ABSTRACT
Clients benefit from new exercises that stimulate interest and enhance training gains by challenging muscles in new and different ways. Manual resistance (MR) is an excellent tool you can use to give a new dimension to your sessions. It involves the use of your own body weight to provide resistance to a client’s movement. During an exercise you may use MR to add load and increase exercise intensity by pressing against a bar, dumbbell or even the limbs of the client. Pure MR exercise involves using just your body weight to resist movement. In this chapter we look at the different types of MR we can use that require only your body weight to perform. After this chapter you should have a series of new and interesting exercises that can be used any place and any time.
MR is a fantastic tool because the personal trainer is in total control of the exercise. The trainer can manipulate various training variables throughout the set, altering range of motion, resistance and tempo and can focus on concentric, eccentric or
