Stretching Your Boundaries

Three Easy Stretches to Improve Your Calisthenics Practice

December 22, 2015 By Al Kavadlo 14 Comments

Wonder Wheel Bridge Al Kavaldo

Anyone who’s practiced calisthenics long enough knows firsthand that mobility is a crucial component of bodyweight exercise. Calisthenics staples like L-sits, back bridges and pistol squats all demand a high degree of flexibility, but even less obvious exercises like pull-ups and handstands require mobility as well.

While practicing those moves in and of themselves can help you improve your range of motion, supplemental stretching can elevate your calisthenics game to the next level.

Here are three simple stretches that you can practice daily to improve your overall mobility. Just try to hold each pose a few times a day while you take several deep, slow breaths. There’s no need to set a timer or be too dogmatic about it.

Speaking of dogs…

Updog

What’s up, dog?

For starters, it’s a great way to prep your spine for bridge work. It also opens your hip flexors, warms up your triceps and provides a good stretch for your abdomen.

Begin in a push-up position, then drop your hips toward the ground, lift your chest and look up. Be careful not to let your shoulders shrug up by your ears. Think about pulling down and back through your shoulder blades like you would during a pull-up. Press your hands into the ground, lock your elbows and gently contract your quads to prevent your legs from dragging on the ground.

Al Kavadlo Up Dog

Downward Dog

Downward Dog is a helpful stretch for building flexibility in the entire posterior chain as well as opening the shoulders. It will loosen your hamstrings for L-sits and pistol squats, plus it can improve your handstand as well.

Begin on your hands and knees with your toes curled under your heels, then slowly lift your hips into the air while pressing your chest toward your thighs. Try to keep your back as flat as possible while pressing your hands into the ground and reaching your hips into the air. Do your best to maintain straight arms and legs, though it’s okay to allow your knees to bend and/or let your heels come off the floor. In time, work toward fully extending your legs and pressing your feet flat. People with tight calves may find it helpful to bend one knee while straightening the other, alternating sides.

Al Kavadlo downward dog

Seated Twist

A powerful stretch for the hips and spine, the seated twist is also one of Coach Wade’s three favorite stretches, as noted in Convict Conditioning 2. The full expression of the exercise, which involves binding the hands, is also a great stretch for the shoulders. Seated twists are helpful for any calisthenics move that requires rotation, such as the side crow or dragon pistol squat.

Sit on the ground with both legs extended straight in front of you. Now bend your right leg and cross it over the left, placing your right foot flat on the floor. Twist your trunk and reach your left arm out in front of your right knee. Your right hand should be placed palm down on the floor a few inches behind your back as you twist and look over your right shoulder. From here you can bend your left leg as well, tucking the foot beneath your opposite hip. For an added stretch, reach your right hand behind your back while threading your left hand through the opening beneath your right knee, bringing your hands into a bind (or gripping a cloth between the hands if a bind is not yet attainable). Make sure to repeat the stretch on both sides.

Seated Twists

I encourage you to use these stretches to warm up at the start of your calisthenics practice and/or to cool down at the end. The more time you spend in each pose, the better they should start to feel. Also feel free to practice throughout the day any time you feel stiff.

To find out more about stretching to improve your calisthenics practice, check out my book Stretching Your Boundaries – Flexibility Training for Extreme Calisthenic Strength.

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Al Kavadlo is the lead instructor for Dragon Door’s Progressive Calisthenics Certification. Recognized worldwide for his amazing bodyweight feats of strength as well as his unique coaching style, Al is the author of five books, including Raising The Bar: The Definitive Guide to Pull-up Bar Calisthenics and Pushing The Limits! Total Body Strength With No Equipment. Read more about Al on his website:www.AlKavadlo.com.

How to Put the “Active” in Active Rest

December 23, 2014 By Adrienne Harvey 14 Comments

Adrienne Harvey Active Rest Slackline

“Active Rest” is a phrase that we hear and say a whole lot without really thinking about it too much. On one hand the concept is extremely simple, a light workout day to speed recovery from a recent, more strenuous effort. But, some of us tend to over-complicate the issue and end up with a dauntingly over-engineered workout on what should be an opportunity for fun, meaningful practice, and optimized recovery.

Why not just be a couch potato?

It can be extremely tempting to just completely take some time off. And sometimes that’s necessary in cases of injury or really overdoing it in a workout. I’ve long held the belief that it’s better to err on the side of caution. Push and challenge yourself of course, but part of the learning process with the progressions in Convict Conditioning and the PCC is the self-knowledge that comes along with it. While coordination and proprioception are obvious mental “gains”, the value of learning your limits, and watching them change/improve should not be underestimated.

In our “gotta have it now” instant gratification culture, it’s sometimes difficult for those of us who are highly motivated to see the value in rest. More is always better, right? Not always! As I mentioned in a previous PCC Blog post about programming other modalities and interests with Convict Conditioning/PCC, Paul Wade’s routines like “Good Behavior” and “Veterano” (both outlined in the original Convict Conditioning book) provide plenty of rest and recovery time—as well as enough time to factor in a serious interest in sports, martial arts, etc.

How do you know that you’re not getting enough recovery time? Most people first notice when they’ve hit a plateau in their progress. While plateaus can result from many things (sometimes even psychological reasons!), it is easy enough to introduce more rest or active rest to your overall plan. Go getters and super motivated people who feel like they’ve stalled in their progress are especially encouraged to consider more rest. Similarly, I find that women who have fallen victim to the “must run/cycle/cardiostep to burn x calories or else” mindset can stall their strength and even weight loss efforts by not allowing time for recovery.

Active recovery is also really important as we get older. While I’m only just beginning to sneak up on 40, there’s definitely some changes I’ve had to make in my diet and rest schedule. I’m fond of saying that when we get older we don’t necessarily get weaker, we’re just no longer able to continue abusing our bodies. Both as we age and/or as our activity levels increase, it becomes even more important to pay attention to our self care and recovery. And at any age, paying attention to rest and recovery can certainly help prevent needless injuries.

Similarly, active recovery can also help us mentally recover from an all out effort or an intense week with workouts and with life.

So, after all this talk, what does an active recovery session look like? At its very simplest, an active rest day might include an extended stroll, especially if you’ve really had a tough week and workout. While I’m always up for a good walk, most of the time active recovery should involve a more than just wandering around the neighborhood.

Here are some of my favorite active recovery ideas, and I hope that you will add yours to the comments section below this blog post. After a long week, sometimes we all need help in the creative ideas department, so please be sure to share.

Mobility or flexibility practice. Compared to most women, I’m reasonably inflexible (physically, let’s not talk personality) and consider it to be a challenging area. While I have no aspirations to become a contortionist or a yogi, some specific mobility and flexibility work would help my progress with a few calisthenics moves, and potentially provide additional injury prevention. While flexibility is an easy example of one of my own weak points, working on an appropriate shortcoming of your own can be a great basis for an active recovery day.

A shorter/lighter version of a favorite workout, or a lighter version of a workout within your strength program. This is a great opportunity to fine tune your technique with some of the earlier progressions, since “lighter” in calisthenics doesn’t mean grabbing a lighter kettlebell or barbell. Many times some very important insights can come from a “regression-session” like this. If you’re an instructor you may also find some helpful hints for your clients or students you haven’t previously thought about.

Work on balance or a specific skill. One of my favorite recreational activities is slacklining. It points squarely at another one of my personal challenges, extreme balance! It’s a fun mental challenge and is oddly relaxing. It calls for focus and mental engagement, but without constantly tensing up the muscles (or you will fall down!) Even though I’m still very much a beginner, forcing myself to “go with the flow” during slacklining has actually helped me “accidentally” work through some muscle stiffness from tough workouts the day before!

Your tai chi or yoga practice (or an abbreviated version of it) might be another option as well. I have a favorite old qigong routine that I’ve practiced since 2000 that’s heavy on mindfulness and breathing, but light on the physical exertion. It’s been a big part of my warm up and active recovery for years, and I can definitely tell if I’ve slacked off of doing it! Similarly, less intense or short forms from tai chi as well as some of the more relaxing/meditative varieties of yoga would be good choices to consider.

Whether you are a type-a go-getter who hates the idea of taking a day off, someone who is stuck on a plateau, or simply someone who wants to maintain optimum health, adding gentle activity to your rest days can prove to be productive and fun.

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About Adrienne Harvey, Senior PCC Instructor, RKC-II, CK-FMS, Primal Move Nat’l Instructor: Originally RKC Certified in 2010, and RKC Level 2 certified in 2011, kettlebell and bodyweight training have been crucial in Adrienne’s personal quest for fitness. A core member of the PCC team, Adrienne loves sharing her knowledge with small groups and individuals. She also loves to develop recipes and workout programs to further support performance, body composition, and of course—FUN. Go to http://www.giryagirl.com for more information about Adrienne!

Yoga, Calisthenics and the Journey of a Lifetime

January 23, 2014 By John Du Cane, CEO and founder, Dragon Door 30 Comments

**John, the Yogi who came in from the cold.**

As a teenager in the sixties UK, I was highly athletic. I played wing in Rugby, had a mean long jump and high jump and could sprint like the wind. Two of my track buddies at high school went on to great fame: the iconic musician Nick Drake and Mark Phillips, who went on to marry Princess Anne.

I also loved weight lifting and was drawn to pumping iron. Unfortunately the strength coach/trainer at my school was pretty darn clueless and I would lift away without much direction at all—either from him or any literature on the subject.

What I also discovered, in 1966, was the just-published Light on Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar—which changed my life. I used this seminal and highly inspirational book to teach myself Yoga. Scary, perhaps, but finding a teacher in those days was challenging to say the least. By age nineteen, I could pull off a headstand while in a full lotus, had an eye-popping ability to rotate my abs, as a ridged column, through 360 degrees, with the method known as Uddiyana Bandha, plus a whole lot of other impressive looking stuff.

I enjoyed looking cool, feeling cool and being proud of what I could do physically. If that doesn’t motivate you to practice physical culture, I don’t know what to say…

At the age of twenty-five I finally traveled to India to study Yoga and meditation. Ironically, there in India, I switched my allegiance to Qigong and Tai Chi as my principal discipline for physical cultivation. The Hatha Yoga I had studied had had a transformative impact on me, but it did involve almost solely holding static postures. Qigong and Tai Chi opened up a different world that was motion-based and much more satisfying for me personally.

However, those crucial dozen years where I dove deep into Yoga gave me immense flexibility benefits that have extended to my current age of 64. For instance, without having rigorously practiced the headstand since my mid-twenties, I can still move effortlessly into a full headstand. Same for the full lotus and many other cool poses.

Naturally forty years of martial arts, kettlebells and other bodyweight exercise have helped me stay in nice shape into my sixties. However, I do believe that my years as Yogi John gave me a crucial foundation that I am eternally grateful to have laid for myself.

So, when Al Kavadlo presented his latest masterpiece, Stretching Your Boundaries to me, I was thrilled and immediately impressed by the spectacular way Al tied together Yogic stretching and flexibility methods with calisthenics. Along with Paul Wade, Al has been leading the inspirational charge in a new appreciation for the healing and athletic benefits of bodyweight exercise.

What I also love about Al’s work—and never more true than for Stretching Your Boundaries—is the aesthetic and the philosophy of physical culture he brings to the table. “Calisthenics” means “beautiful strength.” Strong, flexible, healthy, graceful body—with a mind and spirit to match. Al perfectly embodies that “beautiful strength-beautiful spirit” ideal, in my opinion. He brings a Zen lightness and equanimity to his practice. But he also brings the kind of sharp-mindedness and rigor to his physical cultivation that is another hallmark of Zen. We had Zen and the Art of Archery. Now we have the Zen Art of Stretching Your Boundaries.

I love, also, Al’s emphasis on the importance of joint health, circulation and breath work. The older you get, the more you need to move and breathe well. And nothing needs more movement for health and well being than the joints.

Just as Iyengar inspired me and millions of others to take up Yoga, Al is inspiring a new generation to improve their mobility, strength and health by integrating yoga and calisthenics in dramatic new style.

Let’s remember: we have the one body only to work with, a precious treasure that can be abused and trashed—or burnished, refined and transformed into an ongoing piece of living artwork. In Stretching Your Boundaries, Al hands you a priceless set of methods to refine your physical being. I urge you to take full advantage.

Yours in Strength,

John Du Cane