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Why Body Weight Strength
Training Is The Key To
Developing Animal Like Power
And Might
Body weight strength training is the best and surest path in order to
develop animal like strength and might. As I have pointed out elsewhere
on this site any animal in nature possess strength and endurance that
would put any human being to shame. The reason this is so, I believe,
is because by instinct they are constantly training with nothing but
their own bodyweight. Evolution and mother nature ensure that by doing
so they will be at their absolute best. If you could train a gorilla to
follow a "Man Made" exercise program like weight lifting would he be
any stronger than other gorilla's? The answer is no. In fact he would
be far weaker.
Consider The Gymnast

To illustrate this point let's put our animal brethren aside for a
moment and consider one of the most animal like athletes we have,
namely the gymnast. In order to develop and maintain their incredible
natural strength they seldom if ever lift a weight. Rather they are
constantly engaged in body weight strength training to one degree or
another.
A Gymnast
Tries Weight Lifting
I've been reading a book entitled "Building The Gymnastic Body" by
Christopher Sommer. Mr. Sommer is currently the National Team Coach for
the American Junior Gymnastic team. Prior to coaching he was also a
gymnast himself. In his book he relates the story of the day he gave up
gymnastics as a competitor in order to move into coaching. When this
happened he decided to try other forms of training like running and
weightlifting. He remembers the first time he stepped into a gym to try
weight lifting. There were his results:
- Double bodyweight dead lift (This is a terrible
exercise, btw)
- Military press with 110% bodyweight
- Chins with 50% of his bodyweight for reps
- Dips + 60% of his bodyweight for reps
- 75 pushpus in 1 minute
- wrist curls with 110% bodyweight
- Run a mile in 5:37 seconds / 11:30 two-mile run
- Ran 20 miles on the spur of the movement.
Lessons
Learned - And Ignored
Remember, Mr. Sommer's had not even touched a weight prior to this.
Given that, these results were nothing less than amazing. With no prior
experience Mr. Sommer was absolutely smoking every weight lifter around
him. The obvious conclusion from this is that Mr. Sommer's prior
program of gymnastic body weight strength training was incredibly
effective and far better than the weight lifting. If anything you would
have thought the weight lifters in attendance that day would have given
up the iron game in order to take up gymnastic training themselves.
However this is not the conclusion Chris came to. Instead he decided
that if he was this strong without ever having lifted a weight in his
life, imagine how strong he's be if he started weight lifting full time!
Learning The Hard Way
At any rate Mr. Sommer dedicated himself to weight training with the
same passion that he had once applied to gymnastic body weight strength
training. What were the results? In his own words, "I got sore, stiff,
slow, tired and my athletic ability, after slight initial gains, was
not only not improving, but was beginning to slip." Or put another way,
he was getting WORSE in all areas. He was NOT getting stronger or
healthier from weight training. If anything it was wearing his body
down and aging him prematurely. Once Chris realized this he immediately
went back to his previous routine of bodyweight training and he found
himself improving again almost immediately.
Building Real Animal Like Strength
From this story I think the conclusions are fairly obvious. If you want
to build the strength and power of the animals in nature. If you want
to put your weight lifting friends to shame, the key is to follow a
program of Body Weight Strength Training like I teach in my ebook "Natural
Fitness". Nothing else even comes close.
If you have
any questions, feel free to write me using the Contact
Form.
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