Are you looking for tough new exercises to mix up your workout routine? If so, look no further. This article contains a list of some intense exercises that will push you to your limit. So, needless to say, these exercises are not for beginners. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Side Plank
Adding a balancing element to an exercise can make it more difficult. Let’s be real, doing a plank for more than a minute is difficult enough. The most common way to make a plank harder is to try to hold it for a longer amount of time. However, doing a side plank takes it to a whole new level.
If you have never tried to do a side plank before, there’s a pretty easy way to go about it. First, place yourself in the traditional plank pose. Next, turn to the side, distributing your weight to one of your feet. Lift yourself with one arm so that your body makes a sort of triangle, with the floor being the bottom line of the shape.
To improve your balance in this pose, you can hold your other arm to the side, parallel to the ground. If even the side plank is too easy for you, try to make it too difficult by adding leg lifts to the mix. All in all, no matter what variation of this intense exercise you do, it’s a great exercise to improve arm and core strength.
Tuck Planche
If you’re looking for another way to build muscles in your arms and core and improve your balance, then the tuck planche is another great exercise to try. This exercise combines the difficult yoga crow pose with using parallettes. Needless to say, doing this exercise is a lot more difficult than what some believe. While this exercise is challenging and will likely help with your strength training, taking muscle building stacks to improve your muscle mass is a great idea if you’re looking for the best results for your workout.
Before even trying this exercise, it’s important for you to fully master the yoga crow pose. The crow pose is one of the hardest yoga poses to hold, let alone master. To begin, start in the table pose (with your knees and hands on the ground with your back totally flat). Next, try to rock yourself, slowly taking your knees off the ground and putting all of your weight on your arms. Make sure to keep your knees bent the whole time. Try to move your knees so they are near your elbows, on the outside of them. Eventually, once you perfect your balance, you should be able to hold yourself up, just by using your arms, with your knees just barely resting on the outside of your elbows.
In case the crow pose doesn’t sound difficult enough, you can take it to the next level by doing a tuck planche. For this exercise, you will need a set of parallettes, which should be available at the gym. Instead of doing the crow pose from the ground, you’ll need to put your hands on the parallettes and balance yourself from the bars. This makes balancing even more difficult, but it also makes the exercise more rewarding.
Pistol Squat
Lastly, if you want to improve the strength in your leg muscles, try out the pistol squat. While a traditional squat is pretty easy to do, this squat is much more of a challenge. One thing that makes it harder is that you need to balance and do the squat on only one leg. This puts all the weight on one leg and if you can’t balance, then you’ll likely end up tipping over.
Balancing on one leg isn’t the only thing that makes the pistol squat more difficult than the average squat. To do this exercise, begin the squat by balancing on one leg and do the squat as you usually would. Stick out your free leg as far as you can. This can help with balance. If you can, reach out in the direction of your outstretched leg as well. To do reps, do a squat, stand up straight, and repeat.
The next time you want to make your workout more difficult, try one or all of these exercises. Your body is sure to gain balance and muscle from it!
Tags: exercises, intense exercise, workout routine
