Some experts say that if you want a better figure, you need to focus on doing your exercises on machines, as they allow you to add more weight and concentrate on working specific muscles as hard as you can.
I, along with many other experts, would have to disagree. Bodyweight training includes multi-joint exercises that target more than one muscle group and make your body strong and functional.
The fact that bodyweight training can be more challenging is probably a big reason why some will say that it is ineffective.
One of the best upper body exercises, and a TRUE bodyweight exercise is the pull-up.
Believe it or not, there are people who can sit on a machine or cable station and do pull-downs with hundreds of pounds attached – but they cannot do one SINGLE pull-up!
On the other hand, I don’t know anyone who can do a true pull-up, and cannot add a lot of weight when doing pull-downs.
When you try to think of a really muscular person, who comes to mind? How about gymnasts? Or military personnel?
Can you guess what these two have in common?
That’s right – their training methods are based around bodyweight exercises.
The bottom line is this: If you want to build muscle and a functional body, choose bodyweight training over machines!
