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I personally prefer to use bodyweight exercises over using weights. As long as you have a routine that covers all muscle groups then you shouldn't have too many problems building your fitness levels.

I prefer bodyweight exercises in a circuit as it covers a number of muscle groups at one time i.e. press ups work triceps, shoulders and back - your heart gets a workout too.

Working with weights I have found that you lose out as your body is not constantly stressed as it is when doing pull ups or press ups.

When I went to do pressups, which I thought wouldn't be too hard as I worked out all the time using free weights, (bench presses and such like) I found I could barely do ten. I find when doing press ups there are many muscles that get targeted that do not when using weights.

Just my own experience. Not based on fact.

Yeah Lance I tend to agree nowdays. Heavy lifting ect... sure creeps up on you as you age. Iwas a weight guy, I had friends like you. Today I got achey joints and back aches, they are still going strong. So other than looking good for the chicks I get your point.

Lance wrote:I personally prefer to use bodyweight exercises over using weights. As long as you have a routine that covers all muscle groups then you shouldn't have too many problems building your fitness levels.

I prefer bodyweight exercises in a circuit as it covers a number of muscle groups at one time i.e. press ups work triceps, shoulders and back - your heart gets a workout too.

Working with weights I have found that you lose out as your body is not constantly stressed as it is when doing pull ups or press ups.

When I went to do pressups, which I thought wouldn't be too hard as I worked out all the time using free weights, (bench presses and such like) I found I could barely do ten. I find when doing press ups there are many muscles that get targeted that do not when using weights.

Just my own experience. Not based on fact.

Bodyweight exercises are okay, but if you're too light, doing push ups, pull-ups etc isnt going to give you a good workout, and when you try lifting and carrying a bergen you'll struggle. That's what happened to my mate i mentioned earlier. So he started doing weights, and like I said, he's now a PTI. You can keep your muscles stressed with weights if you use lower weights and do higher reps. Try 15-20 reps. I myself only do weights twice a week and I do fine. The rest of the time I do cardio and bodyweight exercises. However, the really skinny lads would probably benefit from 3-4 weights sessions a week to build strength for that bergen..

I'm 6'0 and about 10 1/2 Stone. Do you recon that I would benefit from using weights or would bodyweight exercise be sufficient?

I think a couple of weights sessions a week always helps. Don't forget, in the forces you carry webbing, bergen and a rifle on top of your own weight a lot of the time, so building strength beyond lifting and carrying your own weight is an advantage.

Good thinking BA. You may have convinced me to dig my weights out once again. Thanks for the info mate.

No problem, fella. There are people on this forum who know more than me about weight training etc. So ask around a bit.

In my opinion, what you need is good strength endurance. This means being able to exert a lot of strength over a long period of time ie. carrying a bergan or jerrycan etc. if you do heavy weights but with very low reps (3-5) you can build inhuman levels of strength but with a pretty low bodyweight. This idea may be pretty alien in this country as it was the Russians in the cold war who first discovered all this knowledge about the human body. But what i do is lots of running, lots of weights in the form i just described and some strength endurance sessions which involve throwing my 53lb kettlebell from hand to hand, under my legs, throwing it up and catching it etc. This builds good all round functional strenght but along with the stamina to exert that strength over a long period and exert power from all sorts of positions.
That's me done.

Would there be any major problem in doing weight training for upper body, alternating with cardio sessions for the lower body on the off days (running, etc.), or would they cancel each other out as tom123 suggests?

Never read highland toms post so I cant comment directly on what he meant... BUT.... They won't cancel each other out as such. You wont make as many gains in terms of muscle size etc if you're trying to get fit aerobically as well but as we are talking about military fitness i dont see a problem!

For my own humble view. I would not bother with the gym for weights. I'm from the school of "using your own bodyweight" and personally think it is much more effective at creating a strong fit body!

You can do chest dips between two chair, pull ups, chin ups, the old hand stang against a wall dips (forgottent he name), there are so many possibilities of using your own body weight that will result in maximum strength for size and a reasonable size at that!! I favour the american style calisthenics - awesome.

your getting athletics training and military training mixed up. The fact is that soldiers are conditioned for combat which means they must be ready for anything that comes their way. Seperating cardio aerobic and anaerobic fitness is a luxury. If you specialise in weight training and cut back cardiovascular training you will get muscle growth but big muscles are not required in the military, just strength and you can get strong without adding muscle.

Hyperlithe wrote:That's heavier than me...

me too

maybe they should start lifting up slim lassies rather than jerrycans and the such like. Perhaps it would be more enjoyable?

Firstly, I'll apologise in advance if I repeat anything said above.

In my opinion there's no point being able to do loads of chin ups, push ups etc if you can't yomp with some big meaty weights on your back, you can't help some of your mates out when they need it or you can't unscrew the top of your canteen because it's on too tight. What I'm basically saying is doing some power lifting is going to help you do these things if you're one of these skinny lads who are under 60 Kilo.

Also, why does it have to be either or? Like weights doing press ups and sit ups will detract from your ability to run but these differences are minor aswell as the fact that people are training to become soldiers and not runners. A good weights program will also strengthen bones, ligaments and tendons making you less likely to become injured, this makes weight training particularly handy for you lads who are fresh out of school as 16/17 year olds are quite prone to injury whilst undergoing military training.

Another thing, its probably quite likely that alot of potential recruits will want to play sport so your going to want to do weights for boxing, rugby etc.

I conclude, do some power lifting you don't need to be built like a brick outhouse to have good explosive strength. Do dead lifts, squats, cleans, clean and presses, bench presses, get an iron grip. Don't just settle for press ups, why have good strength to weight ratio when you can have good strength to weight ratio and great strength generally.

conclude, do some power lifting you don't need to be built like a brick outhouse to have good explosive strength. Do dead lifts, squats, cleans, clean and presses, bench presses, get an iron grip. Don't just settle for press ups, why have good strength to weight ratio when you can have good strength to weight ratio and great strength generally.

I concur with this, not to go over-board but some explosive strenght is good for mob and civvy life. This week I had to help out some guys who had rolled their car and were trapped inside... you never know when you will need that xtra bit of muscle power

Precisely my point m_fat man. I bet you your average pencil necked press up enthusiast would be no good in a situation like that.