body weight V.S. weight lifting

yup, gymnasts again

Its time for that talk, you know what it is, read the damn title. Now i will be speaking from personal experience, i did 1 year of body building as my entry to exercise and fitness (HAHAHAHA i know, i know), then i went and did 2-2.5 years of strictly body weight exercise and gained back the weight, mass, size, and strength that i lost after all my body building gains melted off and now recently (recently being within the last 8 months) i've taken up weight training, not a body building style but true weight lifting, with most of the emphasis on squats and deadlifts, and a few other things but mostly an emphasis on the main big lifts.

Now why do i only focus on the big lifts? because pistol squats/one leg squats only get you so far, even adding weight the exercise just becomes irritating to deal with as your primary source of leg stimulation not to mention dealing with HEAVY ASS LOADS makes you jump higher like a little spring, and being a Traceur in the Parkour community, that is relevant to my interests.

This article was inspired by a quote i found recently (i forget where) it was a body weight exercise practitioner speaking to a weight lifter, polar opposites, no melding of their training styles: "I can do what you can do, almost as well as you can, but you cannot do what i do." and it struck a cord, not many people would be able to jump into my calisthenics program (progressive calisthenics not just pull ups and pushups folks, progressions like one arm chin up training, planche, and lever training.) but most can easily start with weights and when i just started playing with weights (also throw in the fact that my 6'6" frame caused a couple problems with finding the right exercise form that works for me) i was already lifting 1.5 times my body weight on deadlifts, and squatting my body weight. so my transition from body weight made me strong enough to handle weights that most would have to work up to, but if they tried my body weight routine they would suffer immensely. 

The whole reason i recommend body weight exercise over anything for beginners is because its extremely low impact, it drastically increases tendon and ligament strength in newbies, its free and can be done with very little equipment and a little improvisation and it makes transitioning to ANY other athletic venture easier. at any given moment we are using our bodies and our body's weight, walking, running, standing, we're all at our body's weight under gravity so if anything we should all have to intermediate mastery over our bodies through calisthenics and parkour training.

This is not a rip on weight training in any capacity or form, i love training with weights and i LOVE lifting heavy weights, deadlifts are probably one of my favorite exercises, what im saying is CROSS TRAIN, give a heavy emphasis to bodyweight work and use weight to supplement your training to more advanced calisthenic exercises and do the 2 main leg lifts, squats and deadlifts for much more leg power, strength, and stabilization.

Train hard, PEACE!

fit women, motivation, and workouts

"women's fitness, how we can get motivated, challenging workouts, etc?"

"Women's fitness"

Here is another thing i think the fitness industry has done horribly wrong (though being an INDUSTRY can you really blame it for simply following the profit?) "women's fitness" is no different than mens. fitness is fitness an exercise is the same for both genders the only difference is the difference that all humans share no matter the gender, ethnicity, background, etc; WE'RE ALL DIFFERENT, the only reason i believe the fitness industry made the whole "women's niche" is of course for the marketing options, all these zumba classes, pink dumbells, and specialized clothing that makes one feel more athletic before actually doing anything, "im gonna start being athletic and lose this weight blah blah blah starting new years", buy the merch and feel fulfilled and end up giving up before you even start. and of course there's the whole "conspiracy" (dont let that connote negative ideas) that the government doesn't want strong Americans because they would have power. but i digress, the separation of genders has led to a decrease is the strength of women, as LBEB stated in this article, weak men absolutely demand that a woman stays weak as well, there's no reason women cant be strong the only thing that needs to change is most training methods that MOST (notice it says most not ALL) women employ are flawed, each individual is different so im not going to spew a cookie cutter workout but you should seek evaluation and work on an actual routine built for you and progress into your strength. YES because women lack the levels of testosterone that men have and YES that does make upper body strength and muscle gain a bit slower but hey! if it wasn't a challenge you wouldn't be stronger because of it!

One thing i will say to you ladies is this: GET. OFF. THE. CARDIO. MACHINES. freakin hell just stop, if asked ill make an article explaining the multitude of reasons that cardio machines should be avoided at all costs but for the sake of  the readers ill stay on topic. Women have more raw ability for gaining leg strength and mass than men do (to a point) simply stated, women, if you're not squatting and deadlifting:

Fat cat judges your lifts

Just because testosterone implies masculinity in the minds of all who hear it, doesn't make it a hormone specifically reserved for men. both genders have amounts of both hormones, but women can make damn good use of increased testosterone through NATURAL methods, i.e. lifting heavy and eating testosterone boosting foods. NO you wont get bulky, NO you wont look like a man, and i swear if i hear you say the word toned i'll throw some 45 plates at you. Another thing you can do to maximize natural testosterone secretion is to eat lots of animal food products and eggs (cholesterol helps boost testosterone production)[1] and avoid soy like the plague because soy in its non fermented forms (including tofu in this instance because american tofu is still terrible) is highly estrogenic and YES that's a bad thing. higher than necessary levels of estrogen in females causes higher levels of fat accumulation in the obvious areas, potential increase in breast cancer and a whole slew of bad things[2] so now that we're established that through natural methods and means Estrogen < testosterone is preferred for health, vitality, strength, and longevity. NOW ONWARD!

Motivation

i dont have much to say on motivation besides this: if it's not intrinsic, you'll eventually give up, quit, or not work as hard as you should, for a better grasp of what i mean watch this:

Challenging workouts

good stuff, do them, if you wanted an idea from me i'd have to evaluate you, your imbalances, your goals, and your current level of athletic ability, i don't hand out cookie cutters, all i can say though is if you're not squatting and dead lifting you're doing it wrong, "it" being fitness. 

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testosterone#Biosynthesis

[2] http://www.livestrong.com/article/164740-what-are-the-side-effects-of-high-estrogen-levels/