BODYWEIGHT BASICS - Bodyweight Training - Functional Fitness Without Weights

On several occasions, someone has written in to say that while they get results doing high-rep bodyweight squats, they still find them boring and tedious. Well...

If you're going to be squatting for several hundred reps, it should be understood that it is going to take anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour or more depending on just how high you're going to go.

So essentially you have two choices:

a) Get tough and fight through it

or

b) Find another way to train your legs because this high-rep stuff isn't for you

Either way will work.

If you go the high rep route, instead of focusing on how much time it takes, instead focus on the tremendous benefits you will get from squatting for high reps:

Increased strength... increased endurance... stronger joints... cardiovascular help... mental toughness... and the personal satisfaction of stepping up to your own personal challenge.

Given these benefits, I think the time involved is a very small price to pay and that's part of the challenge: to fight through something that may not be particularly comfortable at first.

Once you start seeing results though, you'll actually grow to enjoy it.

Although with that being said, it also helps to make yourself a mix CD of your favorite songs which lasts for the duration of your squatting session. - That's at least one way to make it a little "easier."

Train hard,
John Wood

P.S. High rep squatting is one part of the "Royal Court" - three of the most effective bodweight movements. Find out more in Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning Program

Labels: Bodyweight Squats, Combat Conditioning, Endurance, Flexibility, High Rep Work Out, Matt Furey, Mental Toughness

If you train - you should train your legs - that much should be obvious. And it should be obvious for a couple reasons: 1. High-rep leg work builds mental toughness, you can always push yourself to do a few more reps than you think you can. 2. Leg work stresses the heart and lungs, giving you a great cardio vascular workout in addition to building strength. 3. Intense leg work strengthens the largest, strongest muscles of the body allowing for more muscle growth and improvement throughout the entire body, not just the legs.

4. Bodyweight squats provide much of the benefits of weighted Squats without the wear and tear on the body.

Im sure I could think of a few more, but those key points should be more than enough to go on for now, and more than enough to get you to start training your legs if you haven't been.

Over the last few thousand years, Indian Wrestlers have been doing a "swaying" form of a bodyweight known as a "Baitak" as pictured in Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning as a Hindu Squat:

The Indian wrestlers did thousands of them per day to build incredible power and endurance.

Of course, you can also do the regular style squat, often called simply "wrestlers squats" - like a barbell squat without the barbell.

Either way, the benefits are tremendous. I highly recommend starting at a very manageable level, (say only 50 if you are in very good shape) and building from there.

The soreness the next day will tell you that there's something youve been missing, and the spring in your legs from this kind of training will keep you doing them for a long time.

Labels: Baitak, High Rep Work Out, Indian Wrestling, Leg Work Out, Mental Toughness, Training Ideas