All exercise is beneficial. But even stacked up against other types of workouts, body-weight exercise has a lot to offer. Not only does it provide an excellent workout, but it can also help you overcome some common excuses for avoiding exercise, like “I don’t have time to go to the gym” and “I don’t have space for a stationary bike at home.” All you have to do is move your body. No matter where you are, you’ve got your body, so you can start exercising anywhere, anytime—in your bedroom when you wake up, in the kitchen while you’re waiting for water to boil, in your hotel room when traveling. That makes it easy to find the time.
Research published in the journal Physiology and Behavior found that, as a form of resistance training, body-weight exercise helps build muscle “independent of an external load.” But it does more than that. When Polish researchers looked at the effects of 10 weeks of body-weight exercises on various physical fitness parameters in a small group of young women, they found improvements in seven out of nine of the parameters. The biggest gains were in aerobic capacity, with a 33% improvement. Muscle endurance, particularly in the core, increased by 11%, while lower-body power posted a 6% gain. Even flexibility was better after the training.
Source:Health Beat – Harvard Medical School