JULY/AUGUST 2010 27

for students, keeping a sharp mind is

a no-brainer. Unfortunately, a well-

kept body is often neglected in

favor of hours spent honing the

mind. One of the main obstacles is how

too many young people view personal

fitness. How much time

does it take to train

every single muscle

group in your body

individually (you know,

“doing abs” then “doing

back” then “doing bi-

ceps,” etc.)? Hours upon

hours per week and

then some—there are

hundreds of muscles in

the body, for crying out

loud. Generally, people

who have unlimited

time to spend per week

either have someone

who pays the bills for

them or have enough

discretionary income

that they can make

their training a priority

over their work or

school without fin -

ancial or academic harm

being done.

Young people (18–

25), by definition, can

do more than older

people and have an

infinitely lower chance

of being injured while

exercising. Combine

that with someone else

paying your rent for

you and living a life of

leisure, and you have a

perfect recipe for train-

ing like a moron and

still getting results. For

those including the

student population who

aren’t rich and bored

with all their free time, we need to come

up with alternatives. We need to get

results in a few hours per week, without

risking our health, without bankrupting

ourselves, and all while having fun

doing it.

As someone who makes a career out

of watching people exercise, train, and

generally just move around, you may

not think I have much of a need for sta-

tistics. In most cases you’d be right.

However, there are a few statistics I pay

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPOT.2010.937081

Jon Rimmer

Keeping your body in mind

© S

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BY

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GRAD ED SPOTLIGHT

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0278-6648/10/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE

28 IEEE POTENTIALS

attention to that drive my career both

from a tangible training standpoint and

from a business standpoint.

First, over 50% of gym members are

overweight according to the National

Academy of Sports Medicine. Second,

about 80% of gym members will experi-

ence pain and/or injury at the knee, back,

or shoulder at some point during their

gym tenure, also according to the National

Academy of Sports Medicine. Third,

according to the International Health and

Racquet Sports Association close to 70% of

people who purchased a gym member-

ship in January of 2008 were not using the

gym by April of the same year.

From these statistics, we can apply

our deductive reasoning and come to a

pretty safe conclusion: Gyms not only

fail to deliver the health benefits they

claim to provide, but they actually

decrease the level of your health, and,

unless you are the owner of big box

mega chain gym, said gyms are extremely

poor financial investments.

Although the reasons for these num-

bers is obviously multifactorial, one of

the nonresults-producing culprits is the

insistence from the gyms and its employ-

ees that bodybuilding-style training will

work for you. The idea that isolating

body parts one at a time in an effort to

make each individual body part larger

is only effectual if (say it with me)

you’re a bodybuilder. More specifically,

it only works if you have tons of time to

work out, tons of money, if you’re

young and/or if you’re taking illicit sub-

stances. The only people who succeed

from using fixed axis uniplanar equip-

ment typically endorsed by gym sales

people typically fall into at least three

of the aforementioned categories. The

rest of us who are not financially

independent; have responsibilities like

school, work, and family; and don’t

want to have the FBI calling us about

our drug habits need other exercise

avenues to explore.

Weight and seeTraining using your own body weight

as resistance typically provides better

results than working out in a gym with-

out the cost or hassle. And this is some-

thing we don’t need a membership card

to do. Without turning this into a research

paper on biomechanics, training using

your own body weight and/or very lim-

ited equipment will elicit far superior

results for the overwhelming majority of

us when compared to benches and

machines found in gyms.

For starters, exercising using your

own body weight forces your body to

move in a correct biomechanical

manner, that is to say, the manner in

which it was designed to move. Your

hips, glutes, abs, and lower back are

designed to stabilize and generate force

when your arms and legs are moving.

They are not designed to sit on a padded

bench strapped to a machine while you

load up 800 pounds on a triceps push-

down contraption.

This leads to the next obvious ben-

efit of training with little or no external

equipment: increased caloric expendi-

ture. A degree in physiology isn’t

required to see that if you are standing

and moving when exercising, you are

burning more calories than if you’re sit-

ting and/or lying on a bench. This ben-

efit holds true for both the individual

workout in itself and the long-term

effects on your resting metabolic rate.

The increased intensity that comes with

moving your entire body will have your

metabolism burning more calories later

in the day, weeks, months, and years.

In spite of what a gym sales person

will tell you, exercising in a gym is the

best way to get bored and quit an exer-

cise program. The monotony of doing

the same four exercises over and over

(there’s only so many ways to bend

your arms), being indoors, seeing the

same people, and breathing the same

air is a sure-fire way to have you creat-

ing excuses not to go. Using only your

body and limited equipment creates far

more variety within the exercise con-

tinuum. You can vary exercises almost

limitlessly, as well as change the time,

location, and overall surroundings. This

variance goes a long way toward stick-

ing with your plans to follow an exer-

cise routine.

The ability to change your surround-

ings as you please also helps your

mental state and reduces stress load as

well. Many of my clients tell me they’ve

avoided the gym because they feel like

they “have to” go there as if there were

no other alternative. If you have the

scheduling flexibility to work out at

home, with a friend, or outdoors, it can

really impact your frame of mind from a

positive standpoint as well.

There are limitless exercises you can

perform using only your body weight,

far too many to explore here. So before

we discuss a few specific ideas, always

remember the following guidelines:

Be creative: There is nothing wrong

with using your imagination. Many

exercises that are now common moves

in my facility were born simply out of

me saying “What if we….” What’s the

worst that could happen? Someone will

make fun of you? Remember, you

aren’t in a gym anymore and even if

you were, anyone that would make

Fig. 1 When performing a pushup, maintain this position while moving.

Fig. 2 Hips, knees, and toes should remain in a straight line during squats.

Fig. 3 Proper form for a squat includes keeping your hips back and chest out.

JULY/AUGUST 2010 29

fun of you likely falls into one of the

categories mentioned above—those who

don’t know squat. And even if your

creativity is low, simply varying the

speed of the exercise can greatly

impact its effectiveness. Typically, half

speed is very comfortable, very fast

and very slow are not. Experiment to

find what best suits you.

Push yourself: Perhaps the only

benefit of gyms is the peer pressure

factor. We all typically work harder

when others are watching. Make sure

when you’re by yourself that you are

working hard enough to elicit results,

within the parameters of safety and

common sense of course. Speaking of

which: Use common sense. If it feels

too easy, it probably is—figure out a

way to make it tougher. Do more rep-

etitions/sets or try going very slowly or

very quickly as I mentioned earlier.

Ditto if it feels too hard—it probably is.

Pain is no good, fatigue is—differenti-

ate between the two.

Now that we’ve discussed some

guidelines, here are some ways to com-

bine them that I’ve found give my clients

the most bang for the buck.

PushupsWithout question this is the most under-

utilized exercises on the planet. Very

simple, yet very effective for total body

strength—yes, total body strength.

Because if done correctly, the pushup

will improve the strength of the hips and

abdomen as much, if not more, than the

chest and arms. But don’t let the simplic-

ity fool you; there are a few details that

are mandatory for you to pay attention

to so you can reap all its benefits.

Keep your body in the same position

at the bottom of the move as it is at the

top (Fig. 1). Exercisers typically allow

the hips to drop as if they were imper-

sonating a seal, or they bob the head

down and lift the butt as if they’re in

some perfunctory yoga pose.

SquatsIt’s imperative that the feet, knees, and

hips are in a straight line at both the

bottom and the top of the squat (Fig 2).

Avoid toes pointing out, letting your feet

flatten on the arches, and knees crashing

as these are all common mistakes made

when squatting. Also be sure to keep your

head and chest up, and your butt out: this

simply keeps your back straight (Fig. 3).

PlanksUse the same body position as the

pushup but with the weight on your fore-

arms and with zero movement (Fig. 4).

Allow your shoulders to relax to main-

tain a straight upper back as a forward

shoulder roll and a rounded back are

common mistakes. Squeeze your abdo-

men as if you are about to be punched,

but without holding your breath!

CircuitsThe best way to perform any exer-

cise program is to perform the exer-

cises in a circuit manner, meaning go

from one to the other with little or no

rest. For example, do as many push-

ups as you can in 30 seconds, then

hold a plank for 30 seconds, then as

many squats as you can in 30 seconds.

In 90 seconds, you’ve hit pretty much

every important muscle in your body,

including your heart. Repeat that two

or three times and tell me if you need

a treadmill for “cardio!”

Much of what you’ll come across

when using only your body weight

may seem odd or different to you ini-

tially. Always remember the statistics

we discussed earlier regarding gym

goers: what you’re doing may seem

unusual, but unusual becomes effec-

tive with practice. Going down the

predictable road only leads to predict-

ably poor results.

About the authorJon Rimmer (thetrainingrim@gmail.

com) is the owner and operator of The

Training Rim personal training studio in

Belford, New Jersey. He holds a mas-

ter’s degree in exercise science and has

been a trainer for over a decade. His

clients have included models, pageant

winners, NCAA Division I athletes, com-

petitive martial artists, and regular Joes

and Janes. He is a contributing writer

for strengthcoach.com and ptonthenet.

com, two leading resources for personal

trainers, as well as the author of a monthly

exercise column for The Monitor news-

paper. His book, Iron: Kettlebell and Body Weight Training 101 was released

in July.

Fig. 4 Planks require maintaining a tight core (remember to breathe) and keeping your shoulders back.

Much of what you’ll come across

when using only your body weight

may seem odd or different to you

initially. It may seem unusual, but

going down the predictable road

only leads to predictably poor

results.