But this bias towards cardio-pulmonary conditioning means that strength development is sometimes over-looked. Too much ‘cardio’ will deplete muscle mass and actually leads to a loss in strength. In fact, if you have a client who is at a plateau with their weight loss goals right now, consider whether or not they have actually been losing fat or losing muscle. The scales alone will not tell.

We know for a fact that building muscle via strength training is key to kick-starting our metabolism and eliminating hard-to shift, stubborn body fat. With a bit of knowledge, we can improve our boot camp pro-grams to include a good balance of strength training too. No more weight loss plateaus.

One thing I hear repeatedly on subject of outdoor fitness is that the logistics of transporting enough ‘heavy metal’ to the park or beach makes strength training practically impossible. The assumption is that the only way to become strong is to lift weights. This is simply not true. Here are 6 ways in which you can utilise bodyweight exercises to start building muscle and shredding body fat.

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IMPROVE BODY WEIGHT STRENGTH

By Garry Robinson www.kaizenoutdoorfitness.com

How to Improve Body Weight Strength Does your outdoor training program pay enough attention to strength or is it mostly a series of ‘cardio’ workouts? How is it even possible to increase strength without access to heavy weights? Visit most outdoor training groups and you will experience lots of running, jumping, and high-rep, low-resistance exercises that train every energy pathway. Bootcamps can be both exhausting and exhil-arating at the same time. Almost everyone who starts an outdoor training program attains some element of weight loss, which is one reason why bootcamps have become so popular.

How to improve strength using bodyweight exercises Fundamentally, strength gains are made by doing exercises that recruit a maximum amount of muscle, for a low amount of reps and a high amount of resistance. The challenge for coaches is how to make bodyweight exercises hard enough so that it is only possible to do a low amount of reps. 1. Choose compound exercises. The body is one unit and is designed to move as such. Isolating muscles is

not natural and not really an effective way to train anyway. Good examples are squats, push-ups and pull-ups. I consider calf raises, tricep extensions and bicep curls useless exercises because they do not repli-cate real-life tasks and they use only a fractional amount of muscle.

2. Increase range of motion. This requires recruitment of lots more muscle fibre. Be sure to incorporate

some mobility drills beforehand to get the most benefit. Being able to move through a greater range will also have athletic benefits that transfer to any sport and will help to avoid injury.

3. Increase the leverage. Generally this means elevating the feet, hanging from bars or trees or straightening

the limbs to put the body into a mechanically disadvantaged position. 4. Tense muscles harder and for longer. Studies have proven that increased time under tension promotes

gains in strength and muscle growth. So slow down movements, pause at the ‘sticking point’ or start the exercise in the down position to eliminate momentum.

5. Make the exercise unilateral – how many people can do a perfect-form pistol squat? OK, how about a 1-

arm pull-up? How many 1-arm, handstand push-ups can you do? These exercises demand an insane amount of strength. Working on nothing but these three feats would take most of us a lifetime to attain.

6. Add instability. This will recruit smaller, joint stabilizing muscles and play a huge part in rehabilitating and

preventing injuries. Balance training also gives the nervous system a real challenge. Think of how you might alter the big compound exercises to incorporate medicine balls and suspension training systems.

www.kaizenoutdoorfitness.com

www.kaizenoutdoorfitness.com

Click here to discover the risk-free way to run a group training program that guarantees results

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BODYWEIGHT STRENGTH SUMMARY

Omitting strength training from a structured fitness program will deplete muscle and eventually lead to weight loss plateaus. Access to heavy weightlifting equipment is not a limiting factor in building muscle and im-proving strength. Most common boot camp exercises can be made signifi-cantly more demanding by applying one or more basic principles.