Calisthenics for Overweight Beginners: The Best Exercises to Do

Calisthenics continues to gain popularity among beginner and advanced exercisers as they are one of the most accessible workouts out there. Not only do they require little to no equipment to perform as they solely rely on your body weight, but this form of exercise is also really cheap and can be done anywhere.

In addition to the convenience of these workouts, calisthenics also allows for the development of strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, and coordination as well as body composition, just like regular gym workouts (1, 2). 

However, despite the many benefits of these workouts, many people, especially those who are overweight, feel like calisthenics is not for them. This could not be further from the truth. 

Read on to learn more about calisthenics for overweight beginners – how to start, the best exercises to do, how to modify calisthenics workouts to suit your current fitness levels, and much more.

What Is the Best Calisthenics Workout for Overweight Beginners?

There are numerous calisthenic workouts that an overweight person can do when they’re looking to get fit and shed their extra pounds. However, we would say that the best calisthenics for overweight beginners are simply the basics. These include exercises such as:

1. Squats
2. Lunges
3. Planks (and other core work exercises)
4. Push-ups (and pul-lups)

Squats and lunges help increase strength in the lower body, planks help with core strength, and push-ups and pull-ups help train the upper body. As a beginner, you need something to build on. These 5 exercises work as a foundation to kickstart your weight and fat loss journey. Over time, you can lose weight, improve your form, increase your endurance, and gain overall strength. In addition, as your fitness improves, you can build on these calisthenics exercises by adding more complex variations.

Can an Overweight Person Start Calisthenics?

Yes, they can. Calisthenics can be a difficult form of exercise, but being overweight shouldn’t prevent you from trying these movements. Losing weight is all about increasing your daily movement while also being mindful of what you’re eating. Calisthenics can be an ideal way to increase this daily movement. As mentioned above, the basic calisthenics workouts are common exercises that have been done for ages. 

If you’re afraid that even the basics may be too hard for you, there are always modifications that can be added to any exercise to make it even easier to do.

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Is Calisthenics Harder if You Weigh More?

It certainly can be. According to an older article by The Guardian, the heavier you are, the harder it is to move and shift the excess weight (3). It can make working out feel like a terrible chore and put you off it.

However, this should not stop you from working out. Working out will help you lose the extra pounds, which will eventually make the exercises that currently feel like too much start to become easy.

Working out also helps keep you healthy. Research has shown that exercise lowers the risk of chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, obesity, depression, and osteoporosis, as well as premature death (4, 5).

Being heavier is not all bad though – at least in terms of working out. In one study published in 2018, researchers found that heavier people are actually much better at strength exercises than their lighter counterparts (6). This can help them lift heavier (if doing weightlifting) and people with heavier BMIs may also be more intrinsically motivated, which may help with better workout results and consistency.

If all else fails, remember that finding modifications to exercises will help make things easier for you. There’s always a way to do something, as long as you’re determined to do it.

Read more: Ideal Body Weight Calculator: When Should You Knock Off Those Unwanted Fats?

What  Are the Best Beginner Calisthenics Exercises to Do at Home?

As mentioned above, as calisthenics largely relies on your body weight for resistance and many of the exercises require little to no equipment, the workouts can be done anywhere, even in the comfort of your living room, bedroom, or garage.

Here’s how to do the above-mentioned basic calisthenic exercises:

• Bodyweight Squats

If you ask anyone about the benefits of squats, most people will quickly tell you that they’ll help you get a perkier butt. While this can be true, the benefits of this workout extend past a perkier booty. 

Squats are a low-injury risk, functional workout that helps with everyday movements such as walking, ascending and descending stairs, sitting down, and standing up (7). Training using this exercise can also help you significantly decrease your body fat percentage and significantly increase your lean body mass, muscle thickness, and the strength of your knee extensors (8).

Here’s how to do a bodyweight squat:

1. Stand with your feet hip-distance apart, toes pointed out slightly, and arms at your sides.
2. Keep your chest upright and engage your core by pulling your belly button toward your spine. Don’t hold your breath and continue to breathe as normal.
3. On an inhale, clasp your hands in front of your chest, hinge your hips backward, and bend your knees, dropping down into a squat position. Stop once your thighs are parallel (or almost parallel) to the floor.
4. Hold this position for a few seconds and then on an exhale, push through your heels and return to the standing position.
5. This is one rep. Do 8 to 12 reps for 1 set.

If you can’t do this, modify the exercise by using a chair. Chair squats are simply body squats with a little less demand for stability and balance. Basically, instead of squatting in the air, you squat into the chair and then get back up.

• Lunges

Like squats, lunges are a popular lower-body workout. Research on this exercise has shown that it can help boost your functional fitness and improve your muscle strength and static and dynamic balance (9, 10). 

One study also showed that lunges worked better at targeting and activating the gluteus maximus than back squats, so if you want a perky butt, lunges are a necessary exercise to have in your routine (11).

Like squats, lunges come in many variations, but in this case, we’ll be focusing on the forward lunge.

Here’s how to do a forward lunge:

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Clasp your hands in front of your chest or place them on your hips.
2. Take a large step forward with your right foot – the step should be longer than your normal walking stride. Place the foot in front flat on the ground. If the heel of the back foot rises off the ground, that’s okay.
3. Drop to the ground by bending both knees at a 90-degree angle. Keep your chest upright and your core engaged.
4. To come back to the standing position, push through the foot in front of you. This is one rep.
5. Do 10 reps on this leg, then switch to the other leg and repeat. Alternatively, you can switch legs after each rep.

If you can’t bend both knees to a 90-degree angle, that’s okay. Simply bend to the point you’re most comfortable with. You can work out to the 90-degree angle with time. If you’re afraid of falling over, place a chair in front of you and hold on to it.

• Planks

Forget sit-ups and crutches, planks are an awesome exercise for core strength. Not only can working on your strength help you get abs later down the line, but a strong core can help improve your balance and functional fitness, and even make workouts easier to do. If you participate in sports, good core strength can also boost your performance.

Research on the effects of planks on persons of different ages and athletic prowess has shown that this exercise can improve muscle strength and endurance, flexibility, cardiopulmonary fitness, stability, grip strength, basal metabolic rate, and skeletal muscle mass. The exercise also works to reduce body fat mass and fat percentage (12, 13, 14).

Of the many plank variations, the elbow plank is one of the easiest variations. Here’s how to do it:

1. Start by lying on the mat on your stomach.
2. Press your forearms on the floor and push your body up till your entire body is in a straight line. At this point, you should be balancing on your forearms and toes.
3. Don’t sag your belly toward the floor or arch your back. Try to be as straight as possible.
4. Remember to also keep the core engaged and breathe. Try to breathe in through your chest and out through your stomach. With every breath out, you should tighten your stomach even further.
5. You can hold a plank for anywhere between 20 seconds and a full minute. Use the timer on your phone for this.

• Push-Ups

Research has shown that doing push-ups increases arm power and athletic performance in both sexes and also leads to a significant reduction in the risk of cardiovascular illness (15, 16, 17).

Here’s how to do a knee push-up – one of the easiest variations of this exercise:

1. Get into an all-fours position with your knees and toes in contact with the floor. Your hips should be over your knees and your hands should be slightly wider than your shoulders
2. Bring your hips down so your body forms a straight line from your shoulders to your knees.
3. Pull your chest toward your hands by bending your elbows and retracting your shoulder blades during the movement.
4. Lower your body until your upper arms are even with your back. At this point, your elbows should be 45 degrees away from your body, and your wrists should be under your elbows.
5. Hold this position for a few seconds, then push yourself back to the starting position by straightening your arms.
6. This is one rep. Do 5 to 10 reps for 1 set.

Do I Have to Lose Weight Before Starting Calisthenics?

No, you don’t have to shed any weight before getting to this exercise routine. As shown above, all the most basic calisthenic exercises have modifications that make them easier. This means that the majority of people can do them, regardless of fitness level.

If you’re finding it difficult to find weight loss motivation, look up some overweight calisthenic transformation images and videos. They can help you envision where you might be in a couple of months, which can help you get up and do some exercises.

Reasons why BetterMe is a safe bet: a wide range of calorie-blasting workouts, finger-licking recipes, 24/7 support, challenges that’ll keep you on your best game, and that just scratches the surface! Start using our app and watch the magic happen.

Can Calisthenics Fix Skinny Fat?

The term ‘skinny fat’ is generally used to refer to people who are ‘thin on the outside but fat on the inside’. Basically, the person in question is either underweight or of moderate weight, but they have a higher proportion of body fat than is healthy.

So can calisthenics fix this? Research on these exercises has shown that they help improve body composition, muscle thickness, and body fat percentage (18, 19, 20). All these factors help reduce the amount of fat in your body, which can help fix being skinny fat. However, fat loss comes from being in a calorie deficit. This is when you eat fewer calories than you burn each day. Without a healthy diet, fat loss won’t occur, so remember to pair any exercise program with appropriate food intake. 

Read more: Calisthenics Vs Weights: Which Road Should You Go Down?

What Calisthenics Exercise Will Burn the Most Fat?

There is no consensus regarding which specific calisthenic exercise burns the most fat – just that all exercise, when combined with a calorie deficit, burns fat. The one suggestion we can give is that if you want to burn a lot of fat while exercising, do the workout at a higher intensity than normal.

It’s important to note that exercise alone won’t help with your weight loss diet. While there’s no specific calisthenics diet, you should make sure to eat at a calorie deficit diet that’s high in protein, rich in whole carbohydrates, healthy fats, and non-starchy vegetables, and has lots of leafy greens.

Check out our article on high-carb foods to avoid for weight loss to make sure that the carbs you’re adding to your diet aren’t frustrating your weight loss efforts.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is calisthenics good for burning fat?

Yes, it is. As mentioned above, calisthenics helps with body fat loss and increased muscle mass in the body. This also helps with weight loss.

• Can I lift and do calisthenics?

Yes, you can. Calisthenics and weightlifting are just two sides of the same coin. While the former relies on only your body weight to create resistance, the latter adds free weights to do the same thing. Just make sure that you take rest days and don’t overdo it as this can trigger overtraining symptoms.

• Is it hard to get big with calisthenics?

Pictures of calisthenics experts will show you that it’s not hard to get big and defined muscles just from doing calisthenics. However, if your goal is to gain muscle size, weight training might be better than calisthenics. Weight training gives you a greater ability to progressively overload any exercise.

Progressive overload is when you increase the intensity of a workout over time. This could be from increasing the weight, sets, or reps of any given exercise. Hypertrophy (muscle size increase) comes through progressive overload, so weight training is typically more effective. However, hypertrophy takes a long time and progress takes time too. As long as you’re consistent, both forms of exercise will be ideal for building strength. 

• Do I have to be fit to start calisthenics?

No, you don’t. Calisthenics is for everyone, regardless of fitness level.

The Bottom Line

Don’t let this exercise intimidate you. You can absolutely do calisthenics as an overweight person. Just start slow, perhaps with modified versions of the basic workouts and in time, you’ll be able to do more complex moves with ease. It’s important to remember to contact a medical professional before you get started on any new exercise program. This is the best way to ensure your body can complete any given exercise.