If there is one form of training that could be done anywhere, anytime, by anyone that delivers great versatile fitness results... It’s Calisthenics
Most people dream of achieving a great physique and getting stronger. The first thing that comes to their mind is “ I will go to the Gym starting next week! “
While going to the gym is good and actually better than nothing, what actually happens is most people quit the gym after a few months. Whatever the reasons are this is true.
They found themselves in the chaos of the fitness industry and gurus telling them what they should do to get the best body in the shortest possible time!
You should take that supplement
You should follow this routine to get 6 pack abs in just 2 weeks
Register for a private session to know all the secrets nobody else will tell you
What about Steroids?!!
So you feel overwhelmed and your attention shifts from getting fit and healthy to just getting results as fast as possible even if it affects health!
And the results after all of this: QUITTING
Now you accept the fact that it takes a lot of effort, time, and money to be fit and strong and you can’t afford that. Maybe genetics is the reason?!
Ok, my friend I was there. I really love fitness and sports but a gym for me was a lot of headaches and injuries!
One day I was surfing YouTube and I found a video talking about Calisthenics! Unfortunately, I can’t remember the title of the video or the YouTuber but after that moment my whole life has changed forever!
I started practicing calisthenics regularly in my room and I dived deeper reading books and watching videos trying different methods of training with bodyweight exercises.
I discovered that not only you can build great strength with calisthenics but also you can gain muscles and improve your physique
Everyone Should Exercise Calisthenics
All my life I always wanted to be fit and smart ( Great mind & Great body) at age 17 I started hitting the gym, and yes I got some results but wasn’t satisfied enough with the whole process.
After years of going to the gym irregularly, I quit! I felt like it was not that efficient.
I saw a video as I mentioned above about bodyweight exercises and I liked the idea a lot and decided to give it a try.
The results were beyond awesome here they are:
1- Playing Football Became Much Easier
I always loved playing football with my friends since I was a child. But I was getting tired after playing for just a few minutes and struggled to continue games. It was so frustrating seeing all my friends playing to the last minute and enjoying the game. I got busy in college so I stopped playing football for lots of months.
After regular calisthenics for a few months, some of my friends called me, telling me his team needed another player to play a football match in an hour. First I wanted to tell him it’s been a long time and I couldn’t play football anymore It would be so embarrassing.
But I quickly changed my mind and told him immediately Ok bro I will come ( I always loved playing football even though It got me exhausted!) I arrived at the stadium and we started playing.
During the match, I was really amazed at how I was playing. I did multiple sprints and continued the whole game without getting exhausted like before! I even scored 4 goals easily.
After the match, I started to think how is this possible? Then I recalled my Calisthincs practices in the last few months.
What’s great about all of this is that I only trained calisthenics for 2-4 days a week doing only 2 exercises a day. For every exercise, I did only 2-3 sets! But my strength, mobility, and endurance improved beyond my expectations!!
After that incident, I played several football matches to make sure it wasn’t a coincidence and I performed pretty well in all of them.
2- Gained Pure Muscle Weight & Improved Physique
There’s a misconception in the fitness world that calisthenics won’t gain you muscles. This is totally wrong! To prove it you can simply do a Google research with the word gymnasts and see the images of big muscular athletes, they get biceps that look like a melon and triceps that look like a horseshoe! They exercise only using their body weight to get Godlike physiques.
You might say that they are professional athletes who train most of the day with proffer nutrition.
But keep in mind that they don’t take drugs or steroids! Like those bodybuilders who abuse drugs to get as big as possible and stand stripped on a stage for others to judge their unhealthy bodies!
If gymnasts' bodies don’t convince you, you can look for calisthenics YouTubers - there are plenty of them - they have amazing physiques doing just calisthenics!
Personally, I myself have great muscle size and a beautiful physique doing basic to intermediate bodyweight exercise only!
I also know 3 of my friends who tried calisthenics during the quarantine time in 2020 and they swear by it. They even quit the gym and adopted this form of training.
3- People Around Me Noticed The Positive Change
Most people train to get big to feel more confident and it changes their everyday life for the better. We all want to look big and muscular not only fit and healthy.
After training with only my body for several months I noticed great changes happen to my body in front of the mirror. After you work out for some time you notice the changes faster than people around you, this is good because it tells you that you are on the right track you just need to keep going and your family and friends will notice the change.
Personally, I don’t value appearance over strength and functionality but I also love getting muscular physiques, It tells people around you your personality and work ethic it makes you feel better and confident in everyday life
After I noticed great changes in my body, it was a matter of a few weeks and all my family and friends noticed my muscles and great shape.
My close friends and family thought I was going regularly to the gym without telling them. They didn’t know I was just training for a few minutes 3-5 times per week in my own room with my body. I told one of my friends my secret and he didn’t believe me of course. Obviously, his idea about calisthenics is it is just for warm-up.
4- I Only Trained 2-4 Times Per Week With Basic Exercises
One of the things that amazed me in this journey is that it only takes 30 minutes to get a great session!
No need to spend 2 or more hours on your training to get stronger and bigger.
When I started I only exercised 2 days a week for 20 - 30 minutes! And I got massive results. I was only training the easiest exercises like wall pushups and started increasing progressively the difficulty of the exercises.
We will speak a lot in the future about how to achieve great strength to be able to do advanced calisthenics movements and skills.
At the beginning of your journey, you should take it easy and start with the basics. Over time you will achieve greater strength and do awesome movements with your body. This way you gain great benefits like strength, mobility, and muscles without injuring yourself.
The main goal here is to start getting better every week and avoid injuries that may hinder your progress for weeks or even months!
We will talk about all of this in the future
5- I Didn’t Get Injured Doing Calisthenics For 2 Years It Was A Progressive Process To Achieve Great Strength And Endurance
As I said above your main goal is to get as much strong as possible and as big as you can without getting injured in the process
Calisthenics is the best form of training to achieve this.
You can ask your friends who go regularly to the gym if they have been injured before. 90% of the time they will tell you about their injuries in the gym and maybe one or two will tell you about severe injuries that they still suffer from this till now!
There’s a pattern I noticed in gym rats who trained in the gym for many years. They always suffer some sort of injury and they just have to live with pain silently because it is what it is!
I am not telling you that everyone who goes to the gym must suffer from injuries. But many many suffer especially Shoulder injures and there’s a reason for that. Also, their joints suffer a lot in the process.
Our body isn’t designed to train using those machines in the gym with weird angles and positions! It was designed to move itself efficiently in the environment.
I don’t see that all gym equipment and methods are useless. They are good for doing isolation work to strengthen some weak links. However, I believe that a gym is not optimal for a long life journey in fitness.
On the other hand, progressive calisthenics is the safest form of training humankind came to.
If done right body weight exercises won’t injure you like the gym does. It will provide you with lifelong benefits and improvements in a safe and effective way because it moves the body the way it was designed to move. It isn’t artificial like gym equipment which sometimes goes against the mechanism of the human body.
From my journey in Calisthenics for years now I never got injured! And my joints feel awesome. My tendons got stronger. All of this without suffering pain after training or the next day after waking up!
6- Improved Mobility Tremendously
To perform pushups, pullups, and squats in the correct form you need to have a good level of mobility.
Performing those exercises helps you to improve your mobility if done right.
All calisthenics exercises help you achieve this by gradually training your tendons and joints to perform the movement correctly over time, you will notice amazing changes in the way you move around, in doing sports, and even in your basic daily life!
Let’s take for example a movement like Push-ups. To perform this exercise correctly is very important. It will help you gain more muscles, become much stronger, and improve your mobility tremendously. On the contrary, performing it in a sloppy wrong form will cause damage rather than benefit
But how to do it right?
Like any other Calisthenics movements, you should go through the full range of motion by nearly straightening your arm “Start position” going down slowly “Not so slow 2-3 seconds” Pause for a second in the bottom position ( your chest should touch a baseball or similar object under you on the ground) end positions. Then lift your torso up with a controllable form for 2 seconds. Repeat the movement immediately.
This is a brief description of the correct way to perform push-ups. Doing this and week after week, month after month increasing the level of difficulty of pushing up will guarantee more muscle mass, a developed physique, more strength, and of course great mobility.
We will talk in the future about the right way to perform exercises in calisthenics to get maximum results in a short time with minimum fatigue or injury.
How To Achieve Your Fitness Goals Using Only Your Bodyweight
Getting fit is the main goal for most people, but unfortunately, not all of them achieve it.
To get anything you want in life you need to have a plan and system in place to make it easier for yourself to observe and track your progress over time.
When it comes to fitness goals you need to be specific about what you want to achieve. Do you want to run and complete your first marathon? Or doing awesome skills with your body?
Do you want to gain superhuman strength? Or gain or lose weight?
To make a system to follow, you should know exactly what you want. If you want to travel from destination A to B you will get yourself a map and start moving in the right direction.
Without a destination you won’t go anywhere, without a map it will take you lots of time, errors, and effort to get there or even you won’t ever.
Your destination is personal to you as I said above it depends on what you want to achieve
Your map is a routine that you follow to get there.
We will speak a lot about setting goals and achieving them with details in the future. But for now, I will give you a general idea about the system you will follow in order to achieve any goal you want not just in your fitness journey.
1- Decide Your Goal [Strength, Muscle, Endurance, Mobility, Skills]
We are all different and unique, It’s a beautiful thing. The world is built on difference.
When it comes to achieving fitness goals it will vary for everyone.
Someone wants to increase his Endurance, another wants maximum strength, and another wants bigger muscles.
I can’t tell you exactly what your aim should be, but you have to set a specific goal you aspire to.
2- Make A Plan To Achieve Your Goal
After you have a specific goal that fits your wants and needs, it’s time to make a plan to achieve it.
The plan is the most important part of the system. A good plan will help you achieve your goal faster. It’s also called “Routine” Sticking to a routine is a great way to get all your fitness desires.
The routine depends of course on your goal. Someone who wants to gain weight will follow a different routine than someone who wants to lose weight.
someone wants to gain strength, another one wants to increase muscular endurance, and so on.
I will write a lot in the near future about goals and routines to achieve any goal. But for now, you need to know it’s necessary to stick to a specific routine tailored you your goals.
3- Document Your Progress
Lots of people who go to the gym or train in calisthenics don’t document their workouts.
That’s a big mistake! You should document every session of your workouts.
Exercises, sets, reps, and other notes are valuable information during your calisthenics journey.
Progressive calisthenics require documentation in order to get results faster.
Over time you will have useful feedback about your progress and you appreciate your efforts.
When I look back a year ago in my journal I get fascinated by my progress and it encourages me to keep going and move forward toward my goals.
4- Observe And Improve
The last step in the system is to observe the whole process.
You gather information and feedback to improve every month, every week, and even every day.
Then you eliminate mistakes and improve your workout. Trust me, even the smallest details matter.
A better warm-up technique or a better way to rest between sets, and so on will compound to provide you with great results at the end.
That’s why it’s so important to document and iterate in your journey.
Now my friend if you are convinced about the importance and power of calisthenics, and want to know more and dive deep into this lost art. Feel free to reach out to me on my X (Twitter) account: (@ArtAthletic)
I will get back to you as soon as possible
Have a good one!
— Blue Wolf
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