Calisthenics, or bodyweight training, includes exercises that primarily use your bodyweight as resistance. These exercises promote both progressive body strength and flexibility using little or no equipment, allowing you to work out virtually any place like home, the office, your hotel room or the neighborhood park.
You are probably familiar with Dips, Push-ups, Pull-ups for your upper body and Bodyweight Squats, Lunges and Leg Raises often used to train your core and lower body.
Calisthenics provide quick and effective workouts, often completed in as little as 20-30 minutes.
Let’s take a closer look at an upper body workout that primarily targets your shoulders with the goal of developing strength, size and power.
Bodyweight shoulder exercises stretch and strengthen the deltoids, the three visible muscles of the front, side and rear of the shoulder, but also strengthen the underlying shoulder joint and supporting muscles of the rotator cuff.
Your upper body calisthenics shoulder workout should include a balance of pushing and pulling exercises to promote shoulder strength and flexibility. Pushing exercises include a variety of Push Ups and bodyweight dips. Pulling exercises that engage the muscles of the shoulder include a variety of Pull Ups and Chin Ups.
Always warm up before your workout and cool down afterwards
Warming up and stretching the muscles you intend to train will greatly decrease your risk of injury and increase the circulation to those muscles allowing them to function at their full potential. Run in place, do some light rope jumping, jog up and down stairs or bleachers, then spend a few minutes and stretch. Don’t skip this 3-5 minute warm up phase prior to your workouts.
Push-ups
Start with simple military style push-ups to work your chest, shoulders, and triceps. Push ups also activate the rotator cuff muscles that are important for shoulder strength and stability.
You can vary your hand width – wide grip, close, grip, and later as you advance, you can elevate your feet on a bench to increase the angle and progressively move your feet onto higher and higher objects.
If you have them available, doing your push ups with your feet on an exercise ball or with alternating hands on a medicine ball doubles the effectiveness of your training by forcing you to overcome the instability as you exercise.
Pike Push-ups
Once your regular push-ups become less challenging, try adding Pike Push-ups. From your push-up position walk your feet forward until your butt is straight up in the air.
Your goal is to have your upper body and arms as close to vertical as possible. Now bend your arms and lower your body down towards the floor and stop just as your nose is approaches the floor.
Now push back up to start position. This variation increases the difficulty of your push-ups and shifts focus from your front deltoids to the middle head and begins your preparation for the ultimate handstand push-ups.
Handstands and Handstand Push-ups
Find a training partner or the nearest wall, plant your hands wider than shoulder width and throw your feet up against the wall or your training partners hands.
As a beginner, concentrate on getting into the handstand position and then holding that position as long as you can. Once you become comfortable, bend your arms and lower your body until your nose is just above the floor and then push back up to the handstand position.
Start with one repetition and try to add one each time you train.
Pull-ups
Pull-ups train the large muscles of your upper body with most emphasis on back and biceps and rear deltoids. You can add variety by changing hand grip and width – overhand, underhand, wide grip, close grip, etc.
Again, start with one repetition and try to add one each time you train. A great beginner workout would include one set of push-ups (vary the style) followed by one set of pull-ups and then another set of push-ups.
Dips or Bench Dips
Dips help develop shoulders, chest muscles and triceps. Use dip bars if available or center yourself between solid chairs or benches. If you only have one solid bench, chair or surface, back up to it, place your palms on the surface and straighten your legs in front of you and bend your elbows and lower your butt toward the floor as low as you can go and then push back up to the start position.
Start with one repetition and try to add one each time you train.
Shoulder Touches
Shoulder touches are a great finishing exercise. Start from your push-up position with your back straight and hands directly below your shoulders. From this plank position slowly lift your left hand and touch your right shoulder and then lace your hand back down on the floor. Now touch your right hand to your left shoulder and repeat alternately left, right, left until you can’t do any more.
Shoulder touches are a simple but excellent shoulder strengthening and rotator cuff stabilization exercise and also engages your core muscles.
For a more advanced shoulder workout by this guy check out this video:
Coach Kevin is a Certified Holistic Health Coach, Personal Trainer, Nurse and former Medical Instructor & Master Fitness Trainer for the US Army. He just launched his first book "Coach Kevin's Weight Loss Workbook". You can find out more about him and his work here: coachkevintrumpfeller.com
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