her ability to use muscles in a coordinated fashion to move the body against gravity - a high strength to weight ratio. The bodybuilder is concerned primarily in maximizing the size of each muscle regardless of the quality of motion. The powerlifter is maximizing the weight he/she can lift with a particular task in mind. Different goals, different training.

    While I'll agree in general. Powerlifters (unless in the open class) try to lift as much as they can per weight class. I wont' say all but many will try to get their strength to weight ratio as high as they can. ie.. lift as much as they can at the lowest weight possible
  • yogicarl
    yogicarl Posts: 1,260 Member
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    - way cheaper than the Convict Conditioning manual and more variations offered. The better buy in my opinion, having used both. Check out the two names I gave you as well - loads of free stuff through these guys' net pages.
  • tulips_and_tea
    tulips_and_tea Posts: 5,714 Member
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    jself325 wrote: »
    yogicarl wrote: »
    If you follow a good progressive bodyweight strength program you may find you don't need to "progress" to weights to keep building strength. Along with Convict Conditioning and You Are Your Own Gym, look up Al Kavadlo and Frank Medrano on the internet - both bodyweight trainers, both impressively strong within their chosen discipline.

    I'll have to check out 'You Are Your Own Gym.' It seems to be popular. And cheap?
    I checked out the book from the library, so yep, about as cheap as it gets! I wrote down some of the exercise progressions so that I could remember them, but you can always look them up online if need be.
  • yogicarl
    yogicarl Posts: 1,260 Member
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    SweatLikeDog wrote: »
    Look at a gymnast, a powerlifter and a bodybuilder. The gymnast is stronger in his/her ability to use muscles in a coordinated fashion to move the body against gravity - a high strength to weight ratio. The bodybuilder is concerned primarily in maximizing the size of each muscle regardless of the quality of motion. The powerlifter is maximizing the weight he/she can lift with a particular task in mind. Different goals, different training.

    I like this analogy. As a trainer in Ashtanga Yoga, I need the strength to lift my body of the floor, often on just my hands and move my legs through my hands from plank to seated position without scooting my feet through on the way - loads of core strength. For me, a load of muscle size would be just more dead weight to carry, but the strength and intensity of sustained contraction (muscle squeeze) is more important.

    Of course, looking at my profile pic, I could lose a stone or two of fat as well!

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