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Bodyweight Exercises To Develop Strength
Bodyweight exercises have long been used to chisel the physique and to develop great strength. Today, too many people believe that they only way to develop great strength is to throw heavy weights around in a gym. But since the beginning of time, if men wanted to display great strength they did so through displaying a great control of their body. They practiced the art of calisthenics.
Calisthenics today is only viewed by most as a form of conditioning. However, if you go back to the days of the ancients, it was understood as a strength and conditioning system. It allowed fighters to develop maximum strength for battle and the musculature that intimidated those that they faced.
If you saw the movie 300, you saw the story of 300 Spartans who due to their great conditioning and musculature and battle skills held off an army of 120,000 Persians until further Greek forces could arrive at the Battle of Thermopolylae. When Herodotus, the Greek historian, records this story he mentions that Xerxes had sent out a scout party and had seen the Spartan warriors training their bodies with calisthenics. What is considered to be the greatest warrior race that has ever been recorded used calisthenics or bodyweight exercises are their main training regimen. If it was good enough for the Spartans who had to head into battle, it should be more than sufficient for us, many of whom sit behind a desk all day. In fact, since the movie a number of bodyweight exercise programs that have been designed around the training of the actors who played the Spartans in the movie have sprung up.
The Spartans weren’t the only ones who believed in the power of body weight exercises. The great athletes of the original Olympic Games trained with calisthenics. This was documented by Pausanius. In fact, you can see evidence of this type of training taking place on many painted scenes or carving from early Greece. The Greeks understood that body weight exercises provided an athletic, muscular body that performed well in battle and competition.
Perhaps we should spend more time on body weight calisthenics instead of glorifying throwing around a bunch of iron. Weight lifting has its place but it never should come at the expense of performing exercises with your own bodyweight. At the very least they should live in harmony together.
