Bodyweight exercise is it good? Is possible to achieve a great level of intensity? What does science have to say?
Let’s go though!
Let’s go though!
Does exercise at home work?
What bout the intensity achieved, is it possible to high as we as at the gym?
For what purpose it is possible?
What does exercise science have to say about it?
Let’s get started to understand the study.
In Sports Science, there are many tools for tracking the load — How difficult the exercise is — over time. Therefore, they used many methods to track the intensity of a body exercise session in a HIIT manner. HIIT can be prescribed in many different ways, in this case, it was used the 1:1 — which means the same amount of exercise and rest. Four exercises were used, Jumping Jacks, Burpee, Mountain Climber, and Squat Jump, where each one of these was performed over 5 minutes, 30'’ of exercise 30'’ rest, summing up 20',
Participants performed in the session 382± 89 movements. During the exercise session, the first 5' was destined for the 1st exercise and then successively until the end of the 20' session — I hope it is clear. The mean for Jumping jacks was 36–38, Burpees were 11–8 movements, Mountain Cimber 20–17 movements, and finally 18–10 Jumping Squats. What is interesting is that only in Burpees and Squat Jump after the 3rd set the number of repetitions started to decrease.
Just for understanding, there are different methods to measure a load of exercise, split into two main characteristics internal and external. Internal load shows alteration in body physiology considering psychological factors as well. For example, they had an intensity marker like lactate — the indicator of glycolytic via usage — , heart rate which is common, and Rate Perception Exertion (PSE) which has been considered the most efficient method in bodyweight HIIT sessions. The external load can be considered here as the number of repetitions even though it is also a measure of the quantity of exercise made — Volume.
Lactate was higher after exercise — which is expected. Along with all the exercises, Heart rate (HR) was higher in the last bout of Jumping Jacks and the beginning of Burpee (93–95% HRmax), which was decreased (80–87% HRmax) and then again higher when beginning Squat Jump, and — Remember those exercises were performed one followed the other. This shows that either Burpee or Squat Jump was harder and Jumping Jacks and Mountain Climbers was easier. RPE from 0 to 10 kept around 9–9,5 along with the session.
The main information here to be extracted is that Burpees and Jumping Squats produce a greater exercise demand which was observed by HR, but not by the RPE. Individuals start to decrease the number of repetitions in the aforementioned exercises because of residual fatigue and the incapacity of glycolytic via providing energy to the muscles activate — Probably because of the movement pattern being demanding when compared to the others (Jumping Jacks and Moutain Climber).
Suggestion range of repetition to be trained. For example, as I know that exercise repetitions start to decrease after the 3rd set I could work this range with more rest and start to decrease until be able to complete the 5 sets with a decrement.
Machado et al (2018) — Description of training loads using whole-body exercise during high-intensity interval training.
DOI: 10.6061/clinics/2018/e516
