2 Calisthenic Exercises You Should Be Doing

Calisthenic Exercises – Making Your Body Work

Calisthenic exercises are a wonderful way to achieve bodily flexibility and to increase one’s stamina, body tonality, and strength. There are some traditional calisthenic exercises that can become part of your daily exercise routine; if performed correctly, you can work on a variety of muscles in the body and improve your strength, energy, and physique. Two of the top calisthenic exercises you can choose from include squats and push-ups.

Performing Squats

When you are performing squats, you can use your own body weight and traditional weights as a form of resistance. This form of calisthenic exercise is a form of strength training that allows you to strengthen and tone ligaments, bones, and tendons in the lower half of your body. Performing squats also allows you to improve the strength, condition, and tonality of hamstrings, buttocks, hips, and thighs. The chief muscles that are improved when performing squats include:

• Transverse Abdominus (Abdominal Wall Muscles)
• Soleus (Lower Leg Muscles)
• Quadriceps (Upper Leg Muscles/Thighs)
• Hamstrings (Back of Thighs)
• Gluetous Minimus (Buttocks)
• Gluetous Maximus (Buttocks)
• Gastrocnemius (Back of Lower Legs)
• Erector Spinae (Lower Back Muscles)

Performing Push Ups

Pushups are ideal calisthenic exercisesif you are looking to tone your pectoral muscles. This exercise also helps to strengthen the arms, lower back, and your triceps. The muscles worked when you perform a pushup include:

• Triceps (Upper Arm Muscles)
• Travsverse Abdominus (Abdominal Wall)
• Serratus Anterior (Muscles Covering the Ribs)
• Rotator Cuffs (Shoulder Tendons and Muscles)
• Rectus Abdominus (Abdominal Wall)
• Quadriceps (Leg Muscles)
• Posterior Deltoids (Shoulder Muscles)
• Medial/Anterior Deltoids (Shoulder Muscles)
• Major/Minor Rhomboids (Shoulder Muscles)
• Major/Minor Pectorals (Chest Muscles)
• Gluteus Maximus (Buttocks)
• Erector Spinae (Lower Back Muscles)

Pushups are a simple exercise where you lie down face down on the floor and push yourself up onto your toes and hands. The back remains firm and straight during a pushup. When you return to your original position, you have completed one pushup.

This exercise has a range of variations too; you can do half pushups, wall pushups, and other variants if you have difficulty with performing full pushups. If you have had shoulder injuries in the past, you will want to have your hand positioned wider apart during push up exercises; this will reduce some of the stress placed on the shoulders while exercising; in addition, the wide placement of your hands during this exercise can help you prevent significant injury. You should not have your hands positioned further out than your shoulders: this can cause an injury to your rotator cuffs.

Calisthenic Exercises: Cautions

When you are performing calisthenic exercises ,there are some things you will want to avoid. First, you will want to refrain from an overzealous approach to exercise: more does not always mean greater results. If you become overzealous and you take on an aggressive approach when performing calisthenic exercises, you may injure yourself, strain the body, or you can quickly grow bored with your routine. Whether you have chosen walking, running, pilates, yoga, martial arts, gymnastics, or some other calisthenic exercises, over doing it during your routine can cause you serious harm.

As you engage in calisthenic exercises, the form of the exercise and the technique used to complete the exercises is very important. Performing an exercise incorrectly can, at minimum, have a direct affect on the results you see, and at maximum, can cause you to injure yourself. If you are not sure how a particular exercise should be performed, refrain from engaging in the exercise until you get advice from a professional on how the exercise can be properly completed.

Make sure your stamina level and the calisthenics you choose to perform match; in other words, do not take on more than you can handle. You need to begin calisthenic exercises slowly and gradually work your way up to exercises requiring greater bodily strength. You need to also learn to listen to your body and what it is telling you: if you are in pain, stop exercising or if you a tired, take a day or two away from your routine.

If done correctly calisthenic exercises can also be great fat burning exercises.

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