The 1 EXERCISE to Learn How to FLARE / THOMAS

Yo Ninjas, I'm Caio. Let's see the only one workout exercise that you need to learn flares. I made a flare pdf guide, if you're learning this move and if you're serious about it, check it out, link in the description. I already made some flare workout tutorials, I recommend to check them out, the one for the L-sit, the one for the duck planche, but if you have limited time to practice the flare, you don't care about having a perfect flare but you just want to learn it very quickly, the easier way is just doing this exercise that I'm going to show you right now. To do flares, you need to have enough strength to hold yourself to the front and to the back side. To the front, the main exercise is the L-sit, to the back, the main exercise is the duck planche. You can evolve these two exercises in more advanced exercises but in order to learn just a couple rounds of flares or maybe 5 to 10 rounds, if you don't care about a perfect form, you can just really focus on L-sit and duck planche. The problem is, if you only practice L-sit and duck planche, it's gonna be too static, the flare is a dynamic movement, so I really recommend trying to connect L-sit and duck planche together. Doing it on the floor, it will look something like this. You start in a L-sit, you cross your legs, you bend, you can slide your feet on the floor a little bit, you release your feet so you don't cross them anymore and you hold the duck planche, then you cross them back, you slide forward and you do the L-sit again. On the floor, it can be a little bit uncomfortable because you don't have enough space to really go through. So what I recommend is taking something like this. If you don't have something like this, you can take yoga blocks or you can take some books. The important thing is that they are at the same level and then you try to do the same exercise but with this little help. So from here, bending, you can still cross and then duck planche and then from here, go forward again. Every time you reach the L-sit and you reach the duck planche, hold it for at least two or three seconds because if you don't hold the positions, it's very likely that you're just swinging and you're not really working with your muscles. In order to really work a little more, you have to hold the positions. So a very common mistake for beginners is doing something like this. So going for the L-sit, then going like this and going like this, going like this. This is too fast. You really have to make sure you hold, then you change, you go to the second position, duck planche, you hold, then you go back to the L-sit and so on. If it's still too hard for you with some books or yoga blocks, you can try with something a little higher so you will have more space for your legs. So in my case, I have these parallels. With these ones, the exercise is going to be very easy because I can also stay with the legs a little bit lower like this. I can just bend. I don't need to cross. I can hold like this. If you practice with something very elevated like this one, make sure with time you try to get with your feet higher than the bars. So when you do the exercise for the first time, you can stay low. It doesn't really matter. You can stay like this and just do kind of like this. But with time, try to get higher. Try to get over the bars with your feet like this, bend and go over the bars like this, higher. Once again, remember, hold the L-sit for at least 2-3 seconds, then move to the duck planche, hold for 2-3 seconds and then repeat. How many times to repeat? This is up to you. The first time you practice this exercise, test yourself and try to do as many repetitions as possible, always remembering to hold the position every time. So start from a L-sit, hold for 2-3 seconds, go to the duck planche, hold for 2-3 seconds and then repeat. Every time you are in the L-sit again, count 1, then count 2 and so on. So I'm going to give you an example on how to do it correctly. Hold for some seconds, bend, go, hold for a few seconds and this was 1. Hold, bend, hold and this was 2 and so on. Try to do as many repetitions as possible. Then when you practice this exercise, I recommend doing a little bit less than your maximum repetitions that you did in your test. So for example, let's say that in my test I did 5 repetitions. In my actual training, I don't want to do 5, but I want to do 3 or 4, okay? So just a little bit less, but I want to do more sets. So you're going to do 4 or 3 repetitions, you're going to rest for like 2 minutes, something like this and then repeat and do the same number, do 3 or 4 again. Then rest for another 2 minutes and then do it again. I recommend doing 3 or 4 sets. Try to increase the number of repetitions week by week, even by 1. If it's too hard for you, try to increase every 2 weeks. You have to make sure there is a progress over time. If there isn't a progress over time, you have to challenge yourself to have a progress. So maybe doing more sets or maybe doing more repetitions or maybe holding each position a little longer or maybe try to stay with your feet a little bit higher. The important thing is that somehow you find a way to evolve this exercise every time, every week or every 2 weeks at least. So this exercise is very important to improve the strength of your shoulders for the flares and of your core. Once you have a clean form in this exercise and you do more than 5 repetitions, so from 6 on, you should be ready to do flares. To learn this move as efficiently as possible, you have to follow a specific plan or method and not just practice the move randomly or following too many different tutorials, because they all give you different information and the training process could be a little confusing. The courses that I have created collect all the information that is very useful and structure it very clearly to make power moves easy for everyone. They also provide a training plan and some extra tips and concepts. There is only one problem of this exercise. With this one you're not gonna challenge and you're not gonna practice your flexibility, your mobility at all. But in the flare you need a little bit of mobility. You don't need to be crazy flexible, but a little bit of flexibility can help. So doing more stretching exercises can be more beneficial or doing some L-sits variations where you open and close your legs could be even more helpful. So doing something like this or doing V-sits like this can help you more in order to increase your flexibility. But keep in mind that you can evolve this exercise as you want. So for example instead of just holding the L-sit to the front for two or three seconds, you can open your legs and close them three times. So you can do something like this. L-sit, one, two, three, bend, cross and go to the duck planche and then repeat to the front again. Or maybe you can try to go to a V-sit and then to the duck planche. If you want to get stronger on the back side of the flare, I also recommend evolving the duck planche in something harder. So to an advanced duck planche that is very similar to a duck planche, but your knees are going to stay a little bit more backwards. You're going to lean a little bit more forward with your shoulders and you're going to try to push up with your shoulders and push your hips a little higher. This is a little bit hard and it's not really necessary for the flare, but if you challenge yourself to make this exercise more advanced, it will be even easier for you to master flares and to evolve your flares. So you can try to do a higher duck planche, kind of like this, not staying too low like this. Or you can try to do a straddle planche. I cannot really do it properly. I have to work on it, but if you want to challenge yourself, you can do it. It's totally up to you. It's not necessary for the flare, as I said before, but if you learn it, it will make your flare even better and even easier. Another thing that you're not going to learn with this exercise is the timing of your arms. To learn the technique of the flare and the timing of the flare, there is not really a workout or a stretch you need to do, but it's all about practicing the flare itself. Or also practicing footwork, because in footwork usually the hands movements are similar to flares. So when you're doing a six step, for example, you're going to lean your weight here and then you're going to move to the other side and then you're going to move here. You're kind of doing this very similarly to a flare. So usually people who can do very good footwork don't have problems having a good timing in the flare. Maybe they could have problems in the strength or in the flexibility, but usually their timing in the flare with their hands is on point. So practicing footwork can help for the timing, practicing flare itself can help for the timing. This exercise only helps for strength, if you lack of strength to do flares. If you can already do this exercise, but you still cannot do flares, it means that you have enough strength to do flares, but maybe you lack in flexibility or maybe you lack in technique or timing. Once again, to work on timing and technique, work on your footwork a little bit or work on flare itself. Make sure you practice with a correct method. And by the way, I made already different flares tutorials, you can check them out. Try to follow them, so you make sure you practice in the correct way. And if you lack in flexibility, try to focus on your pancake stretch and on your shoulder extension stretch. This one for the shoulders and the pancake, this one, are the only two stretches that you really need for flares. Of course, practicing all three splits can help, practicing even other exercises can help, but these two are the two most important ones. If you need more help to learn flares, check out the guide in the mail, link in the description, and see you next time with a new tutorial. Yo, ninja!