Saturday 4 June 2016

Benefits of Calisthenics


Calisthenics is a super cool way to lose weight. It mostly consists of lots of body weighted exercises like pull ups, chin ups, push ups, triceps dip.... etc. Calisthenics requires a lot of balance and body co-ordination and is a fantastic way to enhance your understanding of your own body's limits. A lot of workouts relating to calisthenics could include other types of fitness like park-our and street workout. There are numerous benefits from this awesome type of  workout, it just proves that going to the gym to lift weights is not the only way, to gain muscle. 

Calisthenic Workouts
Just a quick run through, if you didn't already know here are the 5 most common calisthenic workouts: 
  • Variations of pull ups e.g. muscle up, chin up, varying grip.
  • Variations of push ups, wide arm, narrow, singled handed
  • Triceps, chest dips
  • Squat jumps, onto bars
  • Hand stands
Not only that, calisthenics offer a whole range of mind-blowing tricks which don't take to much time to learn. Everyone knows what really pulls girls at the beach - a good Human Flag Pole!

Losing Fat Fast
You may not believe it but calisthenics is a fantastic way to lose fat fast. You ask how? Well if you think about it, every time you do one of the listed exercises above you are using multi muscles - a whole muscle group. You are either using your whole upper body or whole lower body. This means more muscles are at work so more calories will be burnt. If you doubt this, just look at the pull up, it requires most of your upper body muscles - every back muscle like lats and traps, it requires your biceps and shoulder, and even your triceps when safely dropping down, a fair amount of core is also activated to keep your body steady. This is much better than going to a gym to burn a few calories doing 5 sets of 10 reps of bicep curls which only use one muscle at a time. 


Muscle Balance
Many people fail to get a good physical appearance even after going to the gym for years, this is mostly  because they don't have the right proportion of muscles in the right places. They may have huge arms and a skinny chest, or huge chest but skinny arms. They could have massive biceps, but tiny triceps and tiny shoulders. This all happened because of over use of one muscle and denying other muscles. However, Calisthenics is proven to lead to a well proportioned body. Because it only uses body weights and because calisthenics uses multiple muscle groups, the body places the right amount of muscle fibers in the right places, this gives the body proportion which is gym lad lacks! 


Strengthening your Six-Pack
Calisthenic exercises include a lot of activities which need body stabilization and whats a better body stabilizer than your abdominal muscles in your six-pack. Every exercises uses a fair amount of core and leads to a very strengthened core which keeps you straight even while you are sleeping. Moreover, this strengthened core will make your six-pack grow, and if you don't already have one, I guarantee you will start seeing one after a month of training even with a layer of fat above it. 


Definition
You may think people who do calisthenics are probably really strong. They are.... but not as much as you think. The reason they look stronger than they are is because of a good body proportioning but also because doing calisthenics for a year really defines your body. Static exercises like the Human flag pole and L-hold define the muscles making them seem like they are very large. Static exercises are exercises when you hold a position while a muscle is being contracted, for example going down in a push up but staying down there for 30 seconds. This makes them look very cool every time they lift something or do an exercises because of the definition of muscles. So if you lacking that back, or shoulder ribbons, calisthenics is really the think for you.

Finally, calisthenics is a great way to impress anyone, friends, family if they are around. Anyone who sees you doing a handstand would go whoa and would be amazed. There are many cool tricks people can do on the bar or in parks with calisthenics, watch this awesome video for some calisthenic inspiration. Please remember to subscribe for weekly updates, and don't shy to comment or share this blog. Thanks for reading.