Countless studies have shown that exercising regularly or doing any physical activities are key factors in improving your health. They are also among the proven ways to keep your body, mind, and over health in good shape and could help reduce your risk of developing certain illnesses like cancer, depression, diabetes, and heart diseases. Overall, exercising can improve your life which can provide you with some immediate and long-term benefits.
But when some people think of exercising or working out, most would assume it can only be done in a gym or with some expensive gym equipment you can set up at home. Fortunately, that’s not the case as there are many other ways you can exercise and do physical activities without spending so much. You can do yoga, go hiking, ride your bike, jog, and more. Of course, there’s also an option to do some calisthenics.
The Benefits Of Calisthenics
In a nutshell, calisthenics is a form of workout routine or exercise that wouldn’t require you to use some gym equipment – you only need your body weight and possibly some things you already have at home. While not many people think of calisthenics as a better routine than working out in a gym, it can still allow you to develop your flexibility, muscle mass, endurance, coordination, and overall strength. Of course, these benefits can be achieved and be more apparent if you do calisthenics regularly.
The benefits of doing calisthenics are you can do it virtually anywhere and anytime, like your bedroom, garage, and backyard, even after you wake up, during your breaks, or after you visit your grandparents at working at the assisted living agency. You can even do it after you work out at your gym if you’re that committed to building your body’s strength and making it more robust. Doing so would help you become more efficient at doing everyday tasks.
The Calisthenics That You Should Incorporate In Your Routine
Whether your fitness goal is, or even if you only want to prepare for the day, doing some calisthenics could help your body feel better. So, here is some calisthenics you should do more of:
-
Pull-ups
Pull-ups are quite common for people who are into calisthenics. Although it would require you to have a pull-up bar, it doesn’t require much, and you can also do it if you have anything you can cling to, like stairs or a tree branch. As long as you can pull your body up while holding on to it, then you’re good to go. This kind of calisthenics is a bit more advanced and may require you to have sufficient strength and muscles before you can do it regularly, but once you’ve done it enough, it can help you train your arms and back.
-
Chin-Ups
While chin-ups are almost similar to pull-ups, you need to use a supinated grip to pull your body up, and it focuses more on training your upper back muscles. Your hands will also be close when you’re gripping your pull bar, which makes this calisthenics easier compared to pull-ups.
-
Lunges
If you want to train your upper body and strengthen your legs, lunges will help you. It’s an easy form of calisthenics that even beginners can do; you only need to keep your upper body straight and alternately bend your knees while lowering your body to the ground. Besides training your legs, making lunges also helps you build more muscle mass which can help tone your abdomen that could give you a six-pack. Of course, it would also train your buttocks and help improve your posture.
-
Squats
Doing squats is relatively easy and could even help you lose more weight as it burns calories while strengthening your knees and ankles. Additionally, squats can strengthen your bones, leg muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
-
Dragonfly
Dragonfly is also known as dragon flag, and it can be intensive calisthenics that would help you strengthen and form your abs in no time. You can do this by lying on your back and holding on to bars that would support you as your lift your lower body up so that your weight will be on your shoulders. It could be challenging at first to do it, but once you get the hang of it, you will see and feel the improvements in your body almost immediately.
While calisthenics isn’t something you can consider as an alternative to going to the gym to work out, you can do them as a routine if you’re busy and without much free time. But if you can, you should combine it with some gym workouts, which would do wonders for you.