Dedicated fitness is the primary demacator that separates a professional athlete and a Sunday league player. Are you holed up at home or do you want to maintain match fitness without equipment or machines? In this article, we have listed 10 best exercises for athletes that will ensure you are always fit.

A healthy diet combined with a little exercise several times a week is enough to prevent diseases, raise your defences, feel better about yourself and most importantly, never be unprepared when gameday comes calling. It doesn’t matter if you do it in the morning, or late in the day, what counts is that you exercise your body.

Best Exercises for Athletes

The Plank

The plank is an exercise on the rise in recent years due to the amazing results it has consistently churned out in even professional athletes. It also has many variants: side plank, push-up plank, one-hand plank and plank with one leg raised. To do a normal plank, start on the ground, tighten your stomach, and proceed to support your weight on your elbows and the tips of your toes for 15-20 seconds. Your back must be completely straight.

Strides

To correctly perform this exercise, you must stand with your feet together and step forward, bending both legs until the back knee almost touches the ground and both knees are bent at 90 degrees. Push your feet and switch legs with each rep. It is a very useful unilateral exercise for athletes to be able to develop the strength of the legs separately and to gain tone equally in both extremities.

Push-ups

In the event that you are not used to doing this type of exercise, start small and gradually increase the repetitions in your push-ups. Begin by resting your knees on the ground and when you gain more strength in your arms, perform them with your body completely lifting off the ground, with your feet and hands as the only support.

If you have become a pro in regular push-ups, you can move over to weighted push-ups, which involves you putting a weighted object, usually a heavy backpack, on your back for better resistance. You can keep increasing the weight as your strength increases. Similar to lifting weights, push-ups is therefore one of the most fundamental exercise for athletes.

Squats

To perform squats, it is important that you learn to place your body in the proper position. Position yourself against the wall to keep your back completely straight, then begin to bend your knees. You will see how in a short time and progressively you will be able to burn fat. Do not apply excessive force as results will come in due time.

ABS

Place your body in a horizontal position on the floor, if it hurts to perform these exercises, you can place a floor mat or buy a gym mat to feel more comfortable. It is very important that your feet do not move and that you keep your back straight while lifting your torso. Don’t strain your neck as you stand up. Little by little you will be able to incorporate different types of abs into your exercise routine from wherever you are.

Hypopressive ABS

This type of exercise for athletes has more and more followers in its ranks. The fact that many superstar sportsmen and celebrities have opted for this technique has further piqued our curiosity about this exercise for athletes. A

mong its many benefits, it stands out as a workout for strengthening and toning your muscles, reducing the contour of your waist, regulating your respiratory parameters by increasing your lung capacity, preventing the weakening of the pelvic floor after childbirth and improving the health of your back.

Chin-Up

Despite what may seem very complicated at first glance, chin-ups are much easier to perform than any other exercise. All you have to do is get a pull-up bar that suits your needs and get to work!

Rowing

To practice it, you can help yourself with an elastic band, or buy a rowing machine. It could be said that the horizontal row is one of the main exercises when it comes to working the muscles of the back, since thanks to this movement you will be working both this area and the arms. In addition to working your muscles, you will also be able to optimize the functions of the respiratory and cardiovascular system .

Jump Rope

Sounds like a simple exercise, right? But the truth is that what may seem like child’s play will help you simultaneously work all the muscles in your body, burn calories, develop your reflexes and maintain balance . This is one of the best ways to do cardio at home. Footballers like Sergio Ramos have popularised this exercise among athletes.

Shadow Boxing

This type of boxing is very efficient to practice and also to learn or improve in what you feel less confident. Amateur boxers can use these workouts to improve, while professionals will use this workout to gain speed and include footwork in between each technique, however this exercise for athletes is not limited to boxers alone.

To train shadow boxing wherever you are, you should do rounds of 1 minute and then rest for 1 minute to continue with the next round. In total 3 rounds can be performed for an effective practice result. Training consists of choosing a specific technique or stroke and focusing on doing it until you drop. You will hit the air or a sparring partner for the next minute or more with the aim of becoming faster each time.

Tips Before Exercise for Athletes

Before you start your exercises, here are some tips to avoid possible injuries:

• Try to warm up your body before starting exercises that require more effort. To do this, take care to move all your joints well.
• Stretching is essential so that you do not suffer any injury, never forget this step even if you do not have much time, because if you do not stretch correctly your muscles and tendons can easily be damaged.
• Do cardio or aerobic exercises. There are tons of tutorials on YouTube from which you can get ideas to do it at home without the need for machines. You can go from skipping rope to dancing to music to simply moving your body.

Another advantage of exercise is that it not only helps you physically, but also psychologically, as it is a constant challenge in which you will constantly want to achieve new goals. It will help you motivate yourself and every threshold surpassed will be a reward.