Calisthenics for Beginners: The Ultimate Guide

So, you’ve entered the rabbit hole. The calisthenics rabbit hole. This is the start of a journey that can make you smile, cry, laugh, bleed and sweat all within 5 minutes (if you are having an interesting day). Most of the time, it is a journey you take day by day, aiming to add one repetition here or a little bit of weight there, with an extra second or two on your static holds when you’re having a good week. With this in mind, this journey isn’t for someone without patience, so if you lack it, now is your warning. If you aren’t the type to turn up and train daily (or close to) and can’t ever see that changing, it might be worth looking elsewhere.

I say this because the key factors to developing a strong set of calisthenics skills are as follows:

Consistent training and effort.
Progressive overload: adding a little bit more weight or a couple more repetitions each session.
Training specificity: If you would like a chin up or more chin ups train as specifically (closely) to a chin up as possible.

If you follow these three rules closely you will become a calisthenics athlete worth fearing in time. These always come first though. Before we look at how we get there, let’s break down what calisthenics exercise is so we understand it better and can use this understanding to our advantage.

Calisthenics: A Closer Look At It and Its Benefits.

Let’s start by asking a relatively simple question: what is calisthenics?

Calisthenics comes from the Greek root words “kallos”, meaning beautiful (both physically and aesthetically) and “thenos”, meaning (mental and physical) strength. At its point of origin (≈450BC Greece) then, calisthenics was about creating a complete personal strength that could be admired for its beauty. There is no doubting that the physicality of calisthenics is admirable; the straight lines are pleasant to the eye and the strength is something that can be felt simply by looking, but something people often miss (especially early on) is the “beautiful strength” of the calisthenics mentality. In the modern day, calisthenics tends to be split into two disciplines: dynamics, in which athletes perform dynamic swings, flips and moves on the bars, and statics, where athletes hold still in challenging positions to demonstrate strength. Now let’s consider the benefits of training calisthenics.

Many people that reach the pinnacles of achievement for calisthenics train for multiple hours at least most days a week – something that requires grit and discipline (elements beautiful in their own right). These people train both hard and intelligently and this is where we can see that calisthenics develops the mind along with the body. It comes as no surprise then that the ancient Greek armies used calisthenics as their main way to train, as they needed both the mental and physical development if they were going to go on to be a highly successful army (which they did).

An interesting thing to note here is that even in years before Christ, people trained calisthenics together. Many still train calisthenics together and being a fringe sport in many parts of the world (compared to the likes of commercial gymgoers), the community aspects of calisthenics are also worth appreciating in their own right. If physical and mental development aren’t at the top of your list of concerns, calisthenics is a sport you can continue to do because you meet people that encourage you to keep going and ask you if you want to join them when they train. This creates a platform of accountability that sees people training more consistently provided they agree to such invitations, and there we see consistency, our first priority at improving, ticked off without too much effort.

Now that we have looked at the fringe benefits, not so often considered, let’s look at the main ones.

Calisthenics is a form of exercises that rarely isolates muscles. In a gym setting, you might do a few sets of bicep curls, tricep pushdowns or sit ups to develop your body. The equivalents in calisthenics might be a chin up, push up or dragon flag. In these exercises at the gym, we are using small sets of muscles (biceps, triceps, rectus abdominis). This is not a bad thing, however, in doing a chin up, push up or dragon flag we are utilising a majority of the body’s muscles. With this in mind, a calisthenics workout would typically use more muscles in the same unit of time, so it is likely we are going to burn more calories in a workout of the same length because we are using more muscles for most exercises. This becomes a key factor over time in ensuring lower body fat percentages because more calories tend to be burnt and (provided the amount eaten doesn’t change) lower caloric surplus or higher caloric deficit is achieved. This effect is cumulative as well, meaning this effect becomes more noticeable over time. As today’s biggest health concern is obesity, this caloric deficit cannot be stated as anything short of crucial for today’s society − a caloric deficit and regular exercise often instantly beginning to reverse key indicators for lifestyle-related obesity and related diseases.

Calisthenics is also great for the development of relative strength. Relative strength is the amount of force produced by unit of bodyweight and encourages athletes serious about their calisthenic pursuits to stay at lower bodyweights (here we return to caloric deficit, healthy body fat percentages and their general effect on health and wellbeing), as well as making them stronger than those with less relative strength at the same bodyweight. These points become of higher importance when comparing them to those chasing higher absolute strength, who tend towards caloric surplus and therefore a potential to gain weight in ways that can be detrimental to health in some circumstances.

Finally, calisthenics is able to develop kinaesthetic (bodily) awareness as many techniques involve having either aerial awareness or some knowledge of where the body is in space. For a front lever (or any other static, really) to look clean, the person must develop an understanding of what a straight bodyline and position feels like. Similarly calisthenic athletes need to develop their ability to sequence muscular contractions to make their movements efficient. The development of both of these skills is tied ultimately to kinaesthetic awareness and as such, this awareness is practised and refined with each attempt.

Ok, now I know a bit more about why I should do calisthenics. So where do I begin?

As previously mentioned, calisthenics is made up of static and dynamic disciplines. Dynamics is centred predominantly in explosive pull up and pushing strength and isn’t beginner friendly for this reason. To make dynamics accessible though, we should regularly practise our pull ups and pushing strength, even as a beginner.

The beginning variations of statics are much more accessible to beginners. Tuck levers, handstands, l-sits and the like are achievable within 6-12 months of concerted effort from most starting positions. As such, the program below will focus on key players for developing the strength to perform these tasks. For your reference, I have made a rough chart below that outlines how far you are in your calisthenics journey and what you might be developing towards along that continuum. Most of these exercises can be found by searching them online.

Basics (level 1): push up, chin/pull up, inverted/Australian row, dip, bodyweight squat.
Cali Basics (Level 1): Tuck front lever, tuck back lever, curl up/reverse sit up (relative to dragon flag), tuck planche/bent arm straddle planche, human flag hovers, l-sit (relative to manna), handstand, shrimp squat, shoulder stand
Cali Basic /Intermediate (Level 2): One legged front lever/back lever, straddle dragon flag, bent arm full planche, straddle human flag, handstand press, handstand push up (to head), pistol squat, muscle up, v-sit.
Cali Intermediate/advanced (Level 3): Straddle front lever, full back lever/human flag/dragon flag, straddle planche, stalder press, handstand to bent arm full planche, full range HSPU, 90 degree push up, dragon squat, Bulgarian muscle up, v-sit.
Cali Advanced (Level 4): Front lever, full planche, L-sit HS press, planche press, planche push up, touchdown squat, iron cross, manna.

The Workouts: How to Achieve Level 1 and “Begin” your Calisthenics Journey

A few notes and reminders:

Reminder:

The key factors to developing a strong set of calisthenics skills are as follows:

Consistent training and effort.
Progressive overload: adding a little bit more weight or a couple more repetitions each session.
Training specificity: If you would like a chin up or more chin ups train as specifically (closely) to a chin up as possible.

DO NOT EVER FORGET THIS.

Note: Each set should be hard for the last two (or so) repetitions and you should stop each set with the ability to do one to two repetitions after you finish. This ensures you will grow in strength without overdoing it.

Note: A1-A2, B1-B2 etc are supersets and should be performed back-to-back without rest between sets and with a rest following the completion of both exercises.

Note: The aim is to not be sore for more than one day in any area post-workout. If there is slight sensitivity on the second day after workout, it is acceptable, but worth keeping an eye on. If you are sore in any area, reduce the amount of work in that area, for example:

I have sore triceps for 4 days after my day 1 workout. I should:

Do less rounds, reps or a lighter variation/weight until I find a range where I am sore for a day or MAX two days.

Day 1:

Warm Up:

3-5min cardiovascular fitness of choice, 3-5min moving all joints throughout their ranges of motion.

A1- Push Up Variation:

5-8 repetitions
(Elevated Pushup→ Knee Pushup→ Pushup→ Weighted/Banded Pushup).

Calisthenics for Beginners: The Ultimate Guide

Calisthenics: A Closer Look At It and Its Benefits.

Now that we have looked at the fringe benefits, not so often considered, let’s look at the main ones.

The Workouts: How to Achieve Level 1 and “Begin” your Calisthenics Journey

The key factors to developing a strong set of calisthenics skills are as follows:

Day 1:

Warm Up:

A1- Push Up Variation:

A2- Squat Variation:

B1- Pull Up Variation:

B2- Wall Handstand Tuck-Lean-Extend:

C1- Dive Bomber Push Up Variation:

C2- Pistol Leg Lifts:

D1- Banded Face Pulls:

D2- Lateral Cossacks:

D3- Curl Ups/Reverse Sit Ups:

Day 2:

Warm Up:

A1- Front Lever Pulls Progression:

A2- Banded Romanian Deadlifts:

C1- Chest to Wall Handstand:

B2- Pull up Progression:

C1- Push Up Variation:

C2- Hollow body progression:

D1- Banded Shoulder dislocates:

D2- Twisted Tabletop:

D3- Tabletop Hip Thrust:

Day 3:

Warm Up:

A1- L-sit raise and lean:

A2- Pseudo-planche push up (/Banded tuck planche lean) progression:

B1- Elevated Squat Variation:

B2- Handstand Heel Pulls:

C1- Suspended hamstring curl:

C2- Slow Deck Squat:

D1- Up/down dog:

D2- Straddle Up Progression:

D3- Squat to stand:

How to Use Bands in Calisthenics (and how not to!):

Key Takeaways and Extra Considerations

Author

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