You don't need to lift weights to get into excellent physical shape. Bodyweight exercises can build muscle faster than weight training. Strength training using only your bodyweight is known as calisthenics.
Calisthenics doesn't consist of just basic pull-ups and push-ups. Just as in weightlifting, there are ways to modify movements and make them more and more challenging. This is how people achieve incredible physiques and acrobatic feats, using only calisthenics.
One of the best things about calisthenics is that you can train for strength outside. Training outside in the sun can be more enjoyable than training indoors, and there’s no need for any expensive gym membership. Many cities have calisthenics parks that are available to the public for free. You can also work out indoors at home without having to spend money on weight training equipment.
Those new to calisthenics start with simple exercises such as pushups and pull-ups. These exercises will often raise your strength faster than weights will in the early stages. After mastering the basics, it is time to move on to more advanced practices. Our article on calisthenics for beginners will help you master those basics.
If you're looking to get everything you need to perform both beginner and advanced calisthenics workouts, check out our article on building a perfect calisthenics home gym.
There is an enormous variety of bodyweight strength exercises that will challenge those who are already fit and experienced with calisthenics movements. Calisthenics can be more fun than weight lifting because one ends up doing a greater variety of activities. With enough time and dedication, you may become powerful enough to do incredible feats of strength. Calisthenics courses can also help you develop and progress quickly to the advanced stage. Check out our article on the best courses online.
1) One-armed pull-ups
Like most of the exercises listed here, this is for those who are already well trained. Calisthenics does not have to lose its challenge over time. There are always ways to make workouts harder. If you can already do a lot of pull-ups with proper form, you can move on to one-armed pull-ups. Make sure your shoulders can take it! One-armed pull-ups can be very hard on your shoulder joints.
You should be able to do no less than twenty standard pull-ups with excellent form before you attempt any one-armed pull-ups. One-armed pull-ups are not necessarily dangerous, but they are for those who are already quite muscular. Like regular pull-ups, one-armed pull-ups train your biceps, your back, and the rest of your upper body.
2) The V-Sit
The V-Sit is as hard as it looks. First, you have to sit down and hold your body off of the ground with only your hands, which for some people is no longer a challenge. Then, you have to bring your legs as close to your head as possible. As well as requiring a considerable amount of strength, it requires tremendous flexibility as well.
The V-Sit is an impressive looking exercise that will make you look like an elite calisthenics athlete. Your legs have to be straight. It's difficult to hold the correct form. It mostly strengthens the core.
Bodyweight strength athletes are impressive because they are both powerful and flexible, and the V-Sit will boost your flexibility to the highest levels as well. Master the L-sit first, and then work your way up to the V-sit after an L-sit becomes easy for you to do. As well as a strong core, you will need strong triceps before you attempt this exercise.
3) Triple clap pushups
When some people do pushups, they can push themselves off of the ground hard enough to clap behind their backs and not merely in front of them before falling back down. You have to be very strong and very fast to do this. The arms and core must be in excellent shape. Your focus must be near perfect, as well. It requires explosive strength and certainly needs cardiovascular fitness if you are going to do more than a few of them.
To do triple clap pushups properly, start in a standard pushup position, and then push yourself off the ground explosively. No special pushup position is required; the exercise only requires strength and practice. Clap your hands once in front of you as you are rising off of the ground. Then, quickly move your hands behind your back and clap a second time.
Your hands should touch behind your back at the same time as or slightly before you stop moving upward and start falling back down again. Quickly move your hands in front of you again, clap a third time, and then position your arms to break your fall. If you are doing triple clap pushups the right way, you should be able to land gently. Being able to do a set of eight triple clap pushups is a worthy goal.
4) Handstand pushups
Nothing makes you look like a strength athlete more than handstand pushups do. It is, for many people, the holy grail of advanced calisthenics. Once you can do handstand pushups with good form, you know you are truly in great shape.
You have to work your way up to being able to do handstand pushups. Start doing these against the wall, and gradually move away from the wall. Your triceps are the main muscle that will get stronger in this way. It will also build very broad shoulders.
If you are much stronger than you were but do not yet have the wide shoulders you want, you should start working your way towards handstand pushups. Even if you can do these while against the wall, you can do an impressive calisthenics workout.
5) The human flag
The human flag might come off as impossible to someone who has never heard of it before. With enough strength, you can hold yourself off the ground on a pole at a 90-degree angle to it. You can do it on the street, and it will make you look more impressive than almost any other street exercise. You probably won't be able to hold this position for very long, but that isn't a big deal - the world record is only one minute and five seconds. It is impressive to hold the position properly, even for a very short time.
To work your way up to being able to do the human flag, you will first have to learn how to lift your feet just a few inches off the ground with your arms in the right position. Grip a pole with your arms in the triangular position that the human flag uses. Try to lift your feet in this way, even if it is just by a few inches and only for a few seconds.
Do any kind of exercise that will strengthen your arms and shoulders, especially pull-ups. As your strength increases, you will be able to work your way up from lifting your feet only a few inches off the ground to being able to do a full human flag.
6) Diamond pushups
The closer your arms are together, the more difficult a pushup is. If you can put your arms so close together that you can make a diamond shape with your thumbs and forefingers touching, it is going to be quite a challenge to do more than a few. Pushups have always been a great choice because they strengthen your arms, core, and back all at once.
Pushups also work to some extent as a cardio exercise, although they are mostly a strength exercise. Diamond pushups strengthen the same muscles that ordinary pushups use, but at a higher degree of difficulty.
7) Backflip burpees
Backflip burpees look dangerous, but that's part of the appeal. One is doing a stunt and not merely an exercise. Before you can attempt this, you must be able to do a standing backflip. The backflip burpee is not very much more complicated than the standing backflip is. When in the early stages, have a soft surface to land on. You do not want to land on your head by any means.
After doing a complete backflip, you are supposed to land on your feet and do a pushup that launches you into a standing position, where you can do a standing backflip. An expert can make this look like a complete movement. It is an advanced exercise for building explosive strength.
One of the best things about backflip burpees is that they are a full-body workout that will help an already strong person get even stronger. The muscles of the upper torso, lower torso, shoulders, upper legs, and back are all strengthened by backflip burpees. Backflip burpees will also build excellent athletic coordination.
8) The planche
A planche is an advanced form of the plank, for those who have already mastered planking. Like the plank, it involves holding yourself up off the ground in an awkward position. Unlike the plank, you have to hold yourself off of the ground on bars, which is much harder.
If you can successfully do a planche, you are well on your way to being able to do the most intense calisthenics exercises, though you are not there yet. It strengthens the core more than it tests the arms.
While the planche is difficult, it is a realistic goal for an ordinary person who trains calisthenics for a long time. After six months, a year, or two years worth of serious training, you may be able to planche. The planche can make you look and feel like superman. It feels great to be able to suspend yourself in the air purely with your arms, without your feet or your body touching the ground.
9) Narrow grip pull-ups
Just as one can significantly increase the difficulty of pushups by keeping their hands closer together, you can do the same with pull-ups as well. Once you can get to about ten reps of pull-ups with proper form, you might not want to increase your reps further. Instead, work on more strenuous types of pull-ups, such as narrow grip pull-ups. Narrow grip pull-ups will strengthen your arms faster than increasing the number of reps you can do will.
If you get to the point where even narrow grip pull-ups are becoming too easy, you could experiment with weighted pull-ups. Weighted pull-ups are not a pure bodyweight exercise, but it is fine to train with weights some of the time, even if you use no weights most of the time.
10) Decline pushups
An underrated way of making pushups more difficult is to put your feet on a raised surface when doing them. Decline pushups will not only build your core strength but is significantly better for strengthening your arms than ordinary pushups are as well. Don't just keep on doing more and more reps; move on to more challenging exercises.
Decline pushups work significantly different muscles than ordinary pushups. Because your body is on a different angle, there is more emphasis on the shoulders and upper chest muscles.
Pushups are for people of all levels of strength as there are so many less difficult and harder variations of this simple exercise. To make decline pushups even harder, you might try doing them with only one arm. A one-arm pushup is not as hard as a one-arm pull-up, but it can still impress people and get you even stronger.
You can also make your decline pushups harder by doing them with one leg. Hold one leg up in the air while doing decline pushups, and alternate legs between sets. You can use pushup variations to train the biceps, triceps, and pectoral muscles, depending on the position of your arms.
Progressing to Advanced Calisthenics
There is an enormous variety of exercises to try in calisthenics. Calisthenics includes hundreds of distinct workouts, each targetting different muscle groups and each having a varying degree of difficulty. Whenever one wants to try a new exercise, they can - this is much less true with weight training. Calisthenics never gets too easy - there is always a harder bodyweight exercise to do, up to and beyond what only a few people in the world are capable of.
Weight training does have its advantages. If someone looks like a massive bodybuilder instead of merely looking muscular, they are more likely to be training with weights than with calisthenics. However, calisthenics will help you develop a more balanced physique, better mind-muscle connection, and reduce your risk of serious injury.
Bodyweight training builds functional strength, suitable for everyday situations that require it. Many beginner strength athletes also find calisthenics to build muscle faster than weight training does. You can also do calisthenics outdoors in the sun, and train wherever you want without needing a gym membership.
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