Hello and welcome to this video where I'll be talking about 3 mistakes I did
when I was starting out calisthenics.
I've been training calisthenics for over 5 years and I think I know a lot about it now.
But I was a beginner once and looking back,
I see I did a few mistakes that I had fixed only recently.
I am self-taught and I've never had someone watching me and checking
if what I do or don't do is ok or not.
Everything I know comes from my own experience,
but this method of learning is not optimal and can sometimes be very slow.
Learn from mistakes of other people to achieve your goals faster.
This is my biggest mistake and yet, I did it over and over again.
This is my biggest mistake and yet, I did it over and over again.
Before I started training calisthenics I haven't had any experience in sports.
I did go to the gym for some time, but I was weak.
So when I started training calisthenics systematically, I progressed quickly.
That's how it is in the beginning – you see that you're better and better every week.
This creates a certain notion about your progress, that is inaccurate,
because the more advanced you get, the slower you get better.
Another aspect of this topic is that I was motivated by the desire
to do all the advanced bodyweight skills like muscle ups, human flags, levers and so on.
So I treated the basics as a stepping stone to them.
I need to be able to do pull ups to learn muscle ups,
I need handstand for handstand push up and so on.
This approach is generally correct, but I took it too far and stopped doing those basics at all.
I didn't want to waste my energy, because I would rather do harder progressions of the skills I was training for.
What it resulted in was very slow progress or even lack of it.
So being very eager to learn the skills and being too confident about your progress can bring about a lot of problems.
Your muscles get used to the training very quickly.
They regenerate after each session and are prepared for another, harder one.
What does get much longer to adapt to the amount of stress you put on them are your joints.
Elbows and wrists are what gets injuried very commonly,
because they didn't have enough time to get stronger and more durable.
I had a lot of minor injuries and pains in both those joints in the beginning,
because I did exercises that put too much load on them.
Progressions for skills like planche or iron cross,
handstands or back levers all are very strenuous for your wrists or elbows.
If you go through the progressions too quickly, it's very likely that you get injured or develop pains in them.
Now I know that being patient and humble is crucial to this sport.
If I have to do tuck planche or tuck front lever for 3 months, so be it.
It's difficult to swallow one's pride, but mastering the basic moves will yield in better understanding of the skill in the future.
The quicker you get the skill the quicker you can loose it,
whether you get injured or too impatient to wait for the results.
I've done this cycle of getting a skill and loosing it quickly a few times
and I wish you didn't have to do the same.
Of course there remains the issue of how long is enough?
How do you know when to start doing harder progressions?
Well, that's pretty problematic question, because there's no good answer.
Depends on the skill, on the person and on circumstances.
But let me tell you one thing: if you think that it's already time to change the progressions to harder one
then you're probably in the middle of the way to changing it.
Stretching is probably the thing I slacked with the most.
It isn't very entertaining, doesn't look impressive when you do it and is often unpleasant.
On top of it all, you don't really need to be very flexible, when you start training.
You can be stiff as a board and still successfully do pull ups, dips, push ups or knee raises.
But its crucial to begin stretching at that very moment
because getting flexible is a long process.
To see some significant results you need to do it for months or even years.
Good flexibility and mobility starts showing its importance
soon after you want to get into intermediate or advanced stuff.
You'll feel limited by your own body not allowing you to train skills you'd like to.
All leg raises, toes to bars, handstand presses, L-sit
or V-sits require a solid pike flexibility.
For proper squats and lunges you need hips flexibility.
A proper handstand position? You'll gonne need flexible chest and shoulders
or you'll be able to do only banana handstands.
I have realized the importance of stretching only when I needed the flexibility to perform the skills I just mentioned.
I was stiff as a board back then, I couldn'e even touch my toes.
So when I finally started to stretch systematically,
I had to wait months for some decent results.
If I had started stretching at the beginning,
I wouldn't have wasted so much time.
So, if you don't stretch regularly you better start now.
It's never too late to start, but the earlier you do it, the better.
I think everyone knows that warming up is important.
Yet I've seen so many people, including me, who didn't do it properly.
No one wants to do the boring stuff. Circling your arms, pacing in place,
warming and stretching your joints – blah. It's all boring.
We want to get to the exiting stuff right away.
Muscle ups, handstand push ups, levers – that what's exiting.
But it isn't smart. This approach can quickly lead to some unpleasant injuries.
Of course, let me clarify, you don't need the same warm-up for every workout.
If you plan on doing basic stuff like push or pull ups,
you don't need to be as well warmed up as you need before training planche.
ou can easily get warmed up on the go, as you do the workout itself.
Basic exercises are not very strenuous, so there's not much risk invloved.
However, when your workout starts with more difficult exercises, like handstand push ups,
then your body needs to be well prepared or you can damage your wrists, elbows or face.
Another thing is that you probably want to be able to perform at your best when you have the most energy.
I've noticed that when I slacked off with the warm up,
my sets of max reps might look like this: 13, 15, 13, 12.
That means I wasn't warmed up properly before doing the first set.
I was on the second one, but I already have used up some energy for the first one.
If I am well warmed up, then the set looks more like this 16, 14, 13, 12.
The proper warm up allows you to perform on your maximum level.
In the beginning I would rush to the workout as soon as possible,
because the warm-up wasn't very interesting.
I had a lot of pains and small injuries caused by such an approach.
Right now, I always spend at least 15 minutes warming up.
If I'm doing something that is very difficult then even longer.
I warmed up for 25-30 minutes before attempting 90 degree handstand push ups.
Just because it is so complicated and strenuous move. Be smart and warm up decently.
If I were to summarize the most important thing I've learned
during my years of training it would be this: be patient and be humble.
This is the key to success in body weight training.
In life, nothing that comes easily or quickly is worth having.
I'm gonna leave you with this thought. See you in the next video my friends.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét