Imagine building the body of your dreams without being tethered to a gym membership. Look, we’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with the gym, but with the economy forcing many of us to tighten our belts a little more and our lives getting busier, at-home workouts may just be the answer that many of us didn’t know we needed.
A calisthenics workout for the whole body can build strength, boost flexibility, and help you achieve a lean, sculpted look, all with no weights or machines required.
If this sounds like an interesting option for you, read on to learn more about how a full-body calisthenics workout can help you meet your body goals, all in the comfort of your home.
The definition of calisthenics exercise differs depending on who you ask.
In layman’s terms, calisthenics is a form of exercise that uses your body weight as resistance to increase muscle mass and strength while improving body composition. This is in comparison to gym workouts that rely on free weights and gym machinery.
Yes, you can build the body of your dreams with just a calisthenics workout at home, and here’s some clinical evidence to support this.
The effects of a calisthenics training intervention on posture, strength, and body composition were examined in a study published in the Isokinetics and Exercise Science journal. Here, researchers wanted to better understand the effects of calisthenics workouts on the posture, strength, and body composition in untrained individuals.
They took 28 male participants and divided them into two groups: a calisthenics group and a control group. The calisthenics group exercised for 8 weeks. All study participants underwent a body composition analysis, a postural assessment, a handgrip test, and a push-up and a pull-up test before and after the eight-week study period.
After the study was completed, the findings showed that “this type of bodyweight training is a feasible and effective solution to improve posture, strength, and body composition without the use of any major training equipment” (4).
In a randomized controlled trial published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, researchers found that progressive calisthenics training done 3 days per week for 4 weeks helped the study’s young male participants increase their upper-body muscle thickness and strength (5).
In this study, researchers took 17 healthy adults, aged between 33 and 46, and divided them into a calisthenics group and a control group.
The calisthenic group followed a program consisting of 5 calisthenic exercises:
Starting the first week, the trainees performed 4 sets of 8 reps for each exercise. Each week, they increased the sets, so in the 4th week, they performed 8 sets of 8 reps for each exercise.
At the end of the study, researchers found that breaking up a sedentary lifestyle using calisthenics helped increase the muscle strength, steadiness, and dynamic balance of study participants (6).
In another study published in Nature, researchers wanted to see how progressive body-weight training vs barbell back squat training affected the strength, hypertrophy, and body fat among sedentary young women.
The young women were divided into two groups, a bodyweight and barbell group, and were required to engage in two training sessions per week for 6 weeks.
At the end of the study, researchers found that in terms of increased muscle strength and mass, both groups showed improvements, with no significant difference between them. However, in terms of body fat percentage, the barbell group achieved better results (7).
In this study on young medical college students, researchers found that simply engaging in bodyweight exercises 4 times a week for 6 weeks led to a significant increase in upper- and lower-body strength, which is great for people with busy lifestyles like the students in the study (8).
Summary of Research on Calisthenic Workouts
The findings from the above studies paint a clear picture that a calisthenics workout at home can help you build the body of your dreams., This is particularly true if your goal is to improve and increase your muscle strength and mass.
Therefore, you shouldn’t be discouraged if you can’t afford at-home gym equipment or don’t have the time to head to the gym. A well-structured full-body workout at home without equipment can help you achieve the same results as you would have at the gym.
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Regardless of what workout program you use, you must always use progressive overload.
Progressive overload is the practice of gradually increasing the intensity or difficulty of workouts over time. Doing this constantly will challenge your muscles, which is needed to trigger increases in their strength and mass (9).
Progressive overload in calisthenics is done through:
Read more: Calisthenics Daily Workout Plan: Push, Pull, and Legs Split
Yes, you can. In fact, it’s very easy to do a full-body workout with calisthenics as most exercises are compound exercises. Compound exercises/movements are those that involve multiple muscle joints and work multiple muscle groups at the same time.
A simple compound calisthenics exercise list that can help you target your full body in a single workout session includes:
A dynamic calisthenic workout is a routine that combines bodyweight workouts (i.e. calisthenics) with full range of motion movements. For example, planks or wall sits are great calisthenic exercises for core and quad strengthening, respectively.
However, these are static exercises/holds. Dynamic movements that can replace these are:
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Exercises that you can incorporate for a dynamic calisthenics full-body workout can include:
No, it’s not. Doing this doesn’t give your body enough time to rest and repair itself. Over time, this can lead to overtraining, a condition that negatively affects both your mind and body.
Some overtraining symptoms you may experience if you do full-body workouts daily include (12):
To optimize training and recovery, train 3-5 days a week while hitting each muscle group 1-2 times a week. This ensures your body and muscles get at least 48 full hours of rest, which can help prevent overtraining.
Read more: 6 Basic Calisthenics Exercises to Do at Home
A three-day full-body split can be perfect if you’re a beginner. This will help you gradually build a strong calisthenics foundation without overworking or overtraining your muscles.
Yes, it is. As shown in the scientific studies above, progressive calisthenics is great for improving muscle mass and strength. When combined with a high-protein diet and ample rest, such a routine can help skinny guys gain more muscle. Performing calisthenics in a progressive manner combined with proper nutrition will definitely add significant amounts of mass to your body. However, if you’re going for the bodybuilder aesthetic, switching to weight training may give you better results as you’re able to use greater loads and exercise variation. It depends on your goals. If the goal is maximizing muscle growth, then lifting is the preferred option. 20 minutes of any workout is better than a sedentary lifestyle or skipping a workout. However, for long-term or even significant results, try increasing the time you spend exercising. Remember, 30 minutes of exercise is the minimum requirement for a healthy lifestyle (11).Frequently Asked Questions
Is calisthenics good for skinny guys?
Can you get a big body doing only calisthenics?
What is better, lifting or calisthenics?
Is 20 minutes of calisthenics enough?
A calisthenics workout for the whole body is a fantastic option for anyone who wants to improve their health and lifestyle by incorporating exercise into their routine. Such a routine can be on a par with weighted gym exercise, but only if you incorporate progressive overload, eat a healthy, high-protein diet, and remain consistent with this.
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