Bodyweight training; inexpensive workout, good for your heart

by Christopher B. Robrahn
Fitness Columnist

The holidays are over and the New Year’s resolutions for your plan to improve your health and wellness may be getting a little old. If you are one of those who are more serious and trying to improve your exercise and overall health in 2019, I want to ask. How is it going?

Many people work hard at making an effort at this time of year, but it can be tough. Joining a gym can be expensive, and it might be inconvenient or uncomfortable to get started. With the winter temperatures and lack of sunlight, taking the initiative with your exercise goals may seem too much.  

For some of you, using a complicated machine or heavy weights may not be your idea of fitness. For those of you who don’t like resistance training with weights, there is an answer, and it is available no matter where you are and what you are doing; your own bodyweight.

Bodyweight training is more than just an inexpensive stepchild of weight training. It is a separate form of training, using your own body weight to train and improve your health. I use bodyweight training to some degree, six mornings a week.

I do stretches and warm up movements, then do sets of pushups, crunches and lunges.

One can consider doing squats without weight. Just your own bodyweight can be helpful. I do a cardio set with a step and mixing the cardio with step ups can really be helpful.

If you can use a pull-up bar and can physically pull yourself, you know that exercise can be very challenging and can be beneficial to your overall fitness.

It turns out that strength training can significantly improve your heart health, too. According to health reports from US News and World Reports magazine, bodyweight (or strength) training can be beneficial for your heart as well.

“Strength training often gets overlooked for its importance in improving cardiovascular health, but it can be a valuable addition in reducing the risk of heart disease,” says Dr. Timothy Miller, a sports medicine physician at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

In fact, their research suggests that when it comes to improving certain markers of heart health, strength training is just good – if not better – than cardio.

Now for those of you who view this bodyweight form of exercise as less than effective, there are several reasons to take it up. On my web radio show, Spirit of Fitness, we did a group of shows focusing on this form of exercise recently. 

If you are on vacation or out of town on business, understanding how to use bodyweight training in a motel or hotel room can be helpful and confident about your exercise goals. If you are recovering from an illness and can’t handle heavy weights or just don’t want to exercise with weights or resistance training with machines, your body can still reap the benefit of exercise.

So, if I want to, I can do push-ups right now in my office, or stretch or do jumping jacks, step ups; anything I want to do. By supplementing your workouts with bodyweight work, you’ve given yourself a way to exercise that isn’t expensive and can be done when you want.

Copyright The Gayly. 2/17/2019 @ 8:00 a.m. CST.