Bodyweight Exercises
What's a Bodyweight Exercise?
A bodyweight exercise (or BWE) is an exercise that is meant to increase your strength by using your own bodyweight as weight that is being moved or hold in a special position. This means that the resistance you need in order to make strength gains is not caused by free weights such as dumbbells or barbells but by your own bodyweight. This doesn't mean, however, that you never need any equipment to perform BWEs. Take the pullup for example, which is a very basic BWE and requires a high bar (or something similar).
With sufficient knowledge, one can build quite an amazing physique and incredible strength by practicing bodyweight exercises. Plus, you don't need to go to the gym in order to do them. What makes them a rather cheap way to get your body in shape.
Some Common Misconceptions
'You can't really build muscles or strength using bodyweight exercises alone.' Complete bullshit! To see that, just take a look at male gymnasts and you'll see that their bodies are muscular and strong. (Especially gymnasts who use to practice rings are incredibly strong.) And I bet most of them don't do any classical weight training at all. The strength training exercises of their choice are bodyweight exercises!
It is true, however, that you will not become strong or muscular by doing hundreds of regular pushups and situps. But you wouldn't expect getting huge muscular arms by doing nothing but biceps curls using 1kg weights, right?
'Bodyweight exercises are very easy to execute.' Unfortunately, they're not. Most people underestimate the body tension you need to correctly execute BWEs. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've seen more people doing regular pushups with a horrible form than I've seen people executing them the right way. And pushups don't even require any high technical level.
Special Features of BWEs
You don't make an exercise harder by adding weights. Instead, you move on to other (harder) exercises or variations. So if you want to build strength using bodyweight exercises, you need to progress from easy to harder exercises. This also means that you frequently need to change the exercises you're working with.
If you're new to bodyweight strength training, you can not start doing all kinds of different exercises right away. For example, there's no way of holding a planche without having done easier BWEs over quite some time. It's not like regular strength training where you can basically do every exercise from the very beginning.
Generally speaking, bodyweight exercises require body tension. Without the right amount of body tension, you can not maintain a proper form. And a bad form leads to bad results like lower back injuries or undue stress on your joints for example. Always keep that in mind. A clean form is vital!