Credits: OFFICIALTHENX/YouTube
Okay. So, you’ve heard a lot of noise from me on what to do—but not much about what not to do—when performing calisthenics. So, today, I’m dedicating this post to a particular mistake that you need to avoid before doing bodyweight home workouts.
What To Avoid Before Your Home Workouts
Well, it’s not just one exercise. It’s actually a type of stretching that people often do before doing bodyweight workouts. It’s called static stretching.
Why Avoid Pre-Workout Static Stretching
Before you go intense with your home workouts, you often do stretches. In general, stretches are okay, but if you’re doing static stretching—that is, holding those stretches for 30 seconds or longer—you may damage your muscles.
As Chris would discuss in the video below, your muscles are like rubber bands. If you stretch them to the full for long, you can wear them out. Take note, that’s even before you’re beginning your workout proper!
What To Do Before Your Home Workouts Instead
Instead of doing static holds before your bodyweight workouts, do dynamic stretching instead. Dynamic or active stretching is a movement-based pre-workout activity where you’re not holding a position for more than 30 seconds.
Benefits of Dynamic Stretching
Dynamic stretches help your muscles warm up for an intense bodyweight workout. With dynamic stretches, you can work on your:
- shoulder mobility
- forearms, wrists, and fingers
- neck
- back, rear delts, and core
- core and hip flexors
- hamstrings, calves, and lower back
- inner thighs and obliques
- lower back
- outer quads
- hip flexors and glutes
- knees
- ankle mobility
- calves
The key to properly doing dynamic stretches is doing “light pumps” instead of static, long-pause holds.
After pumping stretches, you can do further warm-up exercises such as jumping jacks, mountain climbers, and burpees.
Ready to jump now? Check out how to do dynamic stretches first from the video below.
Credits: OFFICIALTHENX/YouTube
