[mondocat]

If you're able to increase your strength using body-weight exercises, then they're excellent. And they can go a long way - most people probably can't do a pull up, and very few will ever be able to do a pistol squat or a handstand pushup. However, for basics like pushups and squats, body weight offers only a beginner's level of resistance, and going to the gym not only offers the ability to continue making improvements, it makes incremental progress accessible for all kinds of movements, not just those two. Specifically, most people doing pushups and body weight squats are probably doing no pulling movements, or overhead movements.

[mondocat]

Thinking about this more, I'd say the convention wisdom on body-weight exercises is completely backwards. They're terrible for beginners, but can be valuable for people already strong enough to do them. Why are they terrible for beginners? Two reasons, either their potential for improvement is too low, like the pushup or squat, where the average person can get to 5-10 reps pretty quickly- the point at which a given resistance is no longer able to elicit strength gains. Or, the first step is so large that it's effectively unreachable. Pull-ups are great, but if you are a beginner, doing your first pull-up by doing only pull-ups is a great challenge, compared to going to the gym and doing pull-downs or assisted pull-ups starting at an appropriate weight, and making incremental progress. In short, body weight exercises can certainly be challenging, think of a gymnast, but they offer very little in the way of incremental improvement from any starting point, which is what beginners need most.

[pavel_lishin]

> Specifically, most people doing pushups and body weight squats are probably doing no pulling movements, or overhead movements.

yeah - I'm definitely not. Need to fix that - gotta find a place to do pull-ups, and get some actual weights.

One issue is that I know I'll never go to the gym; besides the comparative time required (driving/biking to the gym, vs. just going downstairs to the basement), it's just a weird psychological quirk of mine.