Latest news with #calisthenics
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Meet the man who helps superstars get their dream moves: Nike's Jamie 'Velocity' has worked with Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden and Bruno Fernandes
It is no secret Jack Grealish enjoyed himself on his month-long booze-filled holiday after Manchester City won a sensational Treble in the 2022-23 campaign. But once he was done, he headed out to Dubai to get back to work before joining up with his team-mates for pre-season. There was only one man he called to help him out: Nike trainer Jamie Reynolds - the secret to the success of sport's biggest names. Topless and bathed in sweat, Grealish shared a video on Instagram and panned the camera around to focus on Reynolds on a sun-beaten AstroTurf pitch. Reynolds is perhaps best known as the man responsible for Anthony Joshua 's supreme knockout power at his brutal peak, but he has also worked with a host of footballers, his CV boasting the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Marcus Rashford. He is a guru in the art of calisthenics, a form of exercise which uses body weight for resistance rather than external weights of equipment. As a result, Reynolds has proven himself adept at building up the size of athletes, as well as their strength. Simply, he leaves no stone unturned, and that's why sporting icons have turned to him in their droves to get the crucial edge over their competitors. It is also no coincidence that many of them frequently return to work with him again and again. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jamie Reynolds (@jamie_velocity) Grealish is one such example. The playmaker, outcasted by Pep Guardiola and given permission to train individually as he waits on a move away from City, has linked back up with Reynolds this summer. Highlights of their sessions were posted online. Rashford, Phil Foden and Bruno Fernandes are just a few of the many athletes who have also joined up with Reynolds, who is known as Jamie 'Velocity' on social media. His track record speaks volumes. Just ask Jose Mourinho, who revealed he was left open-mouthed with Rashford's physical evolution during pre-season in 2017. Rashford leaned on him again as he geared up for his dream switch to Barcelona. One quick glance at Reynolds' Instagram page tells you everything. The top three pinned posts are shots of him working with Grealish, Ronaldo and Joshua. Earlier this week, Reynolds shared a training montage featuring Rashford, which he pertinently captioned, 'Hard work beats talent.' Two days before that, he uploaded a series of photos of a session with Grealish and waxed lyrical about the forward, saying 'What a player, what a guy.' His reputation precedes him and Reynolds has quickly become the go-to guy for athletes up and down the country. Clearly, his methods have a remarkable effect. There are countless other case studies underlining just that. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jamie Reynolds (@jamie_velocity) In July 2020, shortly after most Covid restrictions were lifted, Chelsea shared videos of home workouts featuring Mason Mount and Reynolds, posting them on YouTube. Troy Deeney, who played for Watford in the top-flight, saw a friend train with Reynolds and recalled being struck by the power of his cutting-edge approach. He went on to work religiously with the trainer for boot camps before pre-season. These sessions focused particularly on his footwork and agility, while he also used Reynolds in sessions built around the Premier League's brutal, packed calendar. Deeney spoke glowingly of Reynolds, telling FourFourTwo: 'He's the first trainer who told me what physical attributes I needed as a striker, my strengths and weaknesses, and then said, "I want you to keep working at your strengths." 'I'd never worked with anyone specifically on my game before – previously I'd just done a training programme that had been developed for a whole squad of players.' Crucially, Reynolds says his techniques are perfectly suited to a variety of sports. He told Men's Fitness: 'When it comes to the work that these guys do in the gym, the truth is that around 70 to 80 per cent of it is the same no matter the sport. 'The principles used to help make a footballer stronger aren't going to vary too much to those used to add strength to an NFL player, or a tennis player, or a boxer. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jamie Reynolds (@jamie_velocity) 'The differences come when we look at how to transfer what we learn in the gym to the pitch/ring/court and also how we train the athletes' energy systems for the specific demands of their sport/position.' More so now than ever before, athletes are willing to do anything to extract an extra one per cent of performance - potentially the difference between glory or defeat. Trainers like Reynolds, therefore, will become increasingly important and he will without a doubt continue to be the No 1 trusted coach athletes turn to first.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Everyone is talking about calisthenics – here's a 4-week strength training plan (no gym membership required)
To many, strength training is an intimidating term, conjuring up images of muscle-bound bodybuilders and sweat-scented gyms. But as ever-more research reinforces the practice's many benefits, for those of all ages and fitness levels, a growing number of people are looking to try it out. If you fall into this camp, calisthenics – a kit-free training method which leverages your own body weight as resistance – is an accessible option you can do from the comfort of your living room. And we have a four-week plan for absolute beginners to help you get started. 'Calisthenics helps people get stronger in more planes of movement, and uses movement patterns that are more relevant to everyday life,' says Dr Athalie Redwood-Brown, a senior lecturer in performance analysis of sport at Nottingham Trent University, who also owns a gym and has founded the FiiT For Life charity. Every time you sit in a chair, you're performing a squat of sorts. Bending down to tie your shoelaces is tantamount to a lunge, and the process of picking yourself up from the floor often starts with a form of press-up. For this reason, Redwood-Brown says calisthenics training can allow people to 'live life better'. 'You're creating all of these lovely neurological pathways which then allow us to do everyday activities better,' she continues. This strengthens the body, leaving it less prone to injury, while also improving balance and coordination. It can also help combat sarcopenia – the age-related loss of strength, muscle and function in the body. If these attributes sound enticing, read on for a beginner calisthenics programme from Redwood-Brown, as well as her top tips on how to get started. A four-week beginner calisthenics plan Perform each of the three workouts below once per week – a schedule placing day one on a Monday, day two on a Wednesday and day three on a Friday often works well. Repeat this cycle for four weeks in total, using the progression options below to gradually increase the difficulty of the workouts week-on-week. Redwood-Brown adds that working with an experienced trainer is the best way to get started, but this is a good system for beginners to introduce their body to regular movement and lay solid foundations of strength and mobility. If you already have some training experience, you might want to consider introducing weights into your workouts for an added challenge with this experienced strength coach's weekly workouts. Day one Day two Exercise Sets Reps Rest between sets Chair squat (sit in a chair in a controlled manner, then stand back up) 3 12 60 seconds Standing calf raise (come on to your toes, then lower your heels back to the floor) 3 15 60 seconds Standing hip circles 2 10 in each direction 60 seconds Forward fold with arm swings (hinge at the hips to let your arms hang towards the floor, then sway them gently from side to side – only lower as far as you feel comfortable) 1 60 seconds 60 seconds Day three Exercise Sets Reps Rest between sets Marching in place (high knees optional) 1 60 seconds 60 seconds Wall sit (place your back against a wall and slide your hips down as far as is comfortable – the lower your hips, up to 90 degrees, the more challenging the exercise) 3 20 seconds 60 seconds Side lunge (assume a wide stance, shift your weight to one side while bending that knee, then return to standing – hold a chair for support if needed ) 3 6 each side 60 seconds Bird dog (start on all fours, extend your right arm and left leg until they are parallel with the floor, return to all fours, then repeat on the other side) 3 10 in total 60 seconds How to progress these workouts The body reacts to better handle the challenges we consistently set it, so calisthenics can make our body function better both internally and externally; think improved heart health, lower risk of chronic diseases, more robust joints and increased physical capacity. However, this also means that if you want to see continued positive adaptations from exercise, you need to progress the difficulty of your workouts over time in line with your increasing fitness levels. Luckily, Redwood-Brown's instructions cover this. 'To keep improving, you can use simple tweaks,' she says. 'Each week, you can increase the reps by two or three for each exercise, or add one extra set per move – for example, doing four sets of incline press-ups rather than three. 'You can also increase the amount of time you hold the planks and wall-sits by five to 10 seconds each week.' The final option is to increase the resistance. For the incline press-ups, this can be achieved by lowering your hands from a wall to a kitchen counter to a table or bench – the lower the hands, the more challenging the exercise. You can also add light resistance bands, or even use tins of beans as makeshift dumbbells, to make exercises such as the glute bridges, squats and side lunges more challenging. How to get the most out of calisthenics training The term calisthenics stems from the ancient Greek words kallos, meaning beauty, and sthenos, meaning strength. The name roughly means 'beautiful strength', and for the practice to be successful, there has to be an emphasis on moving well. 'The fundamental [of strength training] is to move well,' Redwood-Brown says. 'Then you can move well with load, and then you can move well with load faster.' To practise this, she recommends considering the quality of your movements in everyday life. 'When you sit down on the sofa, I want you to think about how you move,' says Redwood-Brown. 'Imagine you have a £50 note between your bum cheeks [and squeeze them], because that means you sit up taller, you engage your core a little bit more and you use your bum muscles a little bit more. 'For a lot of people, they don't want to go to a gym until they feel that they can actually move with confidence. All of these [calisthenics] movements are fundamentals.' Alongside moving well, the other most important factor for seeing results from your calisthenics workouts is consistency. 'People think it needs to be super hard from the start and they need to go from zero to 100 immediately,' says Redwood-Brown. 'But if you make small progressions, you'll see progress. It's not about who finishes the first week fastest, it's about consistency; showing up and doing it even when you don't want to.' This isn't to say the workouts shouldn't feel challenging. As mentioned above, the body responds to physical stress by adapting to deal with it better over time – for example, strength training can stimulate muscle growth, improvements in mobility and the strengthening of tissues around joints such as ligaments and tendons. The important thing is to find a variation of the exercises above that suits your fitness level, allowing you to move well throughout the prescribed repetitions, but still providing a worthy test for your muscles. 'You have to 'choose your hard',' says Redwood-Brown. 'You might be in a situation now where it's hard standing up or walking to the end of the road because you're out of breath, you're overweight or you're stiff. That's not going to suddenly go away. 'We can do something hard now for a little bit, like these workouts, so that in a few months, these everyday tasks feel easier. Or, if we stay where we are, they are always going to be hard.' Benefits of calisthenics training We mentioned some of the major benefits of calisthenics training in the introduction, from building full-body strength to developing more resilient joints. But by Redwood-Brown's reckoning, we barely touched the sides. 'With exercise, and specifically calisthenics, you're actually using your own body to become resilient against things like sarcopenia, osteoporosis and rheumatoid arthritis,' she says. 'We're going to improve our general health, cardiac health, lung function, mobility and posture. There's so much positivity to it, and you are just using your own body weight'
The Sun
17-07-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
‘I've never seen anything like it' – Daniel Dubois defies logic with gymnastics training a secret to his success
HULKING heavyweight Daniel Dubois defies logic with ancient training methods from 1,000 years ago proving the secret to his success. Dubois has worked with calisthenics coach Cuong Hua for the past seven years - performing moves no 6ft 5in and 17 STONE man should ever be able to do. 7 7 7 7 Calisthenics a form of strength training that uses your own body weight as resistance - for example pull ups and press ups. It is usually the main base of training for gymnasts - but in IBF heavyweight champion Dubois case it extends to boxing. Trainer Hua told SunSport: "The optimal weight and size gymnast for men is 5ft 8 max, 65-75kg. "But Daniel, I've said before he's cut from a different cloth. He's built differently. "His body weight, for a big man, I've never seen anything like it. I've trained a lot of smaller guys, I've worked with boxers but Daniel is something else. "Even compared to some of the smaller boxers I've worked with, his body weight on the bar, on the ring, it's completely something else." Hua added: "This is calisthenics, it's been around for thousands of years. "It's the oldest from of training and the most organic where you're just using your body weight. 7 OLEKSANDR USYK and Daniel Dubois meet again in a blockbuster heavyweight unification fight at Wembley Stadium THIS SATURDAY! Usyk won the first fight in August 2023 via a ninth round KO - but only after Dubois knocked him to the canvas with a body blow that was ruled a low blow. Dubois, 27, has improved massively since that first meeting, reeling off stunning wins over Jarrell Miller, Filip Hrgovic and Anthony Joshua. Watch Usyk vs Dubois 2 LIVE on DAZN Here's everything you need to know ahead of the big fight... INFO All the info for Usyk vs Dubois 2 Latest ticket availability and price How much are Usyk and Dubois earning for the rematch? Get either fighter at 50/1 to win with talkSPORT BET LATEST NEWS, EXCLUSIVES & FEATURES Inside Dubois' camp - fuelled by Ascot wins and ancient Greece Amateur coach: Dubois so powerful as a teenager I had to tell him to go easy on the adults Dubois SCREAMS in Usyk's face in bizarre face-off Usyk warns Dubois his IQ is too much for the Brit "The strength that you can build, that kind of pound for pound weigh that the gymnasts have, I think you can only get that from body weight and calisthenics and movement and mobility." Dubois is no stranger to age-old training methods. He turned professional in 2017 off the back of stories of how he would do press ups for up to FIVE HOURS on the orders of his dad. And Dubois, 27, said: "I think it has massively the help from Cuong and everyone else that's added to me. "And also just the basic ground work my dad made me and my siblings do when we were younger, that's still in us. "So I'm going to have the athletic edge over these guys." Dubois heads into the biggest fight of his career on Saturday against Oleksandr Usyk - who he was beaten by in nine rounds in 2023. Since that loss, the Londoner has beaten Jarrell Miller, Filip Hrgovic and most recently Anthony Joshua by knockout in September. And he said ahead of the undisputed showdown: "I'm going to come in with one goal in mind and that's to win. Win by any means necessary. "Sharp, on point, serious work, serious business and on the night perform to the best I've ever fought like it's my last fight." 7 7
