Getting Stronger With Workouts Without Weights

Most people don't know that you can actually build muscle without weights by doing a basic bodyweight exercise program. The common belief is that only by joining a gym and putting in a couple of hours each day is the only way that someone can develop a well defined physique. But that's not necessarily the case.

This article explains how when doing workouts without weights your body will start to adapt in many ways to the challenges a good exercise routine will give. It explains that the beginning of strength training starts in your brain and not in your muscles.

Scientific research shows that the initial strength gains in an exercise program is not due to muscle hypertrophy, or the growth of the muscle. It has more to do with how the nervous system is adapting to the added physical demands that exercise puts on the body. More neuro-muscular connections are developed and different areas of the brain are stimulated and developed that cause an increase in strength and ability, but not necessarily an increase in muscle size.

Apparently, according to the article, this research was done with people doing isometric exercises. This means that they weren't lifting weights in the traditional sense of the word. An isometric contraction is when you push or pull against an immovable object. This is significant because, again, it shoots holes in the notion that you have to lift weights to get strong.

So, you can see that building muscle without weights is something that can be accomplished outside of a typical gym routine. Expensive equipment isn't needed either. In fact, all you really need is a pull up bar and a floor to do push ups from.

Building muscle and strength training without weights or high end equipment can be accomplished relatively easily. All you need to do is understand what muscle strength actually is and how you or any one can gain it if they just follow a regular resistance exercise program. It begins in your brain and is then translated into your muscles.

Muscle growth, or, the actual hypertrophy of the muscle will take place over course of time as you successively challenge your body and muscle to do more work. This cannot be gotten around, but, its only one aspect of muscle building process when you're doing workouts without weights.

While researchers are not exactly sure what area of the nervous system is responsible for the increases in strength, they are pointing to several areas that are highly suspicious. The neuro-muscular junction of the muscle and nerve, the cerebral, or, motor cortex, or even another aspect of the peripheral nerves.

Whatever areas are most involved, the bottom line is that your nerves, how you sense and perceive your muscles working is responsible in a large part to the early gains in muscle strength everyone goes through when starting an exercise program.