If you think about it, strong forearms are the unsung heroes of many calisthenics exercises. They’re great for grip strength and also play a major role in improving your performance in many upper-body workouts, from regular push-ups to handstands.
If you’re looking to build powerful forearms without the hassle of free weights or gym machinery, then calisthenics forearm workouts are an accessible and powerful alternative. Whether you’re a beginner or an advanced athlete, these bodyweight forearm exercises with no equipment required allow you to train anywhere while still developing your strength, endurance, and muscle definition.
Let’s dive in and explore some of the best forearm bodyweight exercises.
Targeted forearm workouts in calisthenics are exercises that specifically focus on and directly target the muscles in the forearm rather than working them indirectly. In general calisthenics, there are many exercises that work the forearm muscles, such as pull-ups and push-ups.
However, they do this indirectly. Targeted exercises go a step further and deliberately engage the muscles in the forearms. By doing this, it helps improve your grip strength and wrist stability and enhances performance in other upper-body exercises.
Note that unlike forearm workouts with dumbbells, in calisthenics, you’re only reliant on your bodyweight to create resistance and build strength, endurance, and muscle tone.
Yes, you can – and a forearm calisthenics workout with no equipment routine is exactly what you need for that. Think of your forearms the way you would any other muscle, such as the biceps, for example. If you want to make your biceps bigger, you’ll need to do exercises that both directly and indirectly target these muscles.
The exercise in question causes small microtears in the muscle (1, 2). When you rest and consume enough protein, these microtears repair and heal themselves, which improves the muscle mass (size), strength, and endurance of the biceps.
The same thing happens with the forearms. By doing calisthenic forearms exercises at home, the gym, or outdoors, you’ll cause tears in the muscles, which will lead to larger forearms with time, consistency, rest, and enough protein intake.
When exercising for increased muscle hypertrophy, researchers recommend increasing your protein intake from 0.8 g of protein per kilogram of body weight a day to around 1.2-1.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (3).
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They can be, but it’s not impossible to grow them. Some potential reasons why you may be seeing slow growth in your forearms include:
Your genes play a role in weight loss and they do the same in muscle growth rate. In one review published in 2011, researchers stated that your genetics influence approximately 50% to 80% of how much muscle you have before you start training and how much muscle development you can see after you start training (4).
So, if your family members don’t have large forearms, chances are that you also won’t have large forearms. However, this doesn’t mean that they will stay small forever. Exercise can help increase their size, so don’t be discouraged.
Unlike the upper arm, which only has four muscles – the biceps brachii, brachialis, and coracobrachialis are located in the anterior (front) compartment, and the triceps brachii is in the posterior (back) compartment (5) – the forearm has 20 different muscles divided between the anterior (flexor) and posterior (extensor) compartments (6).
Growing 20 small muscles will take much longer than growing four moderately sized muscles. So if you see slower progress in your forearms than in your upper arms, don’t worry – just be patient and remain consistent with your routine and protein intake. The biceps, deltoids, and triceps will all naturally be larger than any of the forearm muscles, so when these three grow, it will likely be much more noticeable than the smaller forearm muscle group.
When you look up calisthenics arm workouts, most of them will offer exercises that target the upper arm muscles. While these exercises also work the forearms, they’re not targeted forearm workouts, which can lead to slower results in this specific area. To change this, ensure that you always include targeted forearm exercises with no equipment options in your arm/upper-body calisthenic routine.
Poor grip strength will negatively affect forearm muscle growth as it prevents you from fully engaging these muscles during your forearm calisthenics at-home routine. Work on improving your grip strength through exercises such as plate pinches, hand gripper exercises, farmer’s walks, dead hangs, and wrist curls. This will help you engage the forearms better, which could lead to faster muscle growth results.
Read more: How To Start A Beginner Calisthenics Routine (And Stick To It)
As previously mentioned, to develop this area, you’ll need a combination of workouts that target the forearms both directly and indirectly. You also need to increase your protein intake to help fuel increased muscle mass and strength in the forearms. Ensure that you also rest and don’t overexercise your arms, as this could lead to overtraining, which will have a negative impact on your progress.
Here are some calisthenics exercises that focus on grip and forearm muscle activation:
You’ll need a pull-up bar and a box, step, or bench to step on.
In addition to increasing the time you hold the hang, you can practice progressive overload (7) by:
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This is a calisthenic variation of the farmer’s walk, which is one of the most popular forearm workouts that is done with dumbbells or kettlebells. Wrist walks help strengthen the forearms and wrists and are a great addition to any arm workout warmup routine.
You can increase the intensity of this by:
This is a variation of the traditional pull-up that involves gripping a rope to pull yourself up instead of a pull-up bar. As with regular pull-ups, this variation targets the back, biceps, shoulders, and forearms, but goes further by incorporating more grip work than traditional pull-ups.
To do this exercise, simply:
Some CrossFit gyms have hanging ropes that you can use for this exercise.
As with rope pull-ups above, the exercise targets the same muscles as traditional pull-ups while requiring more work from your forearms and grip strength. To perform the exercise:
This advanced push-up variation helps build your forearms, fingers, chest, shoulders, and triceps. It also engages the core and lower back, which helps with stabilization and requires activation of leg muscles for maintaining body alignment.
These are some of the many forearm-targeting exercises you can do to help build muscle mass and strength in this area. Check out our article on resistance bands for arms to see how you can increase resistance for calisthenic arms workouts.
Read more: Female Calisthenics Body: The Benefits of this Routine and the Best Beginner Exercises to Try
No, you can’t. It is not recommended to train forearms or any other muscle group daily. Doing so can lead to overtraining, which will increase your risk of overtraining syndrome and injury (8). If you wish to train your forearms more than once a week, you can do so up to twice a week on non-consecutive days. Also remember that the forearms are responsible for grip strength, so even if you’re not directly working them, they’ll still be used for the majority of exercises in the gym and throughout your daily functional life.
Yes, traditional push-ups do hit the forearms, albeit not directly. For direct forearm muscle activation during pull-ups, try the above-mentioned finger, towel, or rope pull-ups. Bicep curls are primarily a bicep-targeting exercise, although they do indirectly target the forearms. If you want more forearm activation during this exercise, changing your grip on the weight and increasing wrist flexion can help achieve this. However, this could lead to your wrists and forearms fatiguing before your biceps. As demonstrated above, yes, they do. Yes, they can help grow your arms and increase grip strength. However, it’s recommended to invest in good quality hand grippers and do other wrist and forearm workouts rather than relying on hand grippers alone for success.Frequently Asked Questions
Do push-ups hit your forearms?
Do bicep curls work your forearms?
Do dead hangs build your forearm muscles?
Do hand grippers grow your arms?
Forearm calisthenics workouts are a great way to increase your forearm muscle mass, strength, and endurance. The best results are achieved by combining exercises that both directly and indirectly target the forearms and grip strength. For the best results, remember to perform forearm warm-up and cool-down exercises before and after your workout. Consume a higher protein diet and remember not to overtrain, as this will jeopardize your progress and health.
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