WorkOut is a sport for everyone

WorkOut is a modern line of training, which includes the implementation of various exercises on horizontal bars, beams, Swedish walls, handrails and other structures installed on street sports grounds. WorkOut is one of the new stages in the development of fitness, which opens up new huge opportunities for training people of any level of physical fitness, age, physiological characteristics and desired results.

The main reason for the rapid popularity growth of this type of training is the democratic nature of sport, a special spirit of mutual aid and friendliness. After all, in addition to an equipped area with a bar, athletes need only comfortable shoes, clothes and gloves.

«Free workouts anywhere at any time is the main reason why WorkOut is popular. Most of the athletes are young people: schoolchildren and students, less often people over 30. The second reason for popularity is training for the whole body at once, that is, the visual effect of classes comes faster than from any other activity. The third reason is accessibility for people who have problems with the spine: hernia, protrusion, curvature. I have two hernias of vertebral discs, and I prefer workout and stretching out of all kinds of physical activity», comments Natalie Pashkoff, an athlete and a creator of the community about the women's wrestling BarSisters.

Despite of the fact, that the dynamic growth of WorkOut for many becomes an alternative to the gym, fitness clubs are slow to abandon this type of training, but rather install on the open areas and inside the premises a variety of equipment that allows for high-intensity group or individual training, as well as perform classical Strength exercises for all muscle groups.

«In many fitness clubs there are grounds for conducting group classes for dynamic music and our club is not an exception (editorial staff of the X-FIT fitness club). For comparison, in 2014 the number of sites for WorkOut in Moscow did not exceed 70, and at the moment there are already more than 100 sites. These trainings have a huge success. WorkOut is a complex of exercises mainly with the weight of one's own body: pulling up on the bar, various kinds of push-ups, classes on the handle, leg lifts in the vise to strengthen the musculoskeletal corset. As a rule, all exercises are performed by one complex without a long rest between exercises, which provides an aerobic effect from training. WorkOut forms both strength and endurance, which, in turn, has a beneficial effect on the health of the cardiovascular and nervous systems», explains fitness expert Sergei Dmitrievsky.

THE HISTORY OF ORIGIN

The WorkOut movement arose at the end of the 20th century in America, and presently gained the widest circulation worldwide. This direction came to Russia in 2010.

Originally, the word «WorkOut» meant a completely normal fitness in the gym, where there are exercise machines and dumbbells. However, other versions of WorkOut - "street workout" and "ghetto workout" - have gained popularity in Russia and all over the world. Their values are quite close, but the main difference is that the exercises are performed on the street outside the "mainstream" exercise machines and do not obey the fitness systems. In our country, the word "workout" quickly acquired a special meaning. So, they called not so much the training itself, but a life-style and the flow of free fitness. In Russia, the American WorkOut acquired more power features, and the focus was on static powerful exercises.

At the heart of the philosophy of WorkOut lies the idea of not comparing yourself with someone, and compete primarily with yourself. According to the ideologist of WorkOut movement in Russia, Anton Kuchumov, the system «Workut» is based on three main principles: «The first says: you need to listen to your body and choose the best for him. Everyone has different training and exercises, so just pay attention to your feelings from the classes, gradually increasing the level of workload. This is what results and progress means. The second principle is the imagination: to invent new exercises using the furnishings. And the third: the main thing is not quantity, but quality. Each approach must be technical and qualitative, this is much more important than the number of repetitions».

EQUIPMENT FOR TRAINING

Most often, WorkOut workouts take place on the street, for example, on a horizontal bar and beams. The bonus of these activities is fresh air, which fills the blood with oxygen. But the growing interest in the new direction has led to the fact that an increasing number of fitness clubs add to the schedule WorkOut and create specially equipped zones.

S.M. KIROV’s Military Medical Academy (St.Petersburg)

Traditional equipment for WorkOut includes handrails, beams, horizontal bars, a Swedish wall, benches for the press, and crossbars of different heights. Equipment for WorkOut, supplied by FOREMAN Products St. Petersburg, is a collapsible structure made of metal racks combined into a single complex by a system of horizontal bars and connecting platforms. The basis of construction of FOREMAN® equipment are steel pipes with a profile of 80x80 mm and a wall thickness of 4 mm. Binding platforms in which holes are provided for their carrying, serve as a support for the metal racks.

«Equipment for WorkOut, which is supposed to be installed on the street, requires special attention, as it is subject to weather influences. Therefore, the metal construction passes several stages of processing. First, the finished parts are placed in a specialized cell, where shot blasting is effected by the action of a fraction on the metal fed by the air flow at high speed. This process is necessary primarily to clean the surface of the metal from impurities, as well as to improve the coupling properties between the applied coating and the metal. After the blasting of the part by electrostatic spraying, a zinc-containing primer is applied. Further, the product with applied primer moves to the polymerization cell, where at the temperature of 180-200 ° C, the necessary anticorrosive coating is formed. After the parts cool down, the process is repeated; only the powder paint of the required color is used instead of the ground», says the engineer-technologist of FOREMAN Products St. Petersburg.

«X-FIT» Fitness club (Moscow)

Specialists of our company find optimal solutions for each client, and a wide color palette opens the possibilities for the implementation of any design projects. For example, for the fitness club "X-FIT" FOREMAN® team designed and installed a multifunctional street training complex, made in the club's brand colors.

NEW SPORTS DIRECTIONS

In the recent years, the WorkOut program has not only acquired a large number of followers, but it has also been supplemented by a variety of power and complex elements for execution. As a result, WorkOut became an independent direction in the sport. Today, competitions are held on the sport WorkOut with its own judging system, standards, assignable ranks. A professional athlete should not only perform the elements qualitatively, but also present their program in the most artistic and original way. The complexity of the exercises is crucial, and the musical accompaniment gives a special atmosphere to the performance.

«In the last year in Russia, the number of female athletes has increased noticeably, not least thanks to the holding of the third world championship for Women's WorkOut. Also, the level of training has risen significantly: competition has appeared, and more and more events and competitions try to include a female category in their program, thus it is possible to compete with demonstrations almost all the year round, to get experience, to work on mistakes, to raise and develop in Sports», - explained Natalie Pashkoff, a workout-athlete and the creator of the community about the women's workout BarSisters.

Work on overcoming their physical abilities requires special diligence and patience and it is possible that soon WorkOut will be recognized as the official sport.

«Fitness-Expert» MAGAZINE №04 November 2016 / January 2017