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Intro
Welcome; this article recommends 13 of the best calisthenics equipment for your home gym. The equipment is fantastic; each has its particular usage for specific activities. Many of these tools are for indoor use or outdoor use. The best part is you don’t have to leave your home when you’ve got your own body and equipment. Here are my reasons for having your own equipment at home and converting it into a gym.
- You can exercise indoors or outdoors all year round.
- You don’t have to listen to the music at the gym or loud yells.
- Nobody else is hogging the tools that you need to exercise.
- Thiers unlimited space indoors or outdoors.
- My home is sanitary before and after exercising.
- I can shower right after a workout and fall asleep in bed.
I guess it’s just my nature to be introverted, but I don’t like going to the gym. It’s a waste of gas money driving back and forth from home to the gym and vice versa. I also think it’s dumb to pay a yearly membership to exercise. Instead, I allowed my home to become a gym with apparatuses to sharpen my calisthenics exercises. These tools that I will mention in this article are simple but effective calisthenics equipment that helps to elevate. I’m confident you’ll enjoy these simple tools to bring out great experiences because they are the best calisthenics equipment.
Why does having equipment help elevate calisthenics training?
Technically, you don’t need any tools to perform calisthenics if you are just content with basic compound moves. Those moves are horizontal pushups, vertical pull-ups, pike pushups, leg raises, sit-ups, squats, hamstring curls, and calf raises. With these moves alone, you could develop a fantastic physique by doing high reps. But the majority of people who practice calisthenics want variety in their training. That variety includes using tools to help elevate the body’s capability to do challenging calisthenics. Those challenges include isolation and isometrics. When you have the equipment, you can use them to help you perform specific exercises that are too difficult to perform. An example is a nordic curl. This exercise is very hard because it specifically targets the hamstrings. You can do concentric, eccentric, and isometrics simultaneously, but you can’t perform as a novice. To do this, you need tools to help you out.
Gymnastic Rings
Gymnastics Rings are the best tools to use for my calisthenics workouts. It’s so much fun rotating back and forth and performing extraordinary movements that require intense focus and discipline. The best part of using these is that there’s no obstacle when you rotate, like performing on a steel bar. Another benefit is you can perform doing the muscle up far better than on the steel bars. In reality, practicing on the rings only allows you to exercise the upper body and core. You cannot use the rings to exercise the lower body except by performing assisted pistol squats. When you start using these for the first time, you will realize how much better the rings are than a steel bar. You can adjust the rings to different heights and transition different hand grips by doing different pushing and pulling movements.
It’s incredible to watch the Olympic Games. Demonstration of various physical prowess shows the capabilities of what the human body can do. My favorite demonstration of relative strength competitions in the Olympic games is Gymnastics Rings. Just watching these men perform is awe because it’s the mastery of relative strength. Relative strength is the amount of body weight the body can lift and perform concentric, eccentric, and isometrics. Also, these men are muscular. Their upper bodies look well defined, along with a unique v taper. With the International Olympic Committee’s fight against doping, these athletes are required to be natural.
Parallel Bars
The Parallel Bars became one of the most robust tools for Olympic sports competitions. Thanks to Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, this strengthening tool has made it possible for every person to use. This tool can be utilized at the gym, park, or at home. Unlike the instability of gymnastic rings, The parallel bar is stationary, making for easier use for novices starting out in calisthenics. Compound exercises on the parallel bars share similarities with Gymnastics Rings, except for performing two movements. Skin The Cat and vertical pull-ups unless you implement an L Sit to achieve a perpendicular pull-up. Also, if you go to a gymnastics gym, you’ll see high parallel bars over eight feet. There, you can perform vertical pull-ups. These parallel bars are great for indoor and outdoor use because they are mobile and not stationary.
Click here to see outstanding athletic parallel bar performances at The Olympic Games. You’ll be in awe of what movements can be done on parallel bars.
Door Anchor
The Door Anchor is like a miniature cable machine where you can insert resistance bands and mimic cable machine exercises. A perfect example is the chest fly, and another would be the back fly. The door anchor is incredible, and you don’t have to go to the gym. It’s like having your own cable machine; you have to place the anchor onto a door, insert an elastic band, and you are ready to exercise. Another benefit to this door anchor is that it can be used outside because it has its own straps. You can wrap the door anchor onto a tree or two by four.
Resistance Bands
From the era of Gustav Gossweiler to our present, Tube-Handle Resistance Bands and Loop Resistance Bands have come a long way as an alternative. In the beginning, resistance bands served as tools for rehabilitation purposes. Then exercise coaches asked themselves, can resistance bands promote muscle hypertrophy? I can happily say yes. Here’s how tension is vastly different between weights and resistance bands. It isn’t easy in the beginning to lift a weight because force production is high to lift. When reaching the midpoint, your muscle is at its most muscular contraction. But weakest in the end when lifting the weight because of the moment arm. The Moment Arm is the distance between the joint axis and the line of force acting on that joint. When you reach the top, tension diminishes. Force production is light with resistance bands; tension builds up at the end when the band is fully stretched.
Jump Rope
Jumping through a rope is one of the oldest and most fun activities to perform. 16th century, explorers saw a group of locals jumping through vines in Australia. Another version of early jump rope is the double dutch jump rope. Dutch immigrants in the United States invented double dutch, which has sprung different generations of Americans to enjoy it. Jumping Rope raises your heart rate, improves circulation, and lowers blood pressure. Athletes use a Jump Rope to improve their cardio endurance for their sports participation. Without implementing aerobics, these athletes would not sustain themselves for too long. I believe every person has to exercise their respiratory system because Heart Disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. The best part is you can do this anywhere. You have no excuse to say I didn’t have time to jump.
Ankle Weights
Our feet is our baseline of support. We rely on our feet to stand, walk, run and kick. Our feet don’t need any exercise that involves skeletal muscle exercise. Its job is to support our bodies throughout the day. Our ankles are like the bridge that connects the lower leg with the feet. That’s because it’s a joint. It can move forward, back, right, left, and circular.
What about the Ankle Weights? Why do you need them? Are they great equipment for calisthenics training? Yes, ankle weights provide great tension for various exercises. The weight adds more resistance during a leg raise. A leg raise is a great hip movement that targets the hip flexors and lower abdominals. With isometrics, a little extra weight on the ankles benefits the hip flexing motion when holding. Your feet will feel lighter after wearing ankle weights, and you’ll be able to do more repetitions.
Neck Harness/Weighted Plates
Years ago, I wondered how a boxer develops a strong neck so he won’t quickly get knockout. I checked out a boxer’s training regimen and was unaware that a Neck Harness existed on the market. It became a great apparatus to wear so I would develop a proper neck posture. The alignment of my spinal cord from my cervical, thoracic, and lumbar became apparent in the following months. I never had any neck problems, but I thought I should consider exercising my neck. The years yet to arrive will be a marvelous time not to suffer neck stiffness, headaches, and poor posture.
Weighted Vest
The weighted vest is one of the best weight equipment to sharpen calisthenics exercises. The Weighted Vest is my favorite weight to wear instead of lifting handheld weights. The vest improves functional strength training by adding more weight to your torso. You’re probably wondering what functional strength is. Functional strength is doing basic compound exercises that we perform in everyday life more easily. Why do I think it improves functional strength? Because the moment you take it off, you feel a lot lighter, enabling you to do more repetitions than previously. Another benefit of a weighted vest is the more demand for the elbow, and glenohumeral joints must push and pull. The hip and knee joints also require more afford to squat and jump. Thus, enabling your muscles to strengthen and grow as you progress towards more challenging variations.
Ab Roller
Whenever I saw a baker using a rolling pin for baking, I wondered if there was a tool. A tool similar to a rolling pin emphasizes basic compound exercises that work the core and upper body. I watched how a baker used the rolling pin by the motion of his joints. He was moving his shoulder and elbow joints forward and backward. Then I thought about implementing a movement that would allow me to roll forward to the floor. Elbows need an extension, knees on the floor for support, and hip flexion as a starting point. Then the movement to engage the core is hip extension if I want to roll forward. To move backward, I need to perform hip flexion.
Browsing around amazon, and I saw an Ab Roller that caught my attention. I bought it and immediately began implementing it into my training. This tool became one of my favorite pieces of equipment for my calisthenics training.
Exercise Ball
The activity of doing situps and back extensions on the floor is ok, but it has drawbacks. First, doing situps on the floor can be painful when performing on a hard surface. Momentum starts with the sacrum, past the coccyx, and the ischial tuberosity supporting your weight. I don’t like this at all. Back extensions on the floor are much better than situps because your support base is your navel area. That doesn’t hurt, but the drawback is you have a limited amount of flexible motion. Your support base on the floor doesn’t allow enough forward or backward pelvic tilt.
These pelvic tilts allow a better range of motion on The Exercise Ball, which solves this issue. Pelvic tilts on the ball allow full use to engage your posterior chain. When performing a situp, your sacrum and coccyx no longer need to roll on a hard surface performing hip flexion. You can relax your bum on the ball and focus on performing.
Hand Grippers
The hands are the central, most crucial tool of the human body. We’ve used our hands to write, draw, cook, and grip to lift and pull. The fantastic thing the hands enable us to do is construct something out of nothing. Without our precious hands, we lose our ability to create. The tool that helps us to strengthen our hands and forearms is The Hand Gripper. The tool allows the fingers to flex as hard as possible and then extend back to the starting position. Besides strengthening your grip, you’ll develop impressive-looking muscular forearms.
Nordic Curl Strap
Doing bodyweight deadlifts isn’t sufficient to cause muscle growth and strengthening in the hamstrings. Why? Because there’s little resistance to force the muscles to feel tension while vertically contracting the hamstrings. To my surprise, the deadlift mainly targets the glutes instead of the hamstrings. That’s because the deadlift is a vertical hip thrust, and the hamstrings are assisted muscles. But then, what about performing on a horizontal plane? The Nordic Curl Strap is an exercise device that targets the hamstrings in the most challenging way without the glutes getting in the way. This tool makes a great addition to your calisthenics equipment.
Conclusion
I enjoyed sharing my 13 favorite pieces of equipment to help you sharpen your calisthenics exercises. As you can see, I’m a simple man who doesn’t require massive, heavy, expensive equipment like those at the gym. I have nothing against the gym equipment, except I prefer more open space. Of course, I’m not too fond of the gym because my home is already a gym.
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