Weighted Body Conditioning

[Kay]

Im Quite poor and cant afford to go to a gym or patient enough to save up and buy weights,
But i wanna put on some muscle.
So what im asking is, Has anyone tried bodyweight exercises (Press ups, Squats etc) with added weight like a weight vest? except im wearing a bag with some Weight in it.
Would the effect be the same as weight training, Like a bench press = Push up?


Also Is it okay to do Plyometrics Weighted?

Thnx for answers in advance!

[chicanerous]

Yes. Yes. No.

[Kay]

Yes. Yes. No.

Ok thanks for the reply.
Why would do say no to weighted plyometrics?
Ive heard its okay and good to add on a little weight after you have been doing plyometrics regularly...

[Kon-El]

Unless you are rather advanced, the risk:benefit ratio of weighted plyometrics is probably too high. I've also read somewhere (though I can't quote the study) that when weighted plyo exercises were compared to the unweighted ones, the benefits did not improve very dramatically as one might expect. Chic might have better reasons though. Also if adding weight to simple bodyweight exercises still isn't enough, look into more advanced progressions, like one-armed chins, true one-armed pushups (where your legs are not spread), planches, mannas, pistol jumps, etc.
Not sure if that helps, but good luck.

edit: If you're creative stretch bands can also be useful both alone and to add resistance to bw exercises. They shouldn't be too expensive, make sure they're regular strong bands, not tubing.

[Kay]

Thanks Kon-El, Ive recently started planche presses which is great and hopefully i wanna do them weighted soon.
I guess ill just keep doing plyometrics normally.

[Kon-El]

Glad to help. Just thought I'd add that nutrition and rest are also big factors to gaining muss; you probably know this already though.

[Ashtar]

Im Quite poor and cant afford to go to a gym or patient enough to save up and buy weights,
But i wanna put on some muscle.
So what im asking is, Has anyone tried bodyweight exercises (Press ups, Squats etc) with added weight like a weight vest? except im wearing a bag with some Weight in it.
Would the effect be the same as weight training, Like a bench press = Push up?
I haven't done it with a weighted vest, but I have done squats holding an additional weight. Weighted vests are expensive, and you can't adjust the weight very easily to balance yourself. It's probably easier to hold an additional weight, even if you don't have a barbell you could probably find progressively heavier objects to do it with.

Pushups are trickier since you have to balance something on your back. Those stretch bands you loop around hands always seemed easier than balancing something, although for use with those roller wheels you put your feet/hands in I saw a belt you could put on with a metal bar coming out of it that you could put plates on that always seemed cool. A backpack seems like a better idea than a vest, because vests are sometimes a tight fit and might limit your scapular movement, backpacks are usually more adjustable so you could keep them loose enough to remain mobile.

Also Is it okay to do Plyometrics Weighted?

Thnx for answers in advance!It is, but is safer to build a base of strength using non-plyometric weightlifting, not to mention doing plyometrics unweighted first. They are harder to measuresince the acceleration of impacts and stuff are a lot more random in how the forces are applied to you. If you were doing stuff like depth jumps, it might be easier to increase the depth slightly rather than add weight. The comparative joint load is also in a more ideal ratio this way. When you do weighted stuff, it is going to get it out of whack, by loading the upper spine more than the lower spine and legs, compared to the ratio you would get from unloaded impacts.

[JacktheHero]

Plyometrics are meant to improve on the stretch-shortening-cycle of unweighted movements, it's more intuitive to do them w/o weight, as adding weight would completely alter the mechanics of that movement.
However you can do explosive training à la jumpsquats with weight (wich is simpler than plyometrics: just some kind of rate-of-force developement in one plane. so adding weight doesn't change much besides added resistance.)
At least that's how I would try to explain the differences.

[tuareg]

I used to do push ups with a heavy bag on my back. Definitely better than regular ones.

[Inkrepid]

Look up Ross Enamit(spelling)
I have his books and they are wonderful, as well as his site as all the info there is free.

[Ashtar]

Another interesting thing is 2-leg plyo versus 1-leg plyo. You could use much smaller distance drops if 1-leg, and it would load the spine less. That said, it'd of course be inherantly more risky. Probably jumping around and agility stuff works 1-leg a lot anyway.

[Kay]

Another interesting thing is 2-leg plyo versus 1-leg plyo. You could use much smaller distance drops if 1-leg, and it would load the spine less. That said, it'd of course be inherantly more risky. Probably jumping around and agility stuff works 1-leg a lot anyway.

You talking about doing Plyo on one leg at a time?
cause ive never actually thought about that

[anfeyd]

Another interesting thing is 2-leg plyo versus 1-leg plyo. You could use much smaller distance drops if 1-leg, and it would load the spine less. That said, it'd of course be inherantly more risky. Probably jumping around and agility stuff works 1-leg a lot anyway.

Who cares about the spine when you're going to be loading the knee and ankle with twice as much force.