In the world of fitness, there are a plethora of fads, training methodologies, and aerobic exercises to choose from. The plank workout stands out among these as a recent trend that has captivated the attention of both exercise rookies and fitness enthusiasts. Its popularity skyrocketed during the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, which forced the complete closure of gyms, and it has captured the attention of both exercise newbies and fitness enthusiasts.
Because it requires maintaining balance while holding the body in the raised push-up posture for a prolonged time with the forearm and leg muscles straight and intact, planking is an ideal physical activity for improving core strength. In addition, the plank exercise only requires a little equipment, and with regular practice, even inexperienced exercisers can improve their ability to perform it.
The practice of planking, which has been shown to have some positive effects on one’s health, is less recent than the current fitness trend would have you believe. Joseph Pilates, a well-known German fitness instructor and the originator of the Pilates exercise programme, is credited with being the first person to introduce the plank as a muscle-strengthening action that he referred to as the “leg pull front.” Because the person’s motionless position is similar to that of a flat floorboard or a plank of wood, the name “plank” was given to this position.
Plank exercises should be done because they are one of the most effective ways to build stronger abdominal muscles, improve flexibility, and maintain a great figure. The plank is a workout that can be performed at home without using a treadmill, weights, or dumbbells; it is straightforward and effective. In this piece, you will discover how to perform a basic plank exercise correctly and the many additional positive effects of performing this practice on your overall health.
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How To Do A Plank:
The plank can be performed in many different ways, including the high plank, the extended plank, the low plank, the side plank, and the knee plank, to name just a few. Even yet, the best approach to acclimatise one’s body to this effective calorie-burning workout is to learn how to perform a regular forearm plank. It is the optimum way to get things started. You will need a large, flat surface on the floor and a yoga mat to practise yoga. The following steps are required to plank properly:
- First, while resting on your stomach, position your hands so that they are next to your shoulders. Then, bend your elbows and keep your feet planted firmly on the ground.
- Raise your torso off the ground to a comfortable level while maintaining a straight back and supporting yourself with your forearms and toes.
- Beginning with standing on one leg for ten seconds, gradually work up to standing for thirty, forty-five, and sixty seconds.
- You should always keep your head down, but you should also make sure that it doesn’t droop, and you should make sure that your shoulders and neck are in a lovely, upright position.
- Every day, you should perform three sets of planks with a rest period of one minute in between each set. For example, during one set, you will lift your body, hold it in that position for sixty seconds, and then drop it.
Plank Exercises Have Fantastic Health Benefits:
Effects on Multiple Muscle Fibers
When you perform a plank, you stretch every major muscle group, from your shoulders to your forearms to your abs and legs. It helps maintain the health of your connective tissues and ensures they remain supple. Therefore, regular plank practice is beneficial for developing a robust core and sculpted muscles in the waist, hips, and thighs, as well as the stomach, pelvic floor, back, and buttocks.
Improvements in Body Flexibility
The inability to move and expand freedom is limited by stiff muscles and relatively rigid bones and joints, which produce frequent sprains, strains, and cramps of the system’s mobile tissues. Stiff muscles, rigid bones, and joints hamper the inability to move and expand freedom. Planks are fantastic for engaging and dynamically extending the forearm, shoulder, neck, and collarbone muscles and increasing general flexibility.
Better Posture Is Guaranteed
Keeping a straight back and the proper posture can do wonders for your general health and well-being. It helps realign your bones and joints, allowing your muscles to work more effectively. In addition, a person’s total poise, balance, and bearing can be improved by the consistent performance of a hard plank workout.
Reduces Body Fat Quickly and Easily
Planks are a good method for losing extra body mass, particularly the harmful visceral fat stored in the abdominal region (belly fat). Adding planks to a regular workout regimen is an effective technique for decreasing excess body mass. Planks provide substantial benefits for weight loss, particularly in the stomach region, and for enhancing metabolism, vigour, and stamina when performed regularly.
Reduces the Potential for Injury
Compared to workouts such as crunches or lifting weights, plank exercises do not exert excessive strain on the hips, legs, or back. Therefore, performing plank exercises will cause your core muscles to become more powerful, increase the force and drive in your upper back and lower back, and reduce the likelihood of sustaining an injury to your spinal cord. Please visit Boxing Bayside if you are interested in learning more.
8 Benefits Of The Dead Hang
Going to the park and swinging from the monkey bars was one of our most treasured childhood memories. We decided to go through with it because we knew it would be thrilling and fun for us. However, as we became older, our priorities altered, and as a result, we stopped doing it, although it is more necessary than ever.
It is no longer acceptable to refer to performing pull-ups while hanging from a pull-up bar as “monkeying around.” It is a significant endeavour because of its numerous positive effects on one’s health. There is now a label for the particular method in question. The ‘dead hang’ is an exercise for the upper body that involves doing nothing more than dangling from a bar.
On the other hand, hanging from a bar is a complex task. Pull-ups are difficult for anybody to accomplish, even the most physically strong because they demand a huge amount of core strength and arm muscle. A herculean effort is also required to maintain a dead hang for longer than a few minutes. Despite this, you must do it to improve your strength and steadiness over time. A daily practice of hanging from the ceiling for just a few minutes can make even the most difficult pull-ups appear simple.
Here are eight reasons why you do ‘The dead hang’ daily:
- Grip enhancement
The dead hang demands you to hang from a bar for an extended time; your hands may come loose even if you can keep going. However, the likelihood of this occuring drops as one gains more life experience. Your palms will acquire a better grip once you are familiar with the dead hang position. In addition, your wrists and fingers will benefit from this activity by strengthening and stretching their tendons.
- Stretches the upper body
When you perform a dead hang, you are primarily working on developing your upper body strength. However, when you grip the bar with your palms and allow gravity to draw on the rest of your body, the muscles in your back, arms, shoulders, and abdominal region are stretched to their fullest extent. Because it allows you to work out all of the pent-up stress within your body, swinging from the monkey bars used to feel so fantastic when you were a youngster; the dead hang is an excellent exercise for relaxing the muscles in your upper body.
- Has a calming effect on your spine
When you are in a dead hang position, not only does your upper body stretch but so does your spine. It reduces the pressure on the spine and ensures that the back remains aligned with the rest of the body. When your back is weak, you put yourself at risk for various health problems, including headaches, shoulder pain, and a decreased range of motion. Participating in this physical exercise will assist in avoiding those. Remember that you are only as old as your bones indicate.
- Boosts shoulder mobility
Your shoulder mobility will influence how easy or tough the activity will be for you because the arms are attached to the shoulders in a dead hang position. If you perform this exercise regularly, you can increase your shoulders’ flexibility and range of motion. As a result, you can stretch your shoulder girdle comfortably across a greater range of motion.
- Strengthens your forearms
Because most workouts for the upper body are designed to focus on building your biceps and triceps, many people need to exercise their forearms more. In addition, the dead hang is a form of exercise that helps us develop stronger forearms because it requires us to do a functional movement with them. Building strength in the forearms, wrists, and palms is necessary for completing daily activities such as pulling, pushing, and lifting since these body parts support the rest of the body.
- Improves your posture
Since the two arms are gripping the pull-up bar in a manner that is perpendicular to one another, the weight of the body is evenly distributed between them. It can assist in realigning your body, straightening your back, and addressing any imbalances you may have established, for example, if you have a desk job and find yourself leaning to one side more than the other or keeping your shoulders hunched. However, the repercussions of these habits can harm the body, leading to uneven knee strength or overpronation in the feet, leading to knee pain and other foot problems. Therefore, it is recommended that you perform the dead hang exercise daily.
- Improves core strength
You need a strong core to accomplish exercises like push-ups, planks, or crunches, as well as any other type of strength training exercise. The dead hang is an excellent exercise for developing core strength because it engages the upper body, including the back, stomach, arms, shoulders, and shoulders. It works everything from the back and stomach to the arms and shoulders. Your overall physical capacity will increase as a result.
- Strengthens the lats
A collection of muscles known as the latissimus dorsi extend from the backs of the upper arms down to the base of the spine, located directly below the shoulder blades. Your lats will widen, your shoulders will be able to move more easily, your arms will become stronger, and your back and shoulders will become more flexible as you hang from a pull-up bar. When a friend asks you to “hang out” in the future, you should probably consider attending a dead hang-together event instead.
10 Benefits Of Doing A Headstand Everyday
Shirshasana, also known as the classic headstand, is a yoga posture in which the practitioner stands on their head while maintaining balance. It is recommended that this asana, considered intermediate to advanced level, be practised only under the guidance of a qualified instructor. However, it is essential to remember that you may learn to go into and remain in Shirshasana with practice and persistence. In addition, this yoga pose has various positive effects on one’s health.
Nothing can compare to the advantages of practising a headstand, which include better circulation, digestion, hormone balance, and relief from stress. As a result of research showing that headstands are beneficial to one’s health and overall well-being, many yogis are advocating for their daily practice. However, as was said before, Shirshasana is a yoga posture more appropriate for intermediate and advanced practitioners and should be avoided by beginners. Therefore, before you give it a shot, there are a few things you should do and a few things you must not do to protect yourself and get the most out of it.
HOW DOES ONE DO A HEADSTAND?
If you are starting, it is not recommended that you attempt the headstand on your own without the assistance of an instructor. Instead, consider the following steps if you are an experienced practitioner who has performed the headstand numerous times in the past and is trying to enhance your technique:
- Put a thick mat in front of you to sit comfortably. You can give it more support by propping it up against a wall.
- Position yourself on all fours with your back in a straight line.
- Position yourself on all fours with your back in a straight line.
- Create a cushion by making a cup with your palms and then interlacing your fingers to create a web.
- Keep your thumbs pointing in the upward direction.
- Bring both hands in front of your chest and clasp them together.
- Your head should be lowered to the floor so that your crown rests on it, and your palms should be put behind your head for support. Your head should be lowered to the floor so your crown rests on it.
- You are free to tilt your head ever-so-slightly in any direction you see fit for comfort or convenience, but you should keep your neck in a decent, stable position.
- By bringing your knees into a more vertical position, you should stand tall on your toes.
- Bring both knees to your chest while moving at the slowest possible pace.
- Raise your legs off the ground and bring them in front of you while simultaneously engaging the muscles in your abdominal region.
- Get your whole body in the right position.
- It would help if you began by maintaining this position for 15 seconds before reversing your movements and returning to the starting position.
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WHAT’S THE APPROPRIATE TIME AND DURATION FOR A HEADSTAND?
Performing a headstand first thing in the morning or last thing before bed is acceptable. However, you should not engage in physical activity for at least three hours after you have eaten. If you’re just getting started with headstands, your neck and shoulders won’t be able to withstand more than a minute of the position at a time. On the other hand, if you lean against a wall for support, you can keep your position for about two to three minutes.
WHEN SHOULD YOU NOT DO A HEADSTAND?
- Children under the age of seven still have their skulls and spines growing, which makes them more susceptible to injuries caused by blunt force.
- For pregnant women, there is a risk that they could hurt themselves if they fall.
- If you experience pain in your shoulders, neck, or back, it is in your best interest to steer clear of activities that place additional stress on those areas.
- People who are affected by cardiovascular disease people who are affected by cardiovascular disease
- People who have hypertension should avoid doing anything that can throw off the normal circulation of their blood because this could cause their condition to worsen.
- Those who suffer from illnesses such as osteoporosis and arthritis, as a result of which their bones cannot support their weight properly.
- People who are prone to migraines should steer clear of anything that has the potential to trigger a quick rise in blood pressure.
- Those who suffer from glaucoma or any other severe eye ailment, as this can cause additional pressure to be placed on their eyes.
10 HEALTH BENEFITS ASSOCIATED WITH DOING A HEADSTAND:
Enhances Blood Circulation
Blood will normally flow downward, in the direction of the body’s centre of gravity, when a person is standing up straight. On the other hand, when you are on a headstand, the blood in your body will naturally flow to your head and shoulders. If you do this consistently, you will improve blood circulation, delivering more oxygen and nutrients to your organs.
Improves Digestion
The increased blood flow also helps digestion, which is a direct outcome of the increased blood flow. When the body is turned upside down, the digestive organs receive a healthy supply of blood, which helps the body to digest its food more efficiently. Additionally, it facilitates faster food movement through the body because it makes more room in the digestive tract.
Hormonal balance
Hormonal imbalances, which are all too common in today’s society, can exacerbate various health problems, including indigestion, diabetes, thyroid disease, infertility, and osteoporosis. A major factor contributing to this issue is one’s lack of engagement in physical activity. Because headstands release stress and weariness from the kidneys, pancreas, thyroid, and other organs, they are excellent for achieving and maintaining hormonal balance.
Eases Lower Back Aches
When completing a headstand, one must always have one’s body in perfect alignment. By strengthening the muscles in your back and getting rid of any aches or pains that may be present, straightening up like this will help you feel better. Additionally, it enhances the mobility and flexibility of the spine by supplying oxygen and nutrients to the soft tissues that line it via the circulatory system. This process is responsible for the improvement.
Boosts Shoulder and Arm Strength
As a result of supporting the body’s full weight in a headstand, the arms and shoulders develop greater strength and become more resilient. Assisting in the loss of extra fat around the arms helps improve the definition of the muscles in those areas. Because the shoulders have been reinforced, carrying hefty loads is not difficult.
Reduces Low-Body Fluid Retention
Fluid buildup in rigid bodily components is a complication associated with sedentary lifestyles that receive less attention than it should. For example, Edoema develops when blood vessels in the legs leak fluid due to sitting or standing for an extended period. The accumulation of edema leads to swelling, discomfort, and occasionally even immobilisation.
When you perform a headstand, the fluids in your lower body, such as edema, are forced out, and as a result, you have a sense of increased lightness.
Encourages Hair Growth
The blood that is pumped to the upper body during a headstand also makes its way to the head and scalp. If your hair follicles can receive a consistent supply of oxygen and nutrients, your hair will grow more quickly, longer, and in better health. In addition, the straightforward motion of turning one’s body around can assist in restoring nutrients to one’s scalp, preventing additional hair loss and greying in individuals already afflicted with either of these conditions.
Creates a Radiant Glow in the Skin
The surge of blood that rushes to the head and neck supplies oxygen and nutrients to the facial muscles. This surge of blood also helps to keep the facial muscles flexible. In addition, the enhanced oxygen flow helps to free up blocked pores, which in turn reduces the severity of acne. On the other hand, the nutrients prevent you from feeling as thirsty as you would otherwise. As a result, your face will have a more glowing and healthy appearance.
The Core Muscles are Strengthened.
When you are in a headstand, your body must be perfectly straight without any kinks or curves. The only way to keep everything in its proper place is to engage your core muscles in physical activity consistently. As you work on increasing these muscles’ strength, endurance, and flexibility, you will find that your overall strength and fitness level improves.
Increases Your Happiness
Dopamine, serotonin, and melatonin are some of the feel-good chemicals that can be released into the body when you engage in physical activity. This is why exercise is so important. These hormones help you feel less stressed, and calming influences the neurological system. As a direct result, flipping onto your head provides an immediate mood boost. If you are physically able and have enough experience, you should attempt doing a headstand today to feel the many benefits to your health that it offers.