Resistance Training or Bodyweight Training

Resistance Training or Bodyweight Training - Which is Better?

Leonard DeFino • December 16, 2025

This age old question is still being asked by many parents and athletes. They see athletic heroes posting videos of maximal amount of pushups & sit-ups or only posting videos of heavy squatting & bench press. I’ll clear the confusion so you can train with confidence and not worry about what is “right” and what is “wrong.”

Let’s dive in…

First, you need to change the question you are asking. Rather than asking which is better, ask what each provides.

Here are some things resistance training provides:

1. Max muscle growth

2. Compression potential

3. Tissue stimulation

4. Neural output

5. “Bro culture”

Here are some things bodyweight training provides:

1. Utility to athletic movement

2. Proprioceptive demand

3. Reflexive potential

4. Degrees of freedom in movement

5. Reciprocal and alternating

Think of these as tools in your toolbox. Sometimes you need the wrench to get the job done other times you’ll need the power tool. Neither of these are “bad.” Each has a unique purpose - similar to bodyweight and resistance training.

After laying this out you can start to understand that these should not be polarized. There is carryover, there is tremendous value found in both. Ask yourself - What am I trying to develop? What athletic qualities am I aiming to improve upon? Maybe you need to get stronger, but you don’t want to feel overly compressed or weighed down… There could then be a blend that can be achieved. Most likely this blend is the key to success!

A mentor of mine brought this to my attention several years ago and it always resonated with me… He told me that good athletes can manage a ton of complexity (both internal and external). Therefore the performance training needs to include complexity - if it doesn’t, the stimulation isn’t matching up.

Sprinting faster (more complex) can improve your power clean max (less complex) - not guaranteed that the vice versa will work.

This doesn’t mean that bodyweight > strength training. I am simply pointing out that sprinting is the most complex neuromuscularly demanding thing you can do and if you improve in that the less complex tasks can very well improve.

As athletes we need a systematic approach that is more complex in nature and not so linear. This is something that I have learned over the years in this field. Earlier in my career I prioritized a lot more resistance training, leaving out a lot of bodyweight/human skills in my training. I figured since I was playing a sport I didn’t have to develop anything here. This was far from the truth. I then used this same approach with my athletes earlier on in my career. What I learned was that there was a ceiling. As the athletes lifted more weight the performance on the field or on the court wasn’t improving & even more so the reciprocal movement, the fluidity in the movement, had been lost.

I pivoted away from this to a more complex approach. Added more sprints, more human movements & reduced the volume of resistance training. I kept the strength component relatively simple and did not get too worried about the granular details… not saying the granular details are unimportant, but they take away from the main thing if an unproportional amount of time is spent on it

In the future I will discuss more about how I program this bodyweight & resistance training blend

If you are seeing athletes or coaches polarizing these, ignore it. They fail to understand the underlining question

I’ll leave you with 3 questions to continue asking yourself…

Is this training making me a more robust athlete?

Am I a better athlete in regards to understanding moving my body and objects in space?

Do I have more psychological confidence with lots of “information” in the training space?

Answer honestly. If you can’t answer these questions positively than you must re-evaluate your blend.

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TFA is being offered with a ONE WEEK FREE TRIAL. If you sign up & aren’t liking what you see (we are confident that will not be the case!) just cancel it before the week is over and you won’t be billed. Seriously, what’s the harm in that? To learn more you can click below! I’d love for you to be a part of the LAD Performance team & hear more about your performance goals this year.

The Foundational Athlete

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How Strong is Strong Enough

By Leonard DeFino • July 25, 2025

Gaining strength is multi-factorial and highly dependent on a disciplined approach toward this pursuit. Some may find this to be easier than others, id be lying if I said that genetics do not play a factor. What I have understood in my decade+ long journey of resistance training is that consistency is truly the most important thing. There are so many ways that people are selling strength. 1 by 20, slow eccentrics, wave sets, french contrast, tempo training, etc… Here’s the thing, they all work! The work does work. All of these examples are not equal & they do depend on the goal you are shooting for, but they can all get you stronger. The question becomes how strong do I need to get? The majority of the sports I work with are team sports, fast paced, change of direction. A lot of my younger, immature athletes who come to me and talk about goals want to get stronger, yet the idea of this isn’t always understood. My perspective on strength has evolved over my time in the field. I don’t demonize strength training, I say my perspective has evolved, not changed. I love strength training, it’s needed. I have made mistakes with younger athletes on both sides of the spectrum… I have prioritized and carried strength in a disconnected proportion & on the flip side I have not done any strength training at all and saw some repeated soft tissue injuries creep into the mix. I personally do what some would call strength training about 4 times per week. However, this looks very different than what you are used to seeing. I think of strength differently than most traditional strength and conditioning or sports performance coaches. Most coaches think and program strength in terms of compressing the body as hard as possible. I view strength as being more resilient, elastic and powerful. The former diminishes options & decreases problem solving capabilities.