When we think about fitness the first thing that comes to mind is a gym packed with heavy dumbbells and high-tech, expensive training machines stacked with heavy weights on them. But here’s a secret that you probably didn’t know about: To build muscles, you don’t need a high-tech gym filled with dumbbells and machines. Your body alone is a powerful tool to help you build muscles. This is where Calisthenics comes into the picture.
Calisthenics is a form of strength training that focuses on using body weight as a form of resistance to perform full-body exercises. Fitness experts regard calisthenics as an effective way to build strength and muscles, enhance endurance, improve flexibility, and coordination.
Calisthenics has recently exploded in popularity because of its simple, effective, and adaptable nature for all fitness levels. Whether you are a beginner or advanced-level athlete, calisthenics is an effective muscle-building and strength-improving method of exercise that someone can perform anytime and anywhere.
Push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, plank, handstand pushups, etc, are all calisthenic exercises. Calisthenic exercises can range from easy to hard levels and can be modified as needed to meet your individual fitness levels.
Benefits Of Calisthenics
Calisthenics have been practiced since the time of the ancient Greeks. It provides multiple benefits and has become a part of the lifestyle of many fitness enthusiasts. Some of the benefits provided by calisthenics are as follows:
- Builds muscle strength:
Calisthenics includes bodyweight exercises; therefore, multiple muscles are activated during each exercise. This helps in developing strength that directly applies to real-life activities.
Movements like pushing, pulling, squatting etc., while holding your bodyweight can be carried over and used in routine tasks and sport activities.
- Does not require any fancy, expensive equipment:
Calisthenics uses bodyweight exercises to build muscles. This gives you the freedom to train anytime and anywhere with very little to no equipment.
This also helps in saving money as now there is no need to buy costly gym memberships or bulky home-gym machines.
- Helps in improving mobility and flexibility:
Unlike machine workouts that focus on isolated muscle groups, bodyweight training opens up the joints and challenges them to provide stability, hence naturally improving mobility and flexibility.
- Progressive overload:
Once you’ve mastered a specific exercise, you can either add more reps to it or target its next variation, as calisthenics provides several variations for each individual exercise that target a specific muscle group.
- Boosts fat loss and Muscle gain:
Calisthenics workouts often engage multiple muscle groups in a single exercise, keeping the heart rate high. This combination of strength and endurance helps in improving the fat-burning process while sculpting lean muscles alongside.
- Accessible to all levels of athletes:
Calisthenics can be followed by athletes varying from beginner to advanced, as we can alter the intensity of each exercise and can also add several variations of each exercise while adjusting its intensity accordingly.
Getting Started with Calisthenics
Getting started with calisthenics is easy, as we don’t need a fancy gym or equipment. All that is required is some space where one can safely do the exercise. This can be your own home if you have a flat surface with enough space to perform the exercise.
Before getting started with the calisthenics exercise program, discuss your goals and plans with your doctor and trainer especially if you have a medical condition such as arthritis, epilepsy, or heart disease.
To get the best results from your calisthenics program, keep these tips in mind :
- Warm up properly so that your body opens up and oxygen starts to flow into your muscles, lubricating your joints and increasing your range of motion.
- Increase the intensity of the workout gradually to prevent any injuries.
- Focus on your form while doing any exercise to ensure that you get the most out of your exercise and avoid any injuries.
- Work within a pain free range of motion. While moving your arms or legs if it doesn’t feel comfortable stop doing the exercise and take a break.
- Take proper rest and fuel the body right in order to improve recovery.
- Control your movements and breathe throughout.
Essential Calisthenics Exercises
If you’re a beginner here are some foundational exercises to build your calisthenics journey upon :
- Push-Ups
Targets chest, shoulders, triceps and biceps. Several variations to Push-ups are :
- Normal Grip
- Wide Grip
- Diamond Push-ups
- Exxplosive Push-ups
- Pull-Ups
The ultimate back and pull strength builder. If you can’t do normal pullups, try doing assisted pullups.
- Squats
The king of the lower body moves. Once bodyweight squats feel easy, try doing one-leg squats/pistol squats.
- Bodyweight Dips
Great for building chest, shoulders, and triceps. As you gain control, try increasing the number of reps you do every set.
- Planks
Strengthens your core and improves stability and body posture.
Increase the duration of the plank every week to see progress.
- Leg Raises
Improves core strength and body balance.
How to Succeed in Calisthenics
- Focus on form first.
- Train your core more frequently to gain more stability.
- Be patient with progressions.
- Control the range of motion during reps.
- Fuel the body right
- Stay Consistent with your workouts and diet.
Calisthenics V/S Weightlifting
A very frequently asked question: which method of training is better, calisthenics or weightlifting?
The truth: Both have their own unique benefits.
Calisthenics
Calisthenics focuses in building functional strength, balance, improve mobility and endurance without the use of any equipment.
Weightlifting
Weightlifting allows using progressive overload with a precise control over the resistance which is great for hypertrophy (muscle growth).
Final Thoughts
Calisthenics is one of the most effective, efficient and accessible methods of building muscle, lose fat and master body weight control while using minimal number of equipment. It covers all the areas that an athlete wants to focus on i.e. muscle building, strength improvement, enhancing flexibility and gaining control over the bodyweight.
Remember, everyone starts somewhere. Maybe today doing the exercises mentioned in this blog might seem difficult but with consistent practice you can achieve more strength and then you will be able to do any and all sorts of calisthenics exercises anytime anywhere.
Download the beginner-to-intermediate-friendly calisthenics workout plan below and start your calisthenics journey with FitAsF today!
