Movement based bar workout with lots of natural swinging (brachiating), crawling and climbing!
Calisthenics is a great way to get results if you don't have access to a proper gym. We recently did a calisthenics workout for your arms and abs.
Doing pull ups, dips and push ups is just one way to utilize the street workout park. This time we are taking a more "natural" approach to the calisthenics.
This is movement based calisthenics training and although many of the movements look simple, these natural movements are very effective and much harder than they look.
This type of workout will train your muscles and the central nervous system very differently and as a result can grant great benefits in strength, mobility and overall performance.
Many of the movement featured here will also improve your grip strength immensely well. Once your grip strength is strong, your body can produce the maximal pulling strength to perform any given task.
You can call this a Tarzan workout because this is pretty much how Tarzan or animals move in a jungle.
Bar Crawl
In the bar crawl you are balancing and moving on a single bar. This exercise is much tougher than it looks and it will force your body to fire lots of stabilizer muscles!
You will develop your balance while improving the strength of your stabilizer muscles.
It's prefered to do these on dipping bars because you can grab the second bar for assistance when you start falling down.
In the beginning you will fall down a lot.
Sloth Climb
Sloth climb is a reverse bar crawl where you are hanging on a single bar and moving with your arms and legs.
Sloth climb is a fun exercise to develop strength in your shoulders and legs. Your core will also get a lot stronger in no time.
The great thing about the sloth climb is that it will stretch your entire back very well.
You can go forwards and backwards. It's also possible to do the sloth climb on monkey bars.
Brachiating (Bar Swinging)
Brachiating is the movement of apes when they swing from branch to branch with straight arms.
Using the monkey bars allows you to do the exact same brachiating movement as the apes do. This is actually hard training and will produce great results in your shoulder girdle (scapula) strength and mobility.
Brachiating will develop very good mobility in the shoulders which will translate into all pulling work you do (chin ups, front lever etc.). Bar swings are a great way to mobilize the upper back and shoulders, which is why we also utilize them in Movement 20XX.
You just need to keep your arms straight and focus on swinging yourself with the momentum of your body while stabilizing with the shoulders.
This is also possible to do on a straight bar if it's long enough.
L-Sit Brachiating
L-sit brachiating is the next level from the normal bar swings. This is a very tough test for your shoulder strength and mobility.
Just hanging on a bar with one arm while holding the L-sit is tough - and that's the drill you need to practice before attempting these L-sit swings.
Once the regular brachiating is mastered and you are proficient at one arm L-sit holds, you can try L-sit brachiating.
It will be the hardest on the shoulders, but your abs and hip flexors will also get very strong because the core needs to stabilize the dynamic movement (it's many times harder than when your body stays in one place).
Train hard, stay safe.
