Get a buff body! Bodyweight exercises or weights? | Natalie Jill

Hi, guys. Natalie, Jill here. Welcome back to Happy, Healthy and Fit. Today I'm going to answer your question about lifting weights versus body weight. Because many of you, especially those of you who I've worked with for several years, know that I used to do a lot of weights and talk about heavy weights and equipment. But now I've switched primarily to body weight and shorter workouts. And I want to explain to you why. There's four main reasons. The first reason is it's very time effective and efficient. And I realized by using my own body weight, I could challenge myself a lot more in a lot less time and get results. The second reason is it's very effective. It is very effective. It's more challenging than weights can be. Take a pull up, for instance. Just the exact idea of working towards that pull up, pulling yourself up, the progressing towards it, works a lot more of your body than using weights to accomplish this same thing. And then once you master that pull up and you add more of them, you do them with more intensity, you go longer, it truly changes your body. So it's very effective. Now, using your own body weight is not about just using air and pretending like that's weights at all. Using your own body weight means you're using that to build and change your body. So exercises like planks, push ups, pull ups, chin ups, things with a stability ball, that is all your own body weight and very challenging. And it's a lot easier to progress and a lot harder to cheat. That was reason number two. Number three is you just can't cheat the system. You can't cheat it because when you're doing your own body weight, there is no cheating and you're challenging yourself to master the next thing. So take a plank, for instance. Maybe it takes effort to get into that first plank and then taking that to a longer plank hold and then advancing from there, doing harder things from that plank mode, you can't cheat it. It forces your body to work more, work harder, and you change your body from that. The fourth one, and this is a big one, is using your own body weight eliminates all the excuses. Because I've heard all of the excuses and my motto is excuses or solutions, you decide. So the top excuses are, I don't have a gym, I don't know what I'm doing at the gym, I don't have equipment, I'm getting rid of the excuses because you don't need equipment, you don't need a gym, and you also don't need a lot of time. That's a Big excuse. Also, I don't have the time because in just a short amount of time, you, you can do effective exercises to change your body with your own body weight. So that's why I'm a fan of body weight. I believe you can change everything. You can work every part of your body with body weight exercises. Now, am I against weights? No, not against them, but I personally use my own body weight now for my exercises. That's why I choose to do that. Now, the final question I get about that is about machines. Now, I am not a fan of machines at all. And I'll tell you why. When you're on a machine, you restore restricting all areas of your body except for what you're working. Take a fly machine, for instance. You're sitting there, everything's locked down, and you're just working your chest. I don't like that because I don't feel that that's functional. And I like your body working as an entire unit together. So I want you to involve your core and other muscles with every exercise you do. So instead of a fly on a machine, for instance, doing a push up would involve your core, your chest, your back, your arms. It involves a lot more, so it's much more functional. So I hope that answers your questions about why I went from weights to body weight. Now, all of my DVD programs are body weight only, and they are challenging. I have them from beginner to advanced, and I have one just focused on abs. You can find all of those@nataliejillfitness.com DVDs.

Sam.