Have you ever seen someone at a playground performing a pull-up, but then stopping at a very difficult part of the exercise, for example during the concentric? Or perhaps someone doing the human flag, in which the person appears to be blown by the wind horizontally while holding with both hands on the bar? That is calisthenics (callisthenics, with double “L”, in British English).
Those two examples above are a high-level of calisthenics movements, but surely you have done some kind of calisthenics in the past without even realising it. How about a sit-up, a push-up or a squat? Yes, those are examples of calisthenic movements.
What is exactly calisthenic, what are the benefits of it, and should you focus on doing that instead of what you are currently doing, be it CrossFit, bodybuilding, powerlifting, or any other fitness program?
Keep on reading to discover more, plus how to transition to calisthenics and some of its most advanced movements.
What is Calisthenics
Calisthenics is a form of strength training performed with minimal equipment utilising your own bodyweight to tackle large muscle groups.
Strength is an essential part of calisthenics, although it is usually incorporated with gymnastic skills. The ratio of how much force one can produce relative to his/her body weight is going to be a determining factor in achieving many of the movements.
Calisthenics movements are usually associated with holding your body weight in positions that demand strong muscles. The athlete usually stops, or performs an exercise in slow motion, during the eccentric or concentric part of the movement.
Simple calisthenics exercises are push-ups, pull-ups, squats and even sit-ups. But there are other calisthenics movements that only advanced athletes should perform.
Who Should Try Calisthenics?
If you are a CrossFitter, calisthenics plays a small part in your workouts. Think of most bodyweight exercises you perform are calisthenics, such as the muscle-up, wall walk, handstand push-ups. So transitioning from CrossFit to calisthenics for you should not take too much effort.
But why should you try calisthenics out? If you are not an advanced athlete, should you give it a try anyway?
If you are doing CrossFit, but not aiming at competing or at least try out a local tournament, then calisthenics can be appealing.
CrossFitters are tired of hearing how stupid or dangerous kipping pull-ups look, and to be fair, it is only useful to do kipping pull-ups for CrossFit. If you want to develop stronger muscles on your back, kipping pull-ups would be far down on the list. You can check out these back exercises to build muscle and strength.
Since it uses mainly your body weight, calisthenics will give you a strong, but somewhat lean look. If your goal is to build large and impressive muscles, then forget about calisthenics – keep going to the gym and increase your weights. Don’t get us wrong, you can build muscle with calisthenics, but it is faster and easier if you do regular push and pull exercises in a gym with heavyweights.
If you are an absolute beginner, should you try out calisthenics? Absolutely!
Calisthenics does not have to be the hardest possible bodyweight training, as there are ways to progress into doing handstand push-ups, for example.
If you are just starting, you will learn a lot of cool and new ways to work out your body, even when you are just waiting for your meal to finish heating up in the microwave in your kitchen.
Pros of Doing Calisthenics
There are also many other reasons to start doing calisthenics besides a leaner, but strong physique:
- Do it anywhere – as it usually utilises bodyweight, you can do most of the movements anywhere, even while on vacation.
- Joint strength – when you start progressing to other movement standards, you will require your joints to do extra work to hold your body weight. That is simply not used during normal gym exercises.
- Strength everywhere – you will work out your entire body. No more “skip leg” day.
- Impress anyone – this can sound a bit pathetic, but you will definitely impress people around you if you can perform some of the more advanced movements.
- Inexpensive – you can do many exercises with nothing but your sheer will, or you can find a bar at a playground or buy your own and incorporate even more exercises into your routine.
- Great for weight loss – as this type of training involves multiple muscle groups, it usually burns more calories than common cardio and adds to your overall energy expenditure.
Cons of Doing Calisthenics
The good thing about calisthenics is that there are not many downsides to doing it. After all, since when is doing bodyweight workouts bad for you? It is not. So what are the disadvantages of doing calisthenics?
- No bulking – as we mentioned earlier, if you are looking to get ripped with giant muscles, your best bet is to do powerlifting and stick to the gym.
- Not great if you are recovering – if you had surgery or are doing physical therapy, calisthenics will not help you, and could potentially injure you even further. Bodyweight exercises are fundamental, but you are still lifting a lot of weight, whereas in a gym you can strengthen your leg by lifting literally any weight you want.
- You can hit a plateau – when you start training, you want to keep progressing, and that can be tricky or disappointing when doing calisthenics because you will only use your body weight. Weight training is easier, you just add more weight, but with calisthenics you need to find ways to challenge yourself more utilizing the only weight you have available.
Calisthenics Exercises for Beginners
If you are new to calisthenics and have not done exercises in a long time, it might be best to start at the very basic of bodyweight movements.
- Squats
Keep your feet planted on the ground and lower them until you reach 90-degree angle with your legs. Squats is a good beginner movement standard and as you get stronger, you can do modifications of a squat, perhaps with extra weight, or perhaps with one leg in the air, either pistol squat or the shrimp squat.
Check out the ultimate guide for the squat warm-up here.
- Push-ups
The push-up is one of the most simple yet complete exercises out there. It develops your arms, shoulders and chest. Make sure you know how to perform them correctly, utilizing the full range of your scapula, before progressing to other push-up variations.
- Dips
Dips are another calisthenics staples exercises as is an upper-body exercise that hits your deltoids, pecs, and the rhomboid muscles of the back.
- Pull-ups
If normal pull-ups are difficult, you can start with something easier, like an Australian pull-up, which is pulling your body utilizing your back muscles, but with a different angle.
You will progress to the normal pull-up and perhaps beyond that.
- Planks
Planks are beginners workout to engage the core, a part of your body that you will rely on to keep your body steady when doing more advanced exercises.
Tips and Principles for Beginners
- Control your movement
You must be able to pick up the speed or the tempo at any point in the range of a movement. For example, during a push-up, you must be able to do the normal movement at a slow pace, stop at any point, and explode to go faster.
The better you can control your movement, the stronger you will be down the line.
- Strengthen your scapula
Strengthening the supporting muscles surrounding and interacting with the scapula has a direct impact on Calisthenics. You can perform different exercises to build up your scapular strength – below you will see the scapular push-up.
- Don’t count your reps
This goes in the opposite direction of almost every single type of workout. If you can do 20 push-ups unbroken at a fast pace, that does not mean you are doing them correctly.
In the same way that you should be able to control your movement (mentioned above), you must be able to pay attention to how your body is performing the exercise, hitting the right range of movement. This will increase your strength overall, not the number of reps you can do.
- Develop your core
You will not be sitting in machines or lying on benches any longer, so you will utilise your core much more than you thought was possible. There is hardly a calisthenics exercise that does not work your core in one way or another.
While training, you must learn how to use your glutes and core together to control your body alignment.
- Do parts of the movement
With time you will progress to more advanced movements, but sometimes even the most basic ones are difficult to accomplish. That is ok. You can do parts of the movement.
For example, a pistol squat, or single-leg squat, demands a lot of the leg muscles, but you can practice by sitting on a chair on one leg and getting up utilizing the same leg. You are doing just parts of the range of movement, but at the same time teaching your body something new. With practice, comes perfection.
Advanced Calisthenics Movements
Are you ready to move on to more advanced calisthenics exercises? A good number to strive for is to be able to do 10 pull-ups, 15 dips and 20 clean push-ups. You can pause between each exercise, but should not take a rest between reps.
In any case, you might want to try some of these more advanced movements for intermediate athletes.
- Frogstand
The frogstand will help strengthen your shoulder and scapular and get you comfortable with being upside down, which you will be in some cases during calisthenics.
- Split squat jump
So that you do not neglect your lower body, add split squat jumps to your routine. The impact of jumping and stabilizing with only one foot planted on the ground triggers different muscles.
- Pike push-up
A variation of the push-up that targets your shoulders more than your chest or arms.
- Typewriter pull-up
This mix of static and dynamic exercise can be done on a bar or rings, with the latter being the better option as rings can move independently.
- L-sit
A mix between push, core, and leg strength and you will need a certain amount of mobility to be able to do it.
- Skin the cat
A very impressive movement, but still considered intermediate, is skin the cat in which you hold your body on a bar or rings and almost do a complete 360-degree rotation. The front part will work your lats, abs, traps and triceps, while the back part will focus on your delts and chest.
- Elbow lever
Another exercise that seems impressive, but can be done after a few weeks of training. In this movement, you use your elbows as a resting and balancing point for your body.
- Muscle-up
A classic in CrossFit and also used by many as a measurement of how strong a person is. Do it strict, as that is the calisthenics way.
Ultimate Calisthenics Movements
So you thought those movements were difficult? Well, those were considered intermediate exercises. You will know you are on a different level than most people when you can do these calisthenics movements below.
- Full planche
- Handstand push-up on rings
- Human flag
The most famous calisthenics move is also one of the hardest to master.
- Nakayama Planche
If you can do and maintain the L-sit, this is the next step. The Nakayama planchet engages the shoulders and abdominals to life your entire body off the ground. Oh, and you should also lift your legs straight up above your head.
- Clap pull-ups
- Front lever / front lever push-up
image sources
- Pull-up: WODshots / Ramon
