Summary Statement for Table of Contents
Improving one’s command of his or her own body can dramatically improve movement quality, quality of life, and performance and has become a foundation of training strategy for personal trainers worldwide. Bodyweight exercises allow clients to improve how they manipulate their own bodies through space in a way that is both important for health and difficult to replicate with other training methods that do not always accommodate a client’s unique anthropometry (1). Bodyweight training can be used to increase program adherence and convenience, improve movement quality, add diversity, decrease costs of exercise, or even to simply increase client enjoyment and satisfaction. This article will cover the What, Why, and How of implementing and prescribing bodyweight training for your clients with a view to offering both the trainer and the client extra tools in their training toolboxes!
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Bodyweight exercises should be incorporated into an exercise program to address performance gaps, improve movement quality, and maintain/accelerate progress.Incorporate bodyweight exercises continuously by rotating through the compound movements of a program and substituting them with a corresponding bodyweight version, orIncorporate bodyweight exercises periodically by building entire training days or blocks exclusively for bodyweight exercises.Bodyweight exercises can be programmed exactly the same as other traditional compound exercises.
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Bodyweight training helps teach the client to manipulate their own bodies in an organic and safe way. When we place our bodies on external resistance machines, it’s difficult to assess how much of that movement “belongs” (initiated and stabilized) to the client and how much to the machine or equipment.
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