The results can be almost the same if you lift weights in the gym or if you use only your own weight. The essential thing is to exercise the muscles until they are almost exhausted.
Many people believe that developing strength requires a weight game or membership in a gym. It is considered that the squats without weight are adequate for beginners, but that effective training needs equipment.
However, is it true? Or the Exercises with body weightlike hip bridges, flexions and lunges, can they provide the same benefits as weights?
Research suggests that, for most people, the answer is affirmative. Your body does not care if you make a bench press or flexions. “The muscle is agnostic”said Anoop Balachandran, attached professor of exercise sciences at New York City University. “The only thing that recognizes is the tension in the muscle.”
That said, each method has its advantages. Next, what you should know to get the best results in your strength training.
The secret of success is failure
Regardless of the method, the training Strength requires taking muscle to fatigue point to develop greater resistance.
“It is generally recommended to train until the momentary failure, striving to the fullest in each exercise until the muscle cannot more”, Explained James Steele, head of research of Kieser Australia, a chain of exercise and health clinics.
If the objective is to increase the force, Numerous studies have shown that exercises with body weight and weightlifting can generate similar resultsaccording to Steele. For example, in a small study of 2022, he and several colleagues asked people who trained in the weight room to change their routines for home weight exercises. For three weeks, the improvements in force were equivalent.
The same happened in a Japanese experiment where the flexions with the bench press were compared: both exercises produced similar profits of strength and muscle. In addition, another 2022 study concluded that, over two months, increasing the weight with the same number of repetitions was as effective as increasing the repetitions without modifying the load.
In other words, What really matters is the effort, not the type of resistance. As strength gains, the exercises become easier, so it is necessary to increase the difficulty in progressing. In the weight room, this is solved by adding more load.
On the other hand, in body weight training, Se must find alternative ways to increase the demand, such as increasing repetitions, using resistance bands or making more demanding variants of exercisesfor example, raise your legs on a chair to intensify flexion.
Do weights carry a higher risk of injury?
Free weights can cause injuries, but not only because of excessive muscle effort. In many cases, the risk comes from the equipment.
An epidemiological study on weight training injuries, which analyzed emergency visits for 17 years, He revealed that the most common type of accident was the fall of a weight on the victim.
Regarding joint or muscle injuries, there are no studies that directly compare both types of training. However, Stuart Phillips, a professor of kinesiology at the McMaster University of Ontario, suggested that the use of heavier loads could imply a greater effort and, therefore, a greater risk of injury.
Regardless of the type of training, learning the appropriate technique, progressing progressively and heating helps reduce the risk of injuries, said Phillips.
What if you just want to stay healthy?
Not all people train strength to gain muscle. Many only seek to stay active, get old and keep the ability to perform daily activities without risk of falls or injuries. In these cases, it is not necessary to reach the muscular failure in each repetition, Steele explained.
While official recommendations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada suggest training force at least twice a week, Steele said that the best available evidence indicates that a weekly session can provide the greatest benefits.
“We suggest training twice a week, because if a session is lost, the minimum effective dose is still reached,” he added.
Beyond the type of training or frequency, the most important thing is constancy. Jasmin Ma, an attached professor specialized in exercise at British Columbia University, stressed that strength training should be incorporated as a habit of life.
“It has to be part of the lifestyle,” he concluded. “It must become a habit, like washing your teeth.”