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 already some kind of calisthenics 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?
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