There are multiple benefits to body-weight exercises. First off you do not need a gym and expensive fitness equipment to partake in strength training. With bodyweight exercises there are a great variety of exercises that can work multiple muscles at once. Since multiple muscles are being worked you are building more muscle with less exercises which means less time spent working out. Typically when you are lifting weight you are isolating muscles, for example the one of the most popular exercises using dumbbells is the dumbbell curl an exercise focusing on the biceps. This exercise is inferior to pull-ups or inverted/horizontal pull-ups which work the biceps, forearms, and several muscles in your back. Using isolation exercises are common in the gym among many lifters (one reason why you might not see results after weeks of lifting).
If we look at another very popular lifting exercise we can also see its differences with a bodyweight counterpart. The push-up is one of the first abandoned exercises to the bench press which is arguably the most popular lift that can be seen in a gym. When you are performing a push-up you are lifting 60-65% of your bodyweight. So if you weigh 150 pounds you are lifting 90-97 pounds. Push-ups are also safer then bench-pressing because it does not stress your shoulder joints by putting excess weight on them. There are also multiple variations to push-ups for example to make the exercise more of a challenge elevate your feet on a bench. For some examples of more push-up variations check out this link http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/pushup-variations/index.php. If you want to increase resistance on your push-ups just wrap a resistance band around your body so if tightens when you push upwards.
Since as I discussed earlier bodyweight exercises are a multi-joint exercise they are better for fat loss than isolation weight lifting. Because more muscles are being worked per exercise you will end up burning more calories. Again this is another example of the efficiency of bodyweight exercises; you will end up burning more calories for less time.
Bodyweight exercises are good for both men and women. Men will still gain muscle while at the same time not get overly large if they do not that type of build. Bodyweight exercises will give you an athletic toned look. Perfect for women also who are frequently worried about gaining too much muscle during strength training.
However if you are looking to gain some serious muscle while it might be hard on your joint you need to look into weight training where it is easier to increase the resistance.
