Hacker News Reader

Comment by xeromal | Hacker News Reader

IDK about you, but bodyweight exercises are much more boring that lifting iron.

After 3 years of lifting weights with compound exercises, I got bored, and now having so much fun with bodyweight, it's been 2 years now.

You can Google Handstand push up, pistol squats, full planche, high pull ups. Those kind of skills/balance/freedom of your body can't be reached with only lifting weights. Those are my new targets skills, I've been practising, and I'm having a LOT OF fun progressing toward those goals.

I still do squats and DeadLift from time to time because BodyWeight doesn't strength legs/back as much as I wish, becauseI think they're still important exercises to be solid.

Body weight exercises alone are boring but they become so much more enjoyable when combined with some demanding martial arts like boxing, kick boxing, muay thai or mma. The gains become obvious within a matter of weeks if you practice at least 2 times a week. Your lats and abs stand out very fast!

Agreed, for whatever reason I get bored to tears doing most bodyweight exercises.

Strangely even adding something as simple as a resistance band to the exercise makes it more enjoyable.

I wonder if there is any sort of reason for this phenomenon - I doubt we we are alone!

Yeah, I really tried, especially during this lockdown, but it was just too demoralizing.

I believe it is that you are focusing more on one set of muscles with resistance bands or iron which makes it easier to enter into the "flow" state. Bodyweight exercises involve so many different groups of muscles that it is hard to deeply focus on form and enter "flow". For example the moment I maintain my core perfectly straight on a pushup, my ankles may move out of alignment.

I prefer barbell and kettlebell exercises to bodyweight exercises myself, but I'm a little jealous that bodyweight exercises look cooler and can be demonstrated anywhere at any time in fun ways.

There are way more body weight and gymnastics movements than lifting that you might do as exercise...

Gymnastics requires a lot more training and skill than lifting up and putting down iron. There are far less body weight exercises that you can do without specialized equipment than with dumbbells or barbells, because with bodyweight exercises you always have to push, never pull (with exception of pullups). Bodyweight exercises also generally take much longer to reach fatigue than weightlifting.

That's why I think weightlifting is better for the average person for health, although whatever gets one to actually exercise is what one should be doing!

Make sure it's rusty black iron, not chrome plated or plastic filled with sand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com