What is Calisthenics ?

What is Calisthenics?

An ancient Greek warrior 

Well, this is a complicated question. The answer can be written into a thousand words article but I will give you the simplest answer.

Calisthenics is a workout method where you use the weight of your own body to build muscle. That means you don't need any barbells, dumbbells or other equipment.

The word "Calisthenics" comes from the ancient Greek kallos meaning "beauty," and sthenos, which means "strength". This method is used thousand years ago by ancient Greeks, especially Spartan. Today, it has been proven to help millions of people gain strength as well as lose weight and get fit.

Why Calisthenics?

·        Calisthenics Training requires very little equipment

The main advantages of Calisthenics is that you need very little equipment to your training. You don't need Gym membership anymore.

There has never been a system of strength training more perfectly in harmony with the principles of independence and economy, and there never will be. Even the most ardent weight lifter will have to admit this fact.

For the master of calisthenics, his or her body becomes a gymnasium. Most exercises require no equipment, although if you wish the exercises can be enhanced with a few items that can be found lying around in almost any home. The very most you'll need is a place to hang from, and every one of us can locate such a place if we look; stairs, a loft hatch, even the branches of a tree!

·         You can train almost every where

Since no need to access to special training equipment, you can training anytime anywhere. So it is very hard to miss a single workout due to circumstance (i.e. when traveling) and you can stay in top physical shape wherever you are.

Workout anytime anywhere

·         Calisthenics build the whole body strength

Push ups, Pull ups, Squat... or all the other Calisthenics excercises are compound excercises that work whole body as a unit. Think of a chain. When one link in a chain is weak, it makes the whole chain weak. With bodyweight training the whole chain becomes strong because all the muscles work together.

Compare this to isolation exercises in body building. For example, when you perform seated bicep curls on a machine. The only muscle you are working is the bicep. The complimentary bodyweight exercise, the chin up, works the bicep, back muscles, abs, low back and more. You don’t need any curls to get massive bicep if you can do a one arm pull up.

·         Calisthenics develops functional athletic abilities 

Calisthenics is the ultimate in functional training.

In nature, the human body doesn't need to move barbells or dumbbells around. Before it can move anything external at all, it has to be able to move itself around! The legs need the strength to be able to easily manage the weight of the torso in athletic motions, such as running or in combat; the back and arms require the power to be able to pull or push the body up or away.

·         Calisthenics protects the joints and make them stronger

One of the major problems with modern forms of strength and resistance training is the damage they do to the joints. The joints of the body are supported by delicate soft tissues - tendons, fascia, ligaments and which are simply not evolved to take the pounding of heavy weight-training.

This damage is done because bodybuilding motions are largely unnatural. In order to place a great deal of emphasis on the muscles, the body is forced to hoist heavy external loads in motions and at angles not usually found in nature.

Calisthenics movements are more authentic than weight-lifting techniques. When the body has to lift itself, in a pull up or squat, for example, the skeleton-muscular structure naturally aligns to the most efficient and natural output ratio.
Pull ups are a good example of the "authentic" nature of calisthenics; humans evolved, like our primate relatives, pulling ourselves up into trees by the branches. This anatomical heritage still exists in the human body, which is why people adapt very quickly and safely to pull up training. A bodybuilding alternative to pull-ups is the bent-over row; humans did not evolve to execute this movement, and as a result many lifters quickly injure their spine, lower back and shoulders when performing this exercise.
In this video, a professional bodybuilder is injured badly when trying to do a full planche!

·         Calisthenics regulates your body fat naturally

Lazar Novovic - Only doing Calisthenics
From Youtube "Bar brother"

Calisthenics is one of the best training “tools” for fat loss.

If your goal is to bent-over row 400 lbs., you could overeat as much as you like and probably still meet your goal despite carrying around a massive gut. But you couldn't set a goal of doing one-arm pull ups without watching your bodyweight. Nobody ever became better at calisthenics by bulking up into a big fat pig.

Have you ever heard about Insanity, P90X or other fat loss - program, all of these require bodyweight exercises. If your goal is to lose fat fast, then there is no reason for you to avoid calisthenics training.