1. Low reps aren't necessarily better. It depends on your goals. Generally, lower reps (1-5 reps) are better for strength training while higher (6-15) are better for muscle mass. You can still develop strength and size in both ranges though. The limitation with some bodyweight exercises is that they can easily turn into endurance work as you get stronger. You need to introduce loads to maintain the emphasis on strength/size (i.e. not 50 reps of push-ups).
Yeah, exactly. Bodyweight is just one modality, just like kettlebells, barbells and dumbbells are other modalities. The implement doesn't matter so much as the physical attribute you are trying to build.
To develop strength, you need to train using low reps because you need high levels of tension in the muscle. Strength is built by
contracting and
tensing your muscles harder. Therefore, it is a skill.
In order to generate high levels of tension within your muscles, there needs to be a high level of resistance. If you can bang out a bunch of reps on a given exercise, then there is naturally not going to be enough resistance (note: resistance doesn't have to mean weights or an external object).
For bodyweight exercises specifically, you continue to make the exercise hard enough so that you can do only do 5 reps or less by:
- redistributing the weight between your limbs
- adjusting the range of motion on an exercise
- training in an unstable environment
- varying the leverage
- minimizing bounce and momentum on your reps
For example, think about the one-arm pushup. If you can already bang out 5 or more reps then you need to make it harder. You can do this by elevating your feet on a box and inclining your body, you can take away one leg and turn it into a one-arm/one-leg pushup (ridiculously hard exercise), you can pause at the bottom for 1-3 seconds, etc.
You do this so you can continue to have high-resistance --> generate high levels of tension in the muscle. Just mindlessly pumping out reps doesn't increase your strength, that's just endurance training at that point. Which, training for endurance has its place in a program, but it's not useful to build strength.
Another reason you want to avoid high reps is that it is mentally harder to concentrate on perfect technique and to focus on contracting and tensing your muscles harder when you have to do that for many repetitions (>5 reps). This is the skill part of building strength, and also why you want to avoid muscle failure and fatigue.
Think about getting better at tennis. Would you go to the tennis court and hit tennis balls all evening until you aren't able to lift your arm anymore? No, of course not. You would go and hit some balls until you start feeling your performance drop off a little for the day, then pack it up and go home only to return to the tennis court the next day. That's how you get good at tennis in a hurry.
Not by hitting tennis balls to exhaustion and then needing 5-7 days to recover until you can go back out on the court and hit some balls again. Same thing with strength. When you want to get stronger, you treat your training as a "practice" rather than a "workout" as Pavel would say.
Anyways, for a crash course on all of this you really need to read "
Power to the People" -- Pavel's flagship book on strength training. He explains all of this in great detail and also why you should prioritize strength
first over endurance and explosive power/speed. You could probably find it on Google by typing in the title and adding "PDF" after it.
2.Cant someone train for strength ,speed and endurance simultaneously ?
You can, but it depends on your goals. Like
@Train said, give Easy Strength a gander and read those links we gave you about this subject.
Although I will say this, for the general population it's better to focus on strength first because all other physical attributes are built on it. As the saying goes, "the bigger the base, the higher the peak."
So,
@Adivats I know that was a long-winded rant (can you tell I'm a geek on this subject?
) but I hope that answered your questions.
I'd really start with "
Power to the People" first, so you can understand the foundational principles of strength training. Then, move on to The Naked Warrior, Convict Conditioning and
Building the Gymnastic Body: The Science of Gymnastics Strength Training by Christopher Sommer to learn about strength training with bodyweight. Then, look at Easy Strength for the "total package" of training multiple physical traits like strength, speed and endurance simultaneously depending on your goals.
As Pavel would say, "power to you, comrade!"
