Paragraph
Type of Exercise Humans Have Been Doing Since The Dawn of Time
A Brief History Lesson:
With the Paleo diet being all the rage right now, it is easy to forget that exercise plays a big role. Imagine 15,000 years ago; prior to mankind discovering how to grow crops…you see a group of hunters getting ready. They are checking their spears, bows and perhaps even slings. It will be a long hunt, maybe one or more days. They need to kill many animals to feed their tribe and have furs for warmth and animal fat for their lamps.
While you are getting a picture of this in your mind, ask yourself what else might they be doing? There is a good chance they may be wrestling or doing some form of combat training. The world is a dangerous place, with vicious animals and other tribes looking to conquer them. Can you see them stretching their bodies, making the muscles work before they enter a circle of rocks to begin a match? Hunters of the old days, mimicked the animals they came across. Animals in the wild such as the big cats and gorilla’s do bodyweight and stretching exercises to stay limber and fit.
As mankind grew older and wiser, they looked at animals in fights and how each animal used its body to defeat a foe. It is said that the martial art of Kung Fu came out of India and that the monks of India would watch something like a Praying Mantis and see how it defeated other insects. They based Kung Fu on animal exercises and battle styles. The art then traveled to China, where it became famous.
By the time the Greeks held the very first Olympics around 776 BC, they had finely tuned their bodyweight exercises and fighting style called Pankration. In Pankration, participants combined wrestling and boxing…not what we refer to as the Marquess of Queensbury type of boxing. The only rules were that you could not bite or eye gouge. Striking of any kind was allowed, such as kicks or even elbows. Matches were long and hard, so the participants had to be in great shape. There was a wide variety of exercises to use, everything from push-ups, rope climbing to various types of club swinging. With the club swinging, it varied from country to country.
The Persians were well known for using a Meel. This was a cross between a mace and a club. The club swinging had two functions. In battle, warriors would be using a form of club to injure or kill the enemy. During exercise and practice, the club or Meel would be swung in different arcs to fully exercise the shoulders and arm muscles. This would aid in flexibility and overall power. Today, club swinging is making a come back. People who are using Kettlebells are also putting club swinging into their workout plan. There are a wide variety of clubs that can be purchased. Most look like an oversized bowling ball pin.
Bodyweight exercises would be exchanged, copied and improved upon in the different countries of the ancient world. In the modern world today, many people are turning back to the ancient way of eating and exercise. One of the main reasons for people to switch from exercise equipment like dumbbells…to bodyweight exercise, is the injury factor.
Free Weights Can Cause Injury:
Using free weights can lead to injuries in various ways. To build up the chest muscles, a person in the gym may try the bench press with free weights. It is also best to have a spotter, someone to control the weight if the lifter is unable to complete the lift. However time and time again, spotters get distracted or fail to control the weight. Major injuries occur, such as damaged throats, teeth or even rotator cuffs, as the weight comes down far too quickly.
Even using the type of gym equipment like a shoulder press compound exercise machine, can result in injury. When pressing the weight upwards, if the setting is too high, many lifters tend to arch their backs and continue to push to accomplish the lift. This can lead to severe muscle strain. As well, people who have office jobs and tend to hunch over their computers are more apt to injure themselves on this sitting or standing type of machine. This is due to the condition the back muscles are in, being rounded rather than fully extended and supple.
A recent study showed that most gyms injuries occur on a treadmill and we all know how the gym promotes the use of treadmills. They are exceptionally dangerous machines and should be taken out of any exercise routine. Injuries occur from wrong foot placement to attempting to drink while running, which in some cases, causes the person to fall off the machine completely.
Failure to perform exercises correctly at the gym can cause a whole host of problems. For example a common problem that occurs is joint or cartilage damage. Allowing a free weight to bounce without controlling it or over extending in something like a bicep curl will eventually cause injury, short term to sometimes a permanent one.
Bodyweight vs Machine Muscle:
You will note that if you are in a gym, there are two types of machines, one for compound exercises and one for isolation. Training with isolation machines does not help with functional strength. While bodybuilders may look huge and strong, a person who is highly versed in bodyweight exercises will be stronger, without all the bulky muscles. Bodyweight exercises are compound exercises. Think of all the varieties of push-ups available to you, from regular to diamond…all of them work your shoulders, chest, arms, legs and ab muscles. Bodyweight exercises have much more variation, so you do not get bored-if you researched it out and by doing them, you are building stronger, leaner, functional muscle.
Case Study Looking At Real Wrestlers Prior To Television:
While you may doubt that last sentence, take some time to go back through history and look at the strong men of the 19th century. You can check the history of the Great Gama of India, who wrestled in over 5000 real matches. He did thousands of push-ups, squats and club swinging every day. Strong men like Farmer Burns would travel around the United States doing challenge matches for money. In between matches, he would do stunts at carnivals and fairs…like being dropped in a hangman’s noose. It is a six foot drop and would snap a normal man’s neck. Farmer Burns was a master of bodyweight exercises and in do so, had developed his legendary neck muscles. He reportedly had a 20 inch neck and would allow the noose to be placed around his neck, then flex the neck muscles as the trap door opened, dropping him six feet below.
Yes, wrestling in those days was real, not what you see on television these days. All the top wrestlers from around the world, engaged in bodyweight exercises and special breathing exercises to develop abs of steel. Farmer Burns developed a mail order training package. This package came in three separate issues and taught the young men who bought it, the value of bodyweight conditioning and having a clean mind and body.
How Bodyweight Exercises Improve Your Other Sports:
When you look at the UFC or related MMA organizations, you will see the occasional fighter who is really huge. It is apparent from the shape of their bodies, that they have been training on machines. Typically these fighters suffer from exhaustion when the fight goes into later rounds. Their huge muscles become starved for oxygen. Bodyweight exercises are perfect for anyone engaging in traditional martial arts or MMA. In fact, a really good martial arts dojo will incorporate a series of single or partner bodyweight exercises during the class. By attending a class, you will see martial artists doing the following:
- Push-ups
- Sit-ups
- Rope skipping
- Handstand pushups
- Wheel Barrows with a partner
- Fireman carry and fireman squat with partner
- Bridging on the head to develop neck muscles
- Plyometrics
- Shrimping, which is an escape move but develops the abs as well
- Group bodyweight exercise like bear crawling around 20 people
There are so many more exercises that can mentioned, however a clear picture should be forming in your mind. Bodyweight exercises are fun and more efficient than weight training.
Bodyweight exercise can be really beneficial for sports like tennis, where you are constantly squatting, and lunging after a tennis ball. Team sports like football, basketball and rugby should incorporate bodyweight exercise. All these sports require great lungs and functional muscles. Yes, bodyweight exercises also build amazing cardio. For instance one special bodyweight exercise, commonly referred to as a Hindu Squat, will give you an overall body workout while leaving you gasping for breathe. The reason that Hindu squats are the King of squats is this little fact. You incorporate lots of arm motion during the squat. Starting out the Hindu squat, you hold your arms out in front of your body. Get a clear mental picture of rowing a large boat, so that when you go down into the squat, you starting rowing your arms. It is important in this squat, that as you are about halfway down, you raise your heels. Many people cannot perform more than 20 Hindu squats the first time out and they are left breathless. Do some thought and see if you can find an exercise on a gym machine, that will work all this:
- Your abs
- Your thighs
- Your calves
- Your ankles
- Your shoulders and arms
- All your butt muscles…those 3 major butt muscles help support your back.
- Your cardio/lungs in a big way
So now that you can see how bodyweight exercises can help build strong functional muscles, let’s go over some off the other benefits. Bodyweight exercises will reduce your stress levels…you exercise and you smile. Seriously some of the bodyweight exercises will have you smiling and laughing. Trying skipping down the road while swinging your arms or doing shadow boxing while bouncing on a rebounder. You will smile!
How about losing weight? Well the truth is, you will lose some weight but if you really want to drop that spare tire, you’ll need to do something about that cheeseburger habit.
Incorporating bodyweight exercises with the Paleo eating system or a six small meals a day plan, will have you dropping the pounds. Notice the word diet, was not used here. Look at the first three letters of the word diet=die. Not a pretty picture. Also the word diet conjures up some pretty ugly thoughts, like starvation, sacrifice and loss of enjoyment. In reality, in order to lose weight, you just need to adjust what you eat and how you eat. Pick something that you can work with, not something that you will struggle with and give up in a couple of weeks.
For the sake of argument, let’s look at a six meal a day plan. You won’t be hungry. That must sound good to you. In the morning, you have a light breakfast, something like a boiled egg and a slice of toast with organic peanut butter. In order to trick your body into burning fat, you need to keep putting in fuel, so a couple hours later, you have some fruit for a snack. Burn baby, burn. Lunch comes up, so you bake a nice piece of chicken or turkey breast and eat that with some raw veggies, like sliced peppers. Make sure that you drink plenty of distilled water throughout the day and have a glass of water half an hour before the meal. This will help fill up your stomach and by not drinking it at meal time, you won’t inter with the stomach juices trying to break down your food. If at all possible, do not drink anything with your meals. It dilutes the gastric juices. Okay, so now we are up to another snack time. Here we want to get some nuts and seeds into the mix.
Notice we are running each meal/snack intake about 2-3 hours apart. When we come up to the supper plan, it is either more chicken/turkey breast or a piece of fish. Make a nice mixed salad and put in olive oil, sesame oil, chopped ginger and pepper for flavor. Stay away from the salad dressings; they are full of fat and other undesirable elements. Last snack before bed, try to avoid fruit. Fruit is processed in the lower intestine, not the stomach, so the glucose which is converted to energy, gets into your bloodstream faster. You don’t want energy before you go to bed. Try to stick with some raw veggies to munch on or if you have to, eat one of the rice cakes. Just be sure to check all the ingredients before you purchase those, You do not want a bunch of sodium or other elements that are going to interfere with your workout and weight loss program.
Stay 100% away from diet pills or energy drinks. All that stuff is harmful to your body. It is just a huge money maker for the companies that produce it and suck the consumer into buying it. The Great Gama and Farmer Burns never had an energy drink in their lives. You should put your money on Farmer Burns in a match against any UFC star alive today, if they are consuming energy drinks and bars. Water…distilled or alkaline water is what your body is screaming for. We are made of water, not Red Bull.
By doing bodyweight exercise and having a good stable meal plan worked out, you can finally have the sexy and healthy body you have always desired. Make a plan and stick to it. Everything great in life, has some work involved and good luck with the new you.