The Negative Impacts of Weight Lifting Versus Bodyweight Training

Bodyweight training is what nature intended

Bodyweight training: A forgotten art

There was a time when the sheer awe-inspiring potential of bodyweight training was well know and discussed in many circles. The recognized term for training using only your body weight as resistance was known as ‘Calisthenics.’

The ability of bodyweight to sculpt men into the epitome of pure, raw strength and pack on fantastic amounts of powerful muscle mass wowed the masses, showcased by the leading strong-men of the time, in an era when performance enhancing substances were virtually unheard of.

Sadly though, times have changed. The art of old-school calisthenics is an endangered species, edging closer to the brink of extinction, being drowned out by the emergence of fancy new machines, and the misconception that lifting barbells and using dumbbells is the only way to get big and strong. The fitness industry, as we know it today, has fooled the population.

To understand the principle of bodyweight training is to see weight lifting for what it really is, with all its ugly truths and blemishes.

There is no doubt that lifting barbells and dumbbells effectively can provoke the building of muscle mass. You can certainly get to a very respectable size too, this much is true. But how often do you hear about the negative impact weight-lifting has on the body? I would wager ‘not very often’. The fitness industry of today will not tell you this but I will gladly enlighten you.

The unnatural convention of weight lifting

See weight lifting is largely unnatural, and when you execute ‘big’ lifts, such as the bench press or the bent over row, you force the body to move in mostly unnatural ways.

Each and every rep you perform applies crushing pressure, and this mammoth pressure goes straight to the ligaments, joints and tendons. Your body is not designed to cope with this stress and, as I have witnessed so many times before, if you continue to subject your body to this punishment, you will eventually inflict enough damage to cause injury.

Trying to find a man dedicated to the iron who doesn’t have some sort of injury is a challenge. Professional body building may be steeped in acclaim but these muscle-bound freaks, who pump performance enhancing drugs into their system, are merely unnatural, walking bill boards, advertising the inescapable downsides of weight lifting.

The massive poundages they shift completely obliterate the very parts of the body they should be fortifying – the spinal erectors, the rotator cuffs and the wrists and elbows, to name a few. Sure, so they look good on stage, but you don’t see the cortisone injections or the physio, and if you could see the condition of their joints and tendons or deep muscle tissue, you would likely be horrified. We only get one body, and everyday millions of people shoot it to pieces.

None are exempt from the inevitability of lifting weights in the above manner – injury is a surety, a complete certainty – or better put – injury is a bi-product of weight training.

Read that again – injury is a guaranteed bi-product of weight training. Those with good form and those with poor technique are all in the same boat – some just reach injury quicker than others. So why do people do this to themselves day after day? The answer is simple – the giants of the fitness industry tell them too.

The truth about weightlifting

But what if there was a way to pack on muscle mass and develop true strength, the sort of strength that is rarely witnessed in a gym? What if there were a way to do this and actually fortify the ligaments, joints and tendons in the process?

There is, of course there is – bodyweight training fit the bill. A trainer in a gym will never tell you this and this is because you can train in the art of calisthenics with virtually no equipment, which means no membership fees for them. It therefore makes perfect sense that such an effective and powerful training principle would be hidden from you.

Mother nature never intended for us to lift weights in this manner. The goal of a body builder is to place as much stress upon a particular muscle group as possible but this actually causes the muscles to adjust much more quickly than the joints.

The more muscular and stronger a body builder becomes, the more the potential for injury and ailments such as tendonitis and arthritis increases.

• Bodyweight training allows the body to work in synergy, just as mother nature desired, and this in turn develops the muscles and joints together, in proportion.
• Bodyweight training is progress and efficiency without the inevitable injury. 
• Bodyweight training encourages many muscles in the body to work together, unlike the isolation techniques often employed by body builders.

It therefore stands to reason that a person seeking to pack on slabs of muscle would welcome the opportunity to target multiple muscles at once. Again, sadly, the world of body building preaches otherwise, and this is because it is flawed.

The raw power of bodyweight training

The art of bodyweight training has so much to offer those with an open mind, and its potential to transform is truly awe inspiring. It was good enough for the Spartans and they certainly didn’t have nautilus machines or barbells.

Your body will thank you for it, and if you stay dedicated, you will build terrifying strength that most cannot match. Impressive muscle mass will be yours, and weak or weakened body parts like the knees and spine, for example, will become incredibly strong.

With these benefits, and the fact that weight training is essentially a game of Russian-roulette with your joints, my money is clearly on bodyweight training.

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I hope this has provoked some deep though in the minds of those who weight train or are thinking of doing so. I’ll delve deeper into this fascinating art as time goes by. Thanks guys.

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