What form of strength training involves using body weight?

Calisthenics specifically involves strength training that utilizes one’s own body weight as resistance. This method focuses on movements that require the participant to utilize their body to build strength, flexibility, and endurance. Exercises such as push-ups, pull-ups, squats, and dips are classic examples of calisthenics, where no external weights are used, enabling individuals to improve their strength naturally and effectively.

Resistance training encompasses a broader category that includes any form of exercise that causes the muscles to contract against an external resistance, which may include body weight, free weights, resistance bands, or machines. While calisthenics falls under the umbrella of resistance training, it is the specific technique of using one’s body weight alone that defines calisthenics.

Weightlifting typically refers to lifting heavy weights to build strength, mainly through exercises like bench presses and deadlifts, which do not involve body weight as the sole resistance. Isometric exercises involve contracting muscles without changing their length, often against a fixed resistance, which can also include body weight but is more about holding a posture rather than utilizing the weight in dynamic movements, and thus does not encapsulate the broader range of bodyweight exercises that calisthenics represents.