Calisthenics Training: Good for REAL Strength, or Just “Fitness”?
At some point or another, we all have to ask the tough questions in life.
At some point or another, we all have to ask the tough questions in life.
- Mountains or Beach?
- Boxers or Briefs?
- The Rolling Stones or the Beatles?
Some of these are conundrums with no easy answer (except for the Stones vs. Beatles. The Stones win hands down any dayum day of the week).
Other questions are a bit easier, such as:
“Can you really get objectively strong just using bodyweight exercises? Or can you only build general fitness?”
The short answer (as with everything) is “it depends”.
(And side note: toward the end of this article, I’ll dish on some “hidden and forbidden” drills and skills you can start adding right into your own workouts TODAY — whatever they might be — that may very well be the ‘secret sauce’ you need to break your old plateaus and start packing on some new and exciting gains in just 9 minutes per day)
The long answer is yes, you can definitely get seriously strong with bodyweight exercises only.
For example, the late, great strength coach Charles Poliquin has talked about teaching two former gymnasts (whose training comprised naught but a heaping helping of calisthenics exercises) how to bench press — and how both of them could then bench 350 lbs (159 kg) within 3 weeks of learning the move for the first time!
Stories like this are not that uncommon.
Gymnasts — who are known for training essentially only with their own body weight — often can deadlift 2 and even 3 times their body weight on their first attempt! I don’t know about you, but I would call that pretty objectively strong.
(I would also point out that there are a great many gymnasts/calisthenics practitioners who go on to become great at lifting weights than there are weight lifters who quickly get any good at serious calisthenics)
Why is this significant for you?
For the simple reason that many of us are led to believe that bodyweight training is a fun and helpful activity but won’t actually lead to real “iron levels” of strength — that it’s essentially an alternative to our weighted workouts.
This leads back to the original answer of “it depends”.
Whether or not you get seriously “iron strong” with your calisthenics training depends entirely on how you train these moves — how you prepare yourself, how you perform the techniques, how you program your sessions, etc.
So here are a few principles you must keep in mind:
Tension
High levels of strength are built by teaching the muscles to tense harder.
This tension must be balanced out with relaxation for maximum performance and health. They are two sides of the same coin and must both be practiced seriously.
One of the things that bodyweight training helps you do better than anything else is learning to generate tension from nothing.
Tension can be generated from “feedback” from an external source, such as a heavy barbell or kettlebell, that requires you to react to the weight and adjust your tension levels accordingly.
“Feedforward” tension is the ability to generate that tension from within in preparation to successfully lift a heavy weight or perform a problematic bodyweight exercise.
This, according to the modern King of Kettlebells, Pavel Tsatsouline, is what makes bodyweight training one of the best ways to learn the skill of strength.
Volume
Volume, or number of reps, is one of the best ways to get stronger overall, and also one of the simplest ways to get stronger.
While most barbell and dumbbell enthusiasts aim to simply add weight as often as possible (a perfectly legitimate way of getting stronger) what you’re probably going to find is that you can only get so far before you simply can’t add any more weight, and if that’s the only “trick” you have up your sleeve to get stronger, there’s a good chance you will be looking at months or maybe even years of plateaus unless you can find a better approach.
This is where bodyweight training shines (and kettlebells, to be honest).
While you can certainly use this approach with barbells and dumbbells as well, it seems to work exceptionally well for fixed weights such as kettlebells and your own fair flesh (i.e. bodyweight).
The way to do this is simple: over time, seek to add repetitions to your exercises rather than weight.
So if you’re doing, say, 3 sets of 8 chinups and dips, work your way through the following benchmarks:
3x9
3x10
3x11
3x12
Once you can hit those numbers, start back over at 4x8 and work your way up to 4x12.
(Note: this can work with a variety of rep ranges. You could also go from 3 sets of 3 reps all the way to 5 sets of 5 reps or 1 set of 20 reps until you can do 3 sets of 20 reps)
Reduce Leverage
Unlike barbell and dumbbell training, where the name of the game is typically to add weight ad infinitum to get stronger, bodyweight training plays by a different set of rules.
Yes, you still have to increase the difficulty of your training to get stronger, but once you’ve reached a point where you’ve ‘maxed out’ your strength with a given progression or variation of a bodyweight exercise, the next step you may need to take is decreasing the leverage.
Some very basic examples would be:
* Elevate your feet in your pushups
* Elevate your back foot in your split squats
* Lower your body closer to the ground with your rows
Once you’re more advanced, however, you can start working your way toward more challenging movements that change the leverage in other ways, such as:
- One-arm pushups and their progressions
- Pistol squats and their progressions
- L-sit pull-ups
The list is endless, and so are the gains that can come along with them.
So, CAN you get real-world strong with just bodyweight training?
The answer is a resounding YES — but only if you follow the rules laid out in this article.
Give them a shot and drop me a line to let me know how they worked for you. I’d love to hear how you do.
On that note, if you like training that:
- Gives you more strength than it takes from you
- Improves your stamina and resilience simultaneously
- Powers-up every nook, cranny, crevice, and corner of your Soft Machine
Then you might like my 9-Minute Kettlebell and Bodyweight Challenge.
As the name indicates, it’s just 9 minutes long, and it’s designed to be done WITH your current workouts — NOT instead of them.
How?
By harnessing the power of your body’s gait pattern (i.e. walking pattern) to unleash the strength ALREADY hidden inside you — via movements like crawling, loaded carries, and more.
Even cooler:
Many find that it actually amplifies their strength in their favorite kettlebell and bodyweight moves, like presses, squats, pull-ups, and more.
And best of all, it’s free.
How free?
I’m talkin’ freer than the 4th of July, my friend.
Get thee thine own copy here => http://www.9MinuteChallenge.com
Have fun and happy training!
Aleks Salkin
