By Felacita Hunt BSc
BODY-WEIGHT RESISTENCE TRAINING
VS
CONVENTIONAL WEIGHT TRAINING
If your goal is to "get strong" then ....
The kind of strength you can gain from Body-Weight Resistance Training is different to the kind of strength gained using Conventional Weight Training.
How so?
Body-Weight Resistance Training utilises exercise movements that enforce more muscle activation, purely because more muscles are incorporated in the act of stabilising your body while performing your chosen exercise.
Conventional Weight Training utilising dumbbells, barbells or machine weight training generally restricts you to 2-dimensional movement-you can still gain strength in that chosen exercise, however, there is generally not as much muscle activation to stabilise your body while performing that exercise (generally because you are seated or lying on a bench or in a machine).
For example: compare the Press-up (otherwise known as the "Push-up"), with the supine(lying position) dumbbell or barbell Chest Press exercises.
In the Press-up, the muscles targeted are: chest, shoulders, triceps (back of the arm) and core (general mid-riff area) In the Chest Press, the muscles targeted are: chest, shoulders and triceps.
CONCLUSION: when you perform the Press-up exercise properly, you have to activate your core muscles to prevent "dumping" of your lower back (and possible lower back injury- that is another topic)
