Why Calisthenics Is More Than Just Pull Ups and Push Ups
What is Calisthenics?
Calisthenics is the performance of exercises that incorporate body weight movement. Exercises include the traditional push up, pull ups, dips, sit ups, etc. These exercises can also be performed with variations to target different areas of the main muscle group.
What is unique about calisthenics is that everything is a compound movement which means that multiple muscles are at work during the exercise.But what really makes this form exercise stand out is the eye opening, cool tricks that you could master as a result of training calisthenics. These include the front lever, planche hold, handstand push-up, etc.
In order for someone to achieve these milestones in training, they will need a strong background with the basics (pull ups, push ups, etc.) and consistency with their training.
Can you build muscle with Calisthenics?
As one of my calisthenic inspirations, Austin Dunham, used to say… “train calisthenics, but think like a bodybuilder”. He’s not entirely wrong.
In a traditional sense, if someone wanted to build muscle with weightlifting they’d use the traditional 3–4 sets of 8–12 reps for hypertrophy stimulus and the 3–5 sets of 5 for strength stimulus.
I’m here to say that… YES!… Yes you CAN build muscle with calisthenics. Any type of resistance stimulus combined with progressive overload that recruits more muscle fibers overtime WILL grow the muscle.
In order to achieve this though, you have to think like a bodybuilder. The sets and reps are about the same for both calisthenics and bodybuilding. But for calisthenics, one might find that they are doing a lot more strength work at first. This is because the athlete needs to build their strength to a point where they can do a given exercise for 8–12 reps. They can then move on to variations to make the exercise harder and more challenging.
Is it hard to do the tricks?
Plain and simple… yes. Any trick or advanced exercise in calisthenics takes time, strength, and extraordinary body control. Many tricks that you would see a calisthenics athlete perform require strength and coordination of most of their body… if not all of it.
Let’s take the front lever, for example. This exercises requires an engagement of the lats, abs, glutes, and hamstrings. As for any trick performed with calisthenics training, the best way to start out is doing the negative variation. For the front lever, this would mean lowering the body from a vertical, upside down position slow and controlled until it reached the correct horizontal position.
Is it worth it?
If you want a pretty decent, clean physique and the ability to perform crazy tricks with some insane body control…. then it’s totally worth it. The best is the feeling you get when you are able to hold a position of a difficult trick for even a couple seconds. That feeling of accomplishing another rep or pulling off a trick for the first time should motivate you to keep with the process. Calisthenic is a long road if you’re trying to achieve success with the numerous skills it would take to master.
Over time, with consistency and maximal effort in every workout… you will see results in your overall strength and body control/coordination.