Introduction
The common belief is that bodyweight training does not require any equipment. After all, your body’s weight is the resistance that you’ll using in your training, right?For the most part, the answer is yes. You do not need equipment like dumbbells, barbells, squat racks and so on.However, there are many different types of equipment that can be used to accelerate your bodyweight training progress. All the best calisthenics experts use extra equipment to improve their performance.If you’re a purist who insists on not using any equipment, you’ll doing yourself a disservice. If you do a pull-up, the pull-up bar that you’re using is equipment. You just don’t think of it that way.So, let’s keep an open mind and see how the cool fitness accessories below will help you to accelerate your progress and build strength in record time.
1. Medicine Ball
This piece of equipment has been used for centuries to assist in physical training. Doing squats with a medicine ball is far more effective than doing only bodyweight squats.Many of your exercises will become more difficult when you use a medicine ball. Lunges with twists are a good example.
While the conventional lunge works your legs, when you add a twist with an outstretched medicine ball, the exercise becomes much more challenging because it works both your legs and core.
2. Battle ropes
This is a fantastic piece of equipment and quite the craze these days. They’re black, heavy ropes that are used for high intensity interval training. You’ll fix the rope to a solid pillar and stretch out the rope.
You’ll then do a series of exercises such as alternate jump waves, jumping power slams, shoulder circles, snakes on the floor and so on. While the moves may look simple, doing them rapidly is exhausting.
A battle rope workout is almost always far more draining and effective than running on a treadmill or other conventional forms of cardio.
3. TRX cables
These cables can be suspended from the ceiling or a pull up bar. They’re a fantastic way to work your core. TRX suspension training is a brand and the cables can be slightly pricey.
However, there are many alternative brands sold on Amazon that are much cheaper and do the job just as well. Suspension training has many different moves that work your body. It’s a training method in its own right… but it’s still a form of bodyweight training.
You should search on YouTube and learn how to do the different exercises correctly and with good form. This training protocol is highly effective for strengthening your core.
4. Agility Ladder
This piece of equipment is used to train athletes in competitive sports all the time. It has been proven to improve one’s agility and speed. As we age, our body tends to be less flexible and our reaction time is slower.Agility ladder training drills can be tiring, but they’re fantastic for increasing your speed and stamina. There are lots of videos on YouTube to guide you on how to use these ladders.
5. Swiss Balls
These huge inflated rubber balls can be found in most gyms. They were very popular back in the day, but with the passage of time, they’ve been forgotten by most.The dwindling popularity is no reflection of just how potent this simple piece of equipment can be in your training. Doing sit-ups on a Swiss ball will activate your abs far more efficiently than a normal floor sit-up.The reason for this is that you can arch your back around the ball. When you curl your torso to come back up, it recruits more muscles in your abs and you really feel the exercise.
Another benefit of having a swiss ball is that you can sit on it while watching TV and it’ll still work your core. Since you’ll have to maintain good posture and there’s no backrest, your core will be constantly working to keep you from rolling off the ball.
So, you’re working out without working out. Fantastic.
6. Wrist Straps
While not a piece of training equipment per se, these straps are very useful for stabilizing your wrists when you’re doing pull-ups and other exercises.They help to brace your wrists and give you support. This can give you an edge in training when your wrist is your weakest link. By stabilizing it, you may be able to do more reps and improve your performance.
7. Ab Roller
This little contraption is a must-have. It’s used in core training and helps to strengthen your abs in a whole different way.Beginners may start off by having both knees on the ground as they roll the wheel backwards and forwards. As you progress, you may wish to do standing ab wheel roll-outs which are a whole new level of difficulty.An ab roller is an inexpensive piece of equipment that should be a part of any body weight training enthusiast’s arsenal.
8. Push up / Dip stand
Another fantastic piece of equipment that’s highly versatile is the push up/dip stand. You may have seen fitness experts like Frank Medrano using the Lebert Fitness Parallettes to do l-sits, handstand push-ups and other bodyweight moves.With these dip stands, you’ll be able to practice many of the advanced bodyweight moves at home before you get to a dips bar and so on. Furthermore, using these stands to do your push-ups helps to ease pressure on your wrists.The 8 pieces of equipment mentioned here are just a few of many. When you’re starting off with bodyweight training, these are the one that are important and versatile enough to challenge you during your training. Get them today and you’ll find yourself using them in most of your workouts. They’re that good.