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Comment by nicoburns | Hacker News Reader

The benefit of dumbbells could be the opposite: that they weigh less than the body and thus make the exercises more manageable.

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For that there are always alternative body weight exercises to make the effort easier.

Yep. Do push-ups on an incline. Get rings or a suspension trainer and do exercises from a more upright position. Rest feet on the floor when doing dips. Tons of ways to scale exercises down if you can’t do the normal version yet.

While you are all technically correct for one reading of that one sentence, it can also be read that buying dumbbells is the only option for using dumbbells right now.

Not really. What’s a body weight alternative to shoulder lift? When I travel and stay in hotels without gym, I use chairs and furniture. However, holding on to them can be really hard and certain exercises are just impossible.

You can do it with Resistance Bands which are super light.

That’s a good point, and I try that as well when no alternative, but I prefer a chair and a dumbbell before those things because they pull in a specific direction rather than down. But these are not just using a body.

Handstand pushups for example.

As someone who weights 250lb? ;)

Variations of Pike Press or Decline Push Up. If that 250lbs is mostly fat I wouldn't worry too much about my shoulder strength and focus on losing the extra weight. If it's muscle I agree that it's hard to maintain that without some iron.

Inverted shoulder press is super effective and not as hard as a handstand pushup.

Not the result. But I do do this, as well as pushups of different kinds, crunches, squats, etc. I just can’t agree that free weights can be completely replaced in a regular room.

You can build an entire upper body strength program around chins and handstand push ups. If you can't do a handstand push up; doing handstands and negatives until you can should provide plenty of upper body stimulation.

The only real downside to bodyweight training is lower back.

> The only real downside to bodyweight training is lower back.

I learned this the hard way when I got back in the gym.

Yes, theoretically you can do "everything you need" (no, but in terms of main lifts I can accept the answer) only with bodyweight exercises. In the same way you theoretically only need Notepad to program in any language.

In practice it sucks.

Yeah ok, sure, you can make your push-up harder or easier if you incline one way or the other. But do you have a bench that can be set to the exact height you want? All padded surfaces? Do you have enough space? Not to mention your shoulder mobility/strength which might or might not be the best one for your push-up to work on all inclinations.

Do all people have enough dexterity and strength for all bodyweight exercises? I don't think so

You can't beat weights. If I had to go to prison and learn how to do body-weight exercises, I would, but a barbell with the ability to set the weight in increments of 5 lbs is exactly what you want to precisely overload your muscles at the exact rate your programming requires. Also, if body weight exercises were enough, why do elite athletes consistently use weights and machines?

Bench-pressing 20 lbs dumbbells seems to be perceived as being cooler than but is also typically easier than doing pushups on your knees.

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