Exercising on parallettes is a superb addition to any home workout regime. You can work out anywhere, they’re inexpensive and come with a range of fitness benefits. These include improving your upper body and core strength, stability, balance and power as well.
What are Parallettes?
Parallettes are very simple bits of kit. Essentially, they are just two bars that run parallel to both the floor and each other that allow you to perform body weight functional and callisthenic exercises. They can be made of wood, metal or even polymers and are mostly light, not prohibitively expensive and easy to carry around with you as much as you need.
You don’t even need to use specialised parallettes bars. Any parallel bars that are sturdy enough to hold your bodyweight will suffice.
Do Parallettes Help You Reach Your Fitness Goals?
Well, this depends on what you want to achieve. Do you want to improve your relative strength and achieve things most normal fitness enthusiasts can’t? Do you want to be able to train with minimal equipment at home, work, on holiday or anywhere? If the answer to these questions is yes, then let’s get started on why every household and gym should have a pair.
Strength and fitness goals in general are usually a personal preference, but generally people want to be able to move efficiently and effectively, and more and more people are starting to realise this. The idea of being overly big and bulky is starting to fade in the fitness world and people are starting to seek a leaner, functional physique.
Parallettes Work for Everyone
This style of training is brilliantly adaptable for all sorts of different situations and is really fun to experiment with. Plenty of people have approached me looking for a new way to train and the resounding feeling is that everyone is bored of doing the same thing in the gym all the time.
Parallettes, meanwhile are great for everyone. It’s a more functional style of training that will assist in longevity. You can also develop a workout that will be just as effective as using a gym full of equipment.
Parallette bars are probably the best fitness equipment out there along with a pull up bar. You don’t need all the variations but they all do different things and allow for different training sessions, movements and statics. Most should start with the Pro Parallettes, they give room to manoeuvre through them while also being close enough to the floor for beginners to experiment without hurting themselves.
Three Parallette Exercises for Beginners
Check out these three exercises to try on the Pro Parallettes. You can easily incorporate these into your home workout:
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Incline Push ups
With this exercise you are looking to change the angle of your push up in this case it is usually so you are able to get a fuller range on your push. This is because the parallettes allow you to go lower than if your hands would on the floor, giving you a stronger muscle in its full range which will benefit you for future advanced moves.
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Kick through
Going from an incline push and controlling your movement through to a dip position with legs out front. This is great for learning how to control your weight and get used to how your body will need to work using relative strength!
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Tucked L-sit
This is great for working on your isometric strength which is great for muscular endurance. All you do is get into a dip position and pull your knees into your stomach using your core to keep it in position.
Covering these will give you great foundations to build next level strength from. Remember the foundations are what makes your structure a strong reliable one. If you do not build these then you will find yourself suffering from constant injuries and often starting back at square one.
What are the Benefits of Using Parallettes?
The great thing about this essential piece of kit is that it is ideal for training these three key areas:
- Shoulder stability
- Balance and Control
- Push power and strength
These are just some why gymnasts use these as a key strengthening tool, and why gymnasts are some of the strongest athletes on the planet.
Parallette Bars are Easily Portable
It’s tricky trying to take those big, heavy gym machines away on holiday, whereas parallette bars are portable and doing handstand push ups on the beach is a great way to keep in shape while you’re away. Nothing says you’re a calisthenics champion like a handstand photo with the sea in the background.
Give This Parallette Challenge a go
Calisthenics is an amazing workout to do at home, in the gym, or wherever you are. There is always a new boundary to push, a static to master, or a goal that looks impossible. This challenge is to use your parallettes to break your perceived limit. Whatever your max push ups are today, you’re challenged to do two more in every set. So if you do 10 push ups every set, you are now going to do 12, if you do 50 you’re going to hit 52. People tend to do what is “enough”, but “enough” won’t help you progress. Why not go the extra mile? After all what’s another two push ups?