Indian squat technique. Hindu Squat Hindu Squat

Hindu push-ups, dandas, or as they are also called Indian bench press, is a unique exercise that develops not only strength and upper body, but also helps to improve the flexibility of the spine. It is believed that the movement in its current form was borrowed from the training arsenal of Indian wrestlers. People who are fond of yoga will clearly catch in it the resemblance to the pose of a dog, which first looks down with its muzzle and then up.

The benefits of exercise

Indian push-ups, proven for centuries, with their regular performance, will allow you to experience a number of positive effects:

Strengthening the muscles of the shoulders, arms and chest. Development of muscle strength and endurance.
Improving the flexibility of the spine, training the muscles of the back and cortex.
Changing the position of the body from the usual to inverted stimulates the circulatory system, improves the condition of the vessels of the head and prevents congestion in the small pelvis.
Stretching the pectoral muscles and the press in the second phase of the exercise allows you to increase the work performed by these muscles, and therefore increase the effectiveness of the training.

Contraindications to the exercise are high blood pressure, headache, vascular diseases of the head, trauma shoulder joints, in women - menstruation.

Load distribution

In general, the load during the exercise is distributed in a similar way to regular push-ups. The main work is performed by triceps, large pectoral muscles and yet, unlike traditional push-ups, this exercise forces the front bundles of the deltoid muscles to work actively.

Additionally, the extensors of the spine, the press, and small muscles of the body are involved. In other words, the load map is quite extensive and you can safely include this exercise in your upper body workout program.

Execution technique

The exercise can be conditionally divided into two phases, when you move forward and come back. Let's consider them in detail.

Starting position: take an emphasis lying down, placing your palms slightly wider than your shoulders. Then move your feet closer to your arms so that the pelvis rises up. The pelvis must be raised so that the arms are in line with the body and neck. The lower back is slightly arched, the legs remain as straight as possible. If you are doing yoga, it's simple: take the downward facing dog pose.

Initial position

Performing push-ups:

Raise your head so you can look straight ahead. Bend your elbows and lower your chest almost to the floor, arching your back. Try not to bend your legs. It's like you're diving under an obstacle. The body moves forward.
Having passed bottom point, push yourself up and forward with your arms fully extended. The pelvis at the same time goes down, the back is maximally bent. Yogis take the pose of a dog face up, only the legs rest on the toes.
Now you need to perform all the movements in reverse order and return to the starting position. We push the pelvis back and bend our arms. We hold the chest above the floor, unbend the arms and raise the pelvis.
Repeat the movement as many times as needed.

During the exercise, your chest moves in an arc. The movement is done smoothly without jerks. First you need to make several slopes, waves and twists, thus stretching your back and stretching your spine. You can use it on your triceps and chest days.

Execution technique.

Indian push-ups can also be performed as a morning exercises. Exercise perfectly invigorates, accelerates metabolism and tones the cardiovascular system.

Regular performance of Hindu push-ups will significantly strengthen the arms, chest and shoulders, as well as the muscles of the back and abs.

You want. Old school strong men do it all the time. Just take dumbbells and hold them against your chest, or hoist a barbell on your back (see photo below). By training like this, Bert Assirati was able to squat with a weight of two hundred pounds. American champion shot put Connie Price-Smith used 245 pounds in the exercise.

Big numbers look impressive, but in reality they are often associated with injuries. All serious powerlifters suffer from knee and back pain all the time. Most of them go under the knife sooner or later, and become crippled in old age because they ruined their knee joints and vertebrae in an irrepressible search for weight.

No need to be obsessed with the idea that strength is everything. For the prisoner, functionality is everything. Where the legs are involved, mobility is more important than strength. Once the strength to perform single-sided squats has been developed, your legs will feel like pistons and your joints will be full of power. Further strength work will give you huge, bumpy hips, but not necessarily athleticism. On next step if you haven't started it already, you need to learn how to use the strength of the lower body. Try running up stairs, jumping, pushing cars, etc. (see section Varieties of Exercise). This will add general development, speed, agility and leg endurance, which are already amazing. Don't be blinded by big numbers while traveling.

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Varieties of exercise

In bodybuilding, there is a lot of emphasis on different positions of the legs and feet during squats and leg pulls, believing that different positions develop different parts of the muscles. They think that the wide stance develops internal muscles, while the close position works out external muscles; the toes work together with the knee ligaments. Raised heels work the rectus femoris, and so on. In reality, the four heads of the quadriceps tend to work as a group - working in different positions or leg positions differs slightly. Unnatural positions and angles put the knees and hips in an unnatural position and quickly injure the body. When doing squats, find a position that is strong and comfortable for you and stick with it. If you're looking for variety, don't prejudice the squat formula; Try the completely different movements below.

Lunges are a classic replacement for squats. Stand with your feet together and take a long lunge forward. Bend at both knees, keeping your spine straight until your front knee is bent at a right angle and your back knee almost touches the floor. Come back, pushing off with your feet to a straight leg position. At this point, you can either continue the movement by stepping back to the starting position and repeat, or lunge forward with your back foot, switching legs.

Obviously, in a limited chamber, we don't have much space, so we step back to the starting position and alternate legs, lunge forward with the right, step back, lunge forward with the left, and so on. But if you have a long stretch of space ahead of you, you don't need to do a return to the starting position. You can simply step forward on the opposite foot. If your legs are in good shape, you can lunge for long distances. I once met a kickboxer who swore by this method. He didn't even count the reps in his workout at his local soccer field!

Low lunges

This a good option a lunge that focuses on one leg at a time. Rest one leg at the top on something at knee height. A bunk bed is fine for me, but using a ladder can find the best height for you. Experiment with different steps. Raising the leg should be forward, with slight flexion at the knee. Now under-

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keeping your back straight, bend at the knees and hip joints, until your hamstring presses against your calves. On this moment the thigh should be in the chest area. You can bend the knee of the back leg a little to ensure safety, but the main movement should come from the front leg. A minute pause, then return the extended leg back to its original position. This movement feels like a punch, but much slower and smoother. Complete all reps and switch legs. A few hundred reps will give you a pleasant ache in your quads.

Babi squat

Grab onto something strong with one hand for support. Place straight legs together or almost, slightly bend at the knees, keeping the hips straight. This will require you to raise yourself up on your toes and tilt your torso back a little. This will be difficult at first because you will want to bend forward at the waist, but eventually you will get the hang of it. Most of the force is transmitted through the knees, so never bend them more than 90 degrees. At first, even this may seem impossible, that is, the angle should be up to 90 degrees. Pause before returning back to the starting position and repeat from the beginning.

This is an unusual technique, and by simply adding repetitions it is difficult to make progress. But this - useful exercise to have in your arsenal of squat workouts that do not require a significant bend in the hips, so this is - good way keep the quadriceps in conditions while the lower back recovers from injuries. There seems to be some controversy as to how this exercise got its name. Most sources seem to think that this is because leverage works against muscles, forcing even strong man feel like a woman, but my mentor Joe Hartigen swore that the exercise was named after the Greek king, Sisyphus. According to mythology, Sisyphus was condemned to roll a huge boulder up the mountain every day for all eternity, and watch how it rolled back down the Unfortunate at dusk. I bet he had big hips.

Indian squat

This exercise has been used by Indian wrestlers for centuries. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart or slightly wider, squat down, lifting your heels. Immediately, without any pause, come back, using the strength of the legs, swaying on the heels, as if walking. This rocking motion back and forth on your heels creates a kind of swing rhythm, and your center of gravity shifts back and forth, up and down. This rhythm, in turn, is produced with greater speed, more explosive than in ordinary squats. Unlike regular squats, this

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the ballistic property is actually the main element of the Indian squat. Find a way to gently swing your arms in line with the movement that will help develop and maintain rhythm.

Don't stop at the bottom or the top, moving to the right, you need constant movement. There are good and bad sides to Indian squats. The bad side is, Hindu squats won't replace rep squats, because that's the only way you can make them progressive by adding reps. It develops endurance, but not strength. In addition, the push used during the natural rhythm can cause damage to the knees of some athletes. positive side The rhythmic nature of Indian squats makes them an excellent choice for tall athletes who want to develop lower body endurance but require large areas. They also provide great benefits for the heart. If you decide to use them, train your program gradually so that the knee tendons get used to the exercise.

plyometric jumps

Squats develop muscle size and strength. But in order to build that strength quickly, it's helpful to include some plyometric leg training. Luckily, explosive leg workouts come naturally while running, jumping, kicking, etc. Perhaps jumping is the most targeted form of plyometric training. Jumping is natural, safe and can be done almost anywhere.

plyometric training in gyms often use secure boxes to jump onto the box from a fixed position. You don't really need any equipment to do plyometric jumps. At San Quentin, my first cellmate taught me a technique he learned in the military called dead jumping. Just put your feet together and lower yourself quickly before jumping forward as far as you can. Keep your feet together when landing and try to fall forward or the jump will not count. It's actually harder than it sounds, as people usually take at least a step or two before jumping anywhere. In impulsive jumps, they work out strength, not the number of repetitions.

A warm-up, and repetitive jumps in two or three sets of four to six reps, is all you need. As you progress, you will naturally jump further. We marked the cages on the floor with chalk, and tried to beat our own records every week. If you don't have room (easy to do in prison), start doing dead jumps with only one leg. Stand on one leg and lower yourself down before jumping as far as you can. You must land on the same foot that kicked off the ground.

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and, in any case, do not fall. If you like single-sided work, you can also experiment with box jumps on one leg. This advanced exercise includes single-leg jumps and box squats (see photo below), but don't even try this if you have super-healthy knees. Regular high jumps and long jumps are also good sports training but for me, dead jumps are the best technique jump because they also teach balance and control, and are also useful for explosive power.

Running up stairs

We never had that kind of exercise in prison, but I've talked to guys who are dedicated to incline running. Find yourself a large, steep flight of stairs. In a one-story house, stairs will not work, preferably in a large residential building, or, better, a staircase in a stadium, between sporting events. The more scolding, the better. If you live in the wild and can't find a ladder, a nice steep hill will do the job just as well.

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Fine. Start from the bottom, run. Well, is it easy? The answer to this question is not simple. Running up stairs or hills while carrying your weight up quickly is incredibly demanding on your energy systems. After a few seconds, you will start to choke, and I know in advance that your legs will be full of lactic acid. By the time you get to the top of the stairs (if you do) your legs will be like jelly and you will feel lucky to be alive.

Whatever you do, don't run back down, fatigue will reduce your coordination and control, making a nasty fall possible. Walk instead. Over time, you can improve the performance of your system by improving the time and increasing the number of laps on the stairs. Stair running is popular with fighter athletes, a previous generation of UFC champion fighters like Maurice Smith, who brought this old technique back for careful public education. Many athletes practice this method instead of the barbell squat because it trains maximum lower body endurance with minimal risk to the joints when done correctly. Sounds promising and I wish I had access to large stairs when I was at my peak. Give it a try, but be aware, it's very intense work and can make you sick if you get up too fast.

car pushing

When I was a kid, I saw an interview with Dick Butkus where he talked about developing his amazing football strength by pushing a two-ton car when he was in high school. As a result, I became obsessed with pushing cars. It seemed like something only Superman could do. Whenever there was a chance, I pushed my Ford Maverick up along the block.

My arms were like spaghetti when I was a kid and were long enough to move a few yards with a satisfying feeling! I don't follow the Chicago Bears anymore, but once I got out of jail I quickly resumed my love of pushing cars. Find a clear stretch of road or track, turn off the engine and put it in neutral (you may have a little trouble if you leave it in gear). Stand at the back of the car and put your palms on the metal parts, you don't want to apply force through the rear windshield. Keep your arms almost straight and lean into the movement as much as you can. Push away from your feet. Once the car gains momentum, pushing becomes a little easier. But not by much.

You will have to push off with your fingers as you walk, and this is fantastic for the calves. The legs get massive workouts, but so do the back, waist, chest, shoulders and arms. Mark a hundred yards if you can find it.

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Measure a distance of one hundred large steps. You can do it yourself. Roll two or three times once or twice a week and try to beat best time. This creates dangerous levels of athleticism effort! Pushing a car is a phenomenally functional leg exercise because it uses all the power that flows through the entire body. Pushing in this way helps the muscles figure out how to achieve more force, and is useful in wrestling, martial arts, football, and just about anything really. sports sports. This will help you if you are cornered in the yard by a couple of opponents.

fire run

This is an intensive sprint method that requires partner training. Bend down and rest your shoulder against your buddy's waist. Stand up straight, lifting it off the ground. His head will be near your back, legs dangling near your hips. Use your nearest hand to secure his legs for stability. This is a classic fireman's elevator. In this position, run as fast as you can, about a hundred yards. Then place your partner on your feet and let him carry you back. Repeat this torture on different sides, as many cycles as you can.

Like running up stairs and pushing a car, this exercise is great for heart and lungs, cardiovascular endurance, leg metabolism, and overall body energy production. This is an interesting and responsible technique, but, like any exercise involving external loads, there is a risk. Warm up well, wear solid boots to protect your ankle, and maintain mental focus throughout the exercise. This method is not only popular with firefighters, it is also widely used by bodyguards and security professionals who may need to quickly remove a client from a dangerous area.

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7. Pull-ups: Powerful back

and biceps

It doesn't matter what you think about training with own weight, there is no doubt about one thing: pull-ups on the crossbar rule. Who hasn't been inspired by watching Sylvester Stallone doing uneven pull-ups in Rocky 2 with clenched jaws? My personal love

My cinematic example is the flexible and brutal Linda Hamilton doing pull-ups in her hospital bed in Terminator 2. I remember during my years as a new kid in prison, I saw a grey-haired black veteran doing one-arm pull-ups on the doorway of his cell, and I promised that one day I would master this seemingly impossible technique.

Man has always been attracted to pull-ups as the crown of strength. There is nothing new in this. In fact, pull-ups are the oldest muscle building exercise in history. It's easy to find mentions of pull-ups in ancient history; several literary classics have described this exercise, popular with warriors, athletes, and even civilians who wanted to get stronger. Because of this, it is impossible to trace the date of the invention of this exercise, since it is obviously almost the same age as humanity. Scientists say that even before the transformation into Homo sapiens, our distant ancestors most likely lived in trees, just like chimpanzees and other apes at the moment. For the predecessors of mankind, pulling your body onto a tree branch was as natural a movement as ordinary walking is for us.

Thanks to this amazing anatomical heritage, it's amazing how little value and little attention the average student places on their back muscles. Walk into any gym and you will see guys (including athletes who seem to know better) endlessly work their torso on benches and chest exercises, doing only a small number of sets of rowing or other exercises on the back. Perhaps this is partly because it is quite difficult to see own muscles backs in the mirror - so we forget about them.

But I think culture also plays a role. Men are taught from childhood that courage is about pushing: we push an object to demonstrate our superiority, we push and punch in combat, we push for defense when times are tough, we grit our teeth and rush forward, we even psychologically push other people aside for expansion of personal space. On the contrary, a grasping reflex is attributed to women - to attract a child, another person, a girlfriend. Man is independent - strength means repulsion!

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Benefits of pull-ups

Maybe, last idea- a perspective look at the cultural anthropology of training techniques. Or maybe I just sat alone in my cell too much and thought about push-ups and pull-ups. Maybe a bit of everything. Who cares? Whether you accept my theory or not, there is no doubt that the back muscles are underestimated by many athletes. When we think of core muscles, we usually think of large chests or broad, round shoulders. All of these push muscles are important, but they pale in comparison to the upper back musculature, the pull muscles.

The most big muscle in the human body - latissimus dorsi ( latissimus dorsi back), runs behind the ribs and wraps around the back like wings. Most of the other back muscles work in a pull-up as well, such as the trapezius, rear deltoids, teres major, and rhomboids, but the lats do the lion's share of the work.

These muscles are not only big, they are also very responsive: they are genetically programmed to be big and strong when stimulated. Look at the posing of modern bodybuilders and most of the amazing muscles are not on the arms and legs, but on the back: many of them look like wings. Even hardcore bodybuilders who have learned how difficult it is to build chest muscles once they start properly training their back see them grow by leaps and bounds. These muscles were actively used by our ancestors and now they are patiently waiting for us to call them to explosive growth.

It's sad when people who devote time to their back often do inappropriate exercises for this. They work with heavy free weights, doing exercises that put a lot of pressure on the upper spine. Such exercises inevitably lead to injuries. Perhaps that is why the exercises on the simulators have become the most popular for the treatment of the back. Cables and blocks work here, as well as a convenient, comfortable seat. Why is treadmill work so popular? Because it's easy! You can swing your back with comfort and light loads. Unfortunately, due to its simplicity, work on simulators rarely gives significant result, unless the builder is already on large doses of steroids. These guys can go to train on pillows - and in the same way they will inflate like balloons. Not strength - only pumping.

Forget all the alternative exercises that people do in gyms. You don't need it. The best - and most safe exercise needed to pump up the upper back is a modest pull-up. It is in fact the king of all back exercises for the reasons listed above − human body designed to lift its own weight up vertically. We rarely do this modern world but the genes with which we

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born, they don't understand it. Master pull-ups and your lats will grow like crazy; the muscles of your shoulders will take on the form of coiled snakes, and your trapezium will become denser and stiffer than steel shackles. Every pulling muscle in your torso will get its fair share of work from pull-ups, and the bigger and stronger they will become as a result—and quickly.

Without a doubt, pull-ups give the greatest increase in core muscles than any other exercise. But there is another nice benefit of pull-ups - functional strength. A good friend of mine used to be an instructor in the Marine Corps. He told me that every season at least a few recruits were big, beefy bodybuilders who thought very highly of themselves. Many of them could do push-ups all day, but when asked to pull themselves up—maybe on an obstacle course wall, or climb a tightrope—these guys often struggled and looked weak compared to their smaller comrades. This is because modern bodybuilders rely on free weights and machines to strengthen their backs. They neglect to work with their weight and, as a result, suffer from a lack of functional qualities, so necessary for agility.

An important attribute of real strength, grip, also gets a lot of stress from pull-ups: to hold on to the bar and move yourself up and down, your fingers and palms must be much stronger than the average person, even if you do not do any complicated exercises. The flexor muscles of the forearm are also loaded and become stronger. Believe it or not, pull-ups even work your abs and hips - which, in normal life, are not used to keep two legs in the air - great work in isometrics. Beginners in this exercise often get more pain in the abdominal muscles the next day than in the lats.

big biceps

Even bodybuilders agree on the benefits of pull-ups in back development, but not all people today know that this is also best exercise for biceps, ever known to mankind. Modern athletes are stuck with exercises like curls, but in reality, no matter how much weight you lift, curling is isolated exercise, because it works with muscles only at one point - the elbow. Pulling up is a basic exercise. It works on the biceps not only in the elbow, but also in the shoulder.

This is where the biceps really come into play. Just think: a 200-pound man is doing a pull-up, his biceps are working with a 90-pound weight in the full range of motion. How many people do you know who can do curls with 90kg dumbbells? If the same person succeeds in the one-arm pull-up, he will lift 90 kilograms with a single biceps muscle, which is equivalent to lifting a 90 kilogram dumbbell! Neu-

Push-ups are one of the most popular basic exercises all times and peoples. This article will give you comprehensive information, from the history of its appearance to all its variations and nuances of performance technique. And this exercise is famous for a reason, because it is really very effective. Some remember how they did it at school in physical education, others - in sports section, the third - in the army. Due to its indispensability, push-ups are now so popular, because with its help you can comprehensively develop physical strength and give the body a new look, especially due to its versatility. It is also useful in that it develops precisely those muscle groups that are extremely in demand in everyday work.

Let's dive into history a bit...

But first you need to understand where this exercise came from and how long people have been using it. There is no exact data on its appearance, but it is believed that this is a symbiosis of two yoga poses, story which is known to be more than three thousand years old! Now we can only speak with confidence about the early documented examples of the use of this exercise, or rather "dandas", the so-called Indian push-ups. It is known that such exercises were very popular among Indian athletes, because with their help they became stronger and more resilient.

Push-ups in the morning were also considered a good habit, the number of which reached some Indian athletes as much as two thousand! There is an idea that push-ups owe their origin to Zoroastrian practice. Also, references to this type of exercise are also found in other ancient cultures, where the cult of strength and reason prevailed. In the modern sense of the word that we understand, the name appeared only at the very beginning of the 20th century as the American version of push up, and then in the 50s, the English press up.

Target muscles and popular modifications.

Let's see which muscle groups are involved in this physical exercise…

There are many types push-ups, and all of them are useful, as they affect our body in different ways. Today we will be talking about Indian push-ups, also known as bomber push-ups or bomber push-ups. Their peculiarity is in accentuating the load on the anterior deltoid muscles, in addition, the extensor muscles of the spine receive the load for the second time. And so how to do Indian push-ups.

Execution technique

Before you start, warm up well, especially paying attention to the spine. The first thing to do to fulfill the Indian push-ups- take a standard lying position for most push-ups, the hand is located slightly wider than the shoulders. Then pull your feet towards your palms until your pelvis is raised as shown in the figure, while keeping your legs and back straight. This is the starting position. Start lowering your torso by pushing it forward as if you are overcoming an invisible obstacle. When the hips drop, push the torso up with the effort of the hands. At the end, we lower the torso while simultaneously raising the hips - this is one repetition. If it is difficult to perform this type of push-ups, put your hands on a small hill.

Benefits of Indian push-ups

Indian push-ups work the same muscles as regular push-ups: pecs, triceps, and anterior deltoids. Front only deltoid takes more load, if there is a desire to strengthen its strength, then Indian push-ups will suit you well.

This exercise, unlike other types push-ups, actively includes in the work the muscles responsible for changing the position of the spine - the muscles of the cortex (extensor spine and abs), allowing you to increase not only their strength but also flexibility. In addition, due to such a change in body position during repetition, Indian push-ups have a good effect on vascular system, due to the dynamic change of pressure in it.+

The question is when and how much to do. I would include Indian push-ups in my chest and triceps workout after the main exercise in 4-6 sets, the number of repetitions here is individual to finish off the load on the front deltas and work out the core muscles a little. Indian push-ups are still well suited as exercises, helping to wake up due to the active work of the vascular system.