BWEs: How much are you lifting?

**Gypsy Jazz** · Posted On: 1/03/2005 1:12am

I am quite aware that body weight exercises without weight don't compare to pumping iron for gains in explosiveness. But there are those of us that just can't do weight training for whatever reasons, so don't give me any guff on how I'm a sissy who needs to go pump some iron.

So I'm wondering, about how much are you lifting when doing a BWE? Obviously it's dependent on how much you weight, so let's go with percentages as a reference? How much would you say you're lifting when doing a push up? One handed push up? A chin up? One handed push up? Dips? BW squats? One legged squats? Hand stand push ups? Any BWEs you can think of.

I couldn't find anything on this before and have some urge to satisfy my curiosity. I'd prefer some educated answers, but guesses (within reason) are welcome as well.

**Nid** · Posted On: 1/03/2005 2:52am

You are assuming a great deal, Mr. Jazz.

**Urban** · Posted On: 1/03/2005 3:02am

well... pushups are easy to figure out. go get in pushup position with your hands on a scale in both top and bottom position. If I thought it mattered I'd take the average of the two ( they should be close anyways). Squats are more difficult because there's no real good way to determine how much your legs weight. your best bet is to forget all this foolishness and just focus on intensity, progress, and dedication to getting better.

**Depth** · Posted On: 1/03/2005 5:42am

Also, if you really want to gain strength, power, and speed without any weight training equipment available there are techniques that you can use. Try doing alternatives to regular push-ups. For instance, you can do push up's while clapping in between whick will force you to put a lot more effort into each rep. If you can clap once, trying clapping twice. You can also do one arm push ups and switch between hands on each rep. You can change the positions of the hands for wide or narrow position. Try looking at all the exercises you do now from another angle and try new ways of maximizing the effort it takes to get them done.

**SamHarber** · Posted On: 1/03/2005 5:56am

the only BWEs I do at the moment (voluntarily) are chin ups. I weigh just shy of 200lbs and do 4 sets of 5. The last few are mostly a complete shambles.

I'm getting better though, I used to only be able to do 2 or 3 in a set.