When most people train in calisthenics, they often exercise in outdoor gyms, which are usually found in parks, or in the comfort of their own homes. Indoor calisthenics gyms are few and far between, which makes it difficult for calisthenics enthusiasts to form a solid in-person community of other calisthenic exercise lovers.
If you’re tired of outdoor calisthenics and would like an indoor option, something like a traditional gym, but that specializes in indoor calisthenics gym equipment and exercises, then read on to learn how you can make this possible, for yourself and perhaps your community too.
A game-changing indoor calisthenics gym is a facility that helps redefine and optimize how bodyweight exercises are practiced and experienced indoors. It’s not just a place with a couple of callisthenic equipment such as pull-up bars, mats, and resistance bands.
Instead, it’s a space that creates a safe and welcoming community of like-minded individuals, helps teach calisthenics to newbies, maximizes progression in intermediate and advanced exercises, and motivates all to reach their desired results.
Yes, you can. If you don’t feel like doing yet another at-home calisthenics workout and there’s a traditional gym around, you can perform your exercises in this space – you just need to adapt the space to your needs and exercises.
Here’s how:
While traditional gyms aren’t specifically created with calisthenics exercises in mind, they usually have everything you need for an effective calisthenics session. For example:
While they’re traditionally used to provide support during weightlifting exercises, you can use them for bodyweight upper-body workouts, such as incline pushups and tricep dips, as well as lower-body exercises such as the infamous Bulgarian split squats.
Pull-up bars are usually top of the list of calisthenic equipment for home use and such bars are readily available in many traditional gyms. In addition to pull-ups, this bar can be used for other exercises such as hanging leg raises, hanging knees-to-chest, L-sits, front levers, and more.
You can use this equipment to do exercises such as tricep dips, L-sits, and bodyweight rows.
You can use the low bar on this machine for exercises such as inverted rows or assisted planche leans.
You can use one of these to perform any core exercises, as well as any flexibility or mobility stretches.
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The main difference between calisthenics and traditional workouts is that the former largely relies on your body weight and gravity to create resistance. This means that calisthenics can be done anywhere: at a park, in a corner of your bedroom/garage, or in a regular gym.
When you’re doing calisthenics in a traditional gym, find some space and perform all your exercises with your bodyweight or with the help of resistance bands without touching any of the available free weights or gym machinery to add resistance to your workout of choice.
To learn more about calisthenics equipment for home, check out our in-depth article on the topic.
Whether you’re doing calisthenics training at a traditional gym, in an outdoor or indoor calisthenic gym, or in your living room, you need to practice progressive overload if you want to see the desired results.
Progressive overload is a training principle where you gradually manipulate the sets, weight, intensity, or duration of your workout in order to constantly or progressively strain your muscles.
As calisthenics doesn’t use weights, you can’t rely on weights to achieve progressive overload. However, you can do progressive overload by increasing the number of sets, repetitions, and the duration of your workout (1, 2).
Read more: Start Here: The Easiest Calisthenics Skills for Strength and Control
Yes, indoor calisthenics gyms that focus on bodyweight training to build strength, flexibility, and endurance do exist. However, they’re not as common as traditional gyms that use weights and gym machinery for the same purpose. If you don’t have a calisthenics gym near you, don’t be discouraged. As mentioned in the section above, you can do indoor calisthenics gym exercises in a traditional gym.
If you’re invested in finding an indoor calisthenics gym around you and are unsure where to start, here are some tips:
Many businesses have seen the value in search engine optimization and online marketing, which means that they’re likely listed on Google. A simple “calisthenics gyms near me” search could help you locate such gyms that are close to you. While they may not be exclusively calisthenic-only gyms, you may find some that offer such classes.
Do you have friends or acquaintances who are into calisthenics? Or perhaps you have a favourite online calisthenics fitness influencer in your area? Message or speak to them and ask if they know of any such gyms close to you and how they would rate their experiences in said facilities.
Depending on where you live, you may be able to find a public space that has pull-up bars and a wide variety of other bodyweight-inspired exercise equipment. These tend to be free and are available for the public to use. It’s an ideal way to get a quick workout in while enjoying the outdoors!
The main differences between these two types of facilities include:
The best indoor calisthenics gym focuses only on bodyweight training, which is unlike a traditional gym that may place some focus on bodyweight exercises, but largely relies on the use of free weights and machinery for the majority of workout sessions.
Calisthenics gyms are more likely to place emphasis on skill improvement, functional strength, mobility, and coordination, while traditional gyms may focus on increased muscle mass, weight loss, and endurance with the help of weights or machinery.
However, this doesn’t mean you can’t lose weight, gain muscle, or increase your endurance through calisthenics. It’s just that one of the main principles of progressive overload involves manipulating the weight of your exercise, and a gym is better suited for this due to the fact that you can simply pick up a heavier weight to increase resistance.
Indoor calisthenics gym equipment is vastly different from what you generally find in traditional gyms. In the latter, you’re likely to find common machinery and weights such as treadmills, kettlebells, cable machines, dumbbells, barbells, leg presses, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes.
However, in an indoor calisthenics gym, the equipment is quite minimal. As resistance should largely come from your body weight and gravity, equipment in such facilities is limited to pull-up bars, exercise/yoga mats, dip stations, gymnastic rings, and resistance bands.
As previously mentioned, progressive overload is essential in any training method, particularly if you wish to see progress and avoid a plateau.
In traditional gym exercises, progressive overload can be done by gradually increasing the sets, weight, intensity, or duration of your workout.
However, as external weights aren’t a part of a calisthenics workout, you can only do progressive overload through gradual increments of your workout intensity (i.e. harder exercise variations), duration, or number of sets.
Read more: Calisthenics Workout for the Back: The Complete Exercise Guide
An indoor calisthenics gym optimizes calisthenics training by creating an environment that helps users effectively train through bodyweight-only exercises. It does this through:
There are no weights or machines; instead, the space is filled with minimal equipment like pull-up bars at different heights, dip stations, rings, mats, and resistance bands.
Just because people won’t be using weights doesn’t mean they’re less prone to injury or that they automatically know how to do the various exercises. A proper indoor calisthenics gym will have certified calisthenics trainers who train novices, intermediates, or anyone else who needs help.
The indoor space should be well-designed with minimal clutter and padded floors to facilitate all the movements that are done when performing bodyweight workouts.
These are helpful for beginners and also help other indoor calisthenics gym exercisers train with focus and ultimately improve their strength, balance, mobility, and more.
Most communal calisthenics gyms tend to be outside. These can be difficult or even impossible to use during rainy seasons, on extremely hot days, or during winter. An indoor space allows people to exercise regardless of the weather conditions outside.
A downside of at-home calisthenics is that you have to do it alone. While the workout will still be effective, there’s something special about an in-person community. A dedicated indoor calisthenics gym allows exercisers to create a community where they can make friends, train together, and advise each other on useful workout and progression tips.
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Unlike a traditional gym, an indoor calisthenics gym is less defined or reliant on equipment. However, if you’re opening a gym and want to make it good enough for diverse exercises, here’s some equipment you should consider investing in:
An at-home calisthenics setup doesn’t need as much equipment as a commercial calisthenics gym. Most at-home setups are usually okay with an exercise mat, a pull-up bar, and some resistance bands.
Yes, you can. Scientific studies comparing the effectiveness of at-home and gym workouts have shown that both options are effective for improving aerobic fitness, waist-to-hip circumference, heart and respiratory rate, body weight, lean tissue mass, and more.
As long as you’re consistent with your at-home exercise routine, practice progressive overload, and eat a healthy diet in recommended calorie amounts, you can replicate gym results at home (3, 4).
Calisthenics is usually considered to be harder than gym workouts as it demands a higher level of stability and balance to perform many advanced moves. Also, unlike gym workouts that rely on weights for increased resistance, calisthenics demands you perform more difficult variations of basic workouts. This challenges you mentally and also your muscle strength, endurance, and the aforementioned balance and stability. Yes, you can. Calisthenics can help increase muscle mass and muscle strength. However, if you’re looking to build large muscles, e.g. like bodybuilders, you’ll have a harder time achieving it with calisthenics – weightlifting is a better option for that goal. Neither workout program is inherently better than the other. Research on Pilates has shown that it’s beneficial for improved posture, mental health, pain, flexibility, fitness, balance, and physical function (5). On the other hand, research on calisthenics has shown that it helps improve flexibility, strength, agility, muscular endurance, cardiovascular fitness, balance, coordination, and overall well-being (6). If you’re a beginner, you can do a calisthenics program two or three times a week. Intermediate and advanced exercisers can do calisthenics exercises five to six times a week. Any more than this will mean that your body and muscles don’t get enough time to rest and recover, which could lead to overtraining (7) and injury.Frequently Asked Questions
Why is calisthenics harder than the gym?
Can I get ripped with calisthenics?
Which is better, calisthenics or Pilates?
How many times a week should you do calisthenics?
An indoor calisthenics gym is a great space for those who are interested in calisthenics to train and improve their skills and bodies through bodyweight-only exercises. If you can’t find such a gym around you, don’t be discouraged – with a little creativity (and the tips mentioned above), you can utilize a traditional gym to do and improve your calisthenics skills. And if you plan to create such a space for people in your community, make sure to optimize the space for safety, comfort, and progression.
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