Muscle Building Vs. Strength Building - Why Being Big and Being Strong Are 2 Different Things

So is it weightlifting or bodyweight workouts? well to be honest the answer is not as simple as you might think.

You possibly believed that the answer is obvious, its weightlifting...but that sort of thinking is very closed minded thinking.

The fact is THERE IS NO SUPERIOR APPROACH, each has its ups and downs.

All Physical exercise And Equipment Has A Use

First of all I want to make the declaration that each piece of gym equipment and workout is a means to an end.

If you want to gain muscle and muscular strength you ought to know that there are actually many ways to do so, for arms you could do dumbbell curls or you could do chin ups, every person will respond differently to each exercise.

Both equally are good workouts and as a matter of fact neither is better, the dumbbell curl is an isolation exercise that is better for more advanced people and the chin-up stimulates the back and the forearms as well as the biceps which makes it a compound exercise.

Compound exercises are great for the beginners(or people who took a long break from the gym) to start with and will make you grow at a higher speed, but who am I to tell you how YOUR body will respond, remember that you as a unique individual should find out what works best for YOU.

Push-Ups Versus Bench Press's

It might seem that the bench press is superior to the push-up but however you would be wrong.

Push-ups allow you to use your upper back in a way that a bench press wont let, its possible to harm your back as a result of a muscle imbalance if your upper back is not very strong.

"The scapula is allowed to go through a full range of motion with push ups, but is constricted in all forms of bench pressing. " - Zach Dechant from www.elitefts.com

If they are too easy for you for a greater challenge it is possible to do pushups while wearing a backpack filled up with sand(or something else).

Bench pressing has the psychological effect of doing more but there is as much of a difference in between pushups and bench presses as there is between working out a home gym and at a paid gym, there are some obvious distinctions but the end result is the same. You do almost the same exercises in whichever gym and you activate the same muscles in either chest exercise.

And so are push-ups better than bench press's? no! neither is better than the other!

Every single exercise has a purpose and you can't argue about either being ineffective unless of course you have done each of both for at least a year and its still an individual experience for every single one of us.


Weightlifting Workouts

Free weights have been around for ages, people have used them for ages, even prior to gyms being commonplace.

Its quite possible to accomplish some remarkable things with them, I use them myself personally and there are exercises that are not possible to perform without weights.

As far as what kind of weights you use(assuming you have no dumbbells) it does not matter, I know a guy who claims that he got big by lifting rocks because he could not afford to go to the gym(true story), though dumbbells are advised seeing that they were designed specifically for exercises.

Bodyweight Workouts

I use these types of exercises as well, there are particular exercises you can't do with any gym equipment, like the handstand pushups which tend to be a great deal more brutal than regular pushups.

The special forces are a great example of where guys use bodyweight training, they can't bring a lot of gym equipment directly into their base so they make use of bodyweight exercises and they are certainly not out of shape if you ever met a dude who is in the special forces.

Conclusion

To close this off I basically want to say that you have the freedom to use any type of exercises, what is important is what your goals and intentions behind them are, because there are many roads to get to your goals and many tools.

Its up to you to determine what to do, you can use free weights or you can do bodyweight workouts, you can also do a combination of both.

In the end you should do what is effective for you, but remember do not close off your mind to new possibilities.

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