A lot of times people ask me how I train or what sorts of exercises I do, and when I say I do a lot of calisthenics amidst the other things like weights and stretching, I almost always have to go on further and explain what calisthenics is. Even if I say I do more body weight training, a further explanation is still usually needed.
So in this article I shall try to give a quick overview and clarification of what exactly calisthenics or body weight training is, as simply as possible, and what sort of exercises are used, so if you ever encounter someone doing it, you will know. Or if you want to give them a try you will have some info to get you started 🙂
Body weight training and calisthenics are pretty much the same thing. There are some basic exercises that are utilized and they consist primarily of using your body weight and gravity instead of weights to train with. Weight can be added to them, but the principle is to get stronger at those exercises first before adding weight to them.
Naturally when they become too easy with just your body weight you may want to add some weight. But remember, increasing and changing the angles can also make them more challenging, I will demonstrate with an example later.
So some of the basic and most important exercises are:
- Push ups
- Dips
- Squats
- Lunges
- Pistol squats
- Pull ups
- Levers
- L sits
- Hand stands
- A push ups
- Dish hold
Most of these exercises can be extended and have multiple variations depending on your fitness level and what you want to target, but don’t worry, all that will come later as you progress. Just start with the basics initially.
A great thing about this type of training is that it really works your core and thus you start to develop much more overall strength. But you will also find that if you want to progress and do the more advanced exercises and holds, you will need to specifically train your core as well. Go check out gymnasts, martial artists, or even ballet dancers and their training routines and you will see how much body weight and core training they do, and they are some of the strongest people around.
So that is basically it, pretty simple huh? To give you a quick example on how to increase the angles. Take a push up. You are horizontal and parallel to the ground right. You can increase the angle and do A push ups to work more of your shoulders, and then increase the angle even more till you are perpendicular to the floor and perform hand stand push ups.
If you haven’t tried these yet, I can tell you, they are challenging and require a lot of practice and dedication to master the balance as well as the strength to push up.
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