Health and Fitness
Here’s What Happened When I Performed Calisthenics for Decades.
Calisthenics shaped my body and lifted my mood.
By switching to anabolic calisthenics, I said goodbye to long-distance running, which used to give me endorphins while catabolizing my muscles.
Purpose of the Story
Gaining tacit knowledge, skills, and experience in physical and mental health, fitness, and nutrition are my passions for my well-being and supporting others. The purpose of this story is to pass along an essential skill to others. Sharing my game-changing experiences is an absolute pleasure for me.
My First Encounter with Calisthenics
My favorite workout after a barefoot walk and trampoline became calisthenics. I learned about the importance of calisthenics from a centenarian.
Conor was 87 years old when I met him in a wrestling competition. He never used weightlifting in his life but had a defined body with prominent muscles in his upper and lower body parts.
His posture was impressive at that age.
When I asked his secret to fitness, he said calisthenics and barefoot walking.
He did an hour of walking on the beach and an hour of calisthenics at home almost every day in his life. He looked in his early 50s, still joining wrestling competitions.
I couldn’t bear his strength while wrestling in the first year. I was the same age as his grandson. But after learning calisthenics, I managed to defeat him.
He gave up after arriving at the age of 100. He lived a few more years before saying goodbye to this planet. However, he remained in our memories as an inspiring centenarian.
One of his legacies was encouraging me and many others to start calisthenics. I plan to post a story reflecting on my memories with Connor and show my tributes one day.
What is calisthenics?
Calisthenics is a physical workout using one’s body weight. It is resistance training without lifting weights.
Technically calisthenics is a type of isometric training. It means that we can tighten specific muscle groups with contractions.
If done correctly and with intensity, it is possible to use almost every muscle and develop them using calisthenics workouts.
The most popular ones are push-ups, planks, squats, lunge walks, leg raises, and jumping exercises on the trampoline.
I do all on the soft floor except the jumping exercises (on the trampoline) to protect my knees.
Benefits of Calisthenics
The most crucial benefit of calisthenics is its availability everywhere our bodies exist. The only requirement is around a few meters of space.
My initial attraction to calisthenics was its convenience.
However, when I noticed flexibility improvement in my muscles and gaining agility, growth, and strength, I fell in love with it.
Then, when it started improving my daily mood, I got addicted to it.
How I Learned and Added Calisthenics to My Fitness Regime
I joined a fitness group that had 100 push-up challenges for beginners. The same group also had challenges of 1,000, 3,000, and 5,000 push-ups daily.
I started with the 100 push-up groups. Initially, I was able to do only three push-ups at a time. Worst of all, the next day, I couldn’t do any. However, I could plank for a few minutes, gradually increasing my arms’ strength.
By learning the techniques and encouragement from the members, my body adapted to do 100 push-ups in one go in about six months.
The method included gradual improvement, such as increasing by five push-ups each time. In addition, they encouraged the beginners to do five minutes of planks between the sets.
The protocol was to do it every third day. So after a heavy workout of an hour, I rested for two days which allowed my muscles to recover.
During the second day after the workout, I did three sets of squats with around 10 to 20 repeats. In addition, I started 50 meters of lunge walks and increased it to 200 meters in a few months.
I also did three repeats of three-minute leg raises and imaginary biking on my back, like in Pilates workouts. As I got trained in Pilates, practicing calisthenics was very easy for me. I knew how to use and protect my core.
After each session, I felt stronger and more motivated.
Starting Pull-Ups
I thought pull-ups would be as easy as push-ups.
Even though I could do 100 push-ups simultaneously, I could not do three full pull-ups on the first go. My heart rate skyrocketed. My nervous system said enough after three.
During push-ups, we carry half of the body weight, but during the pull-ups, the whole amount. So even though my body was not heavy, my arm muscles needed to grow and strengthen.
Joining the same team and using a similar protocol encouraged me to start and continue with pull-ups. Like push-ups, within six months, I gained the skill of doing 20 pull-ups in one go.
When I joined the 1,000 push-ups a day club, after six months, I was able to do 50 pull-ups. During that period, my upper body significantly grew.
My proficiency in pull-ups also contributed to my rock-climbing skills, which is another pastime activity for me.
Dietary Adjustment
I did not need any dietary changes when I was on the 100 push-up challenge.
However, after joining the 1,000 push-ups a day club, I had to increase my protein by 20% for muscle recovery and fat intake by 10% for energy.
Later, when doing 50 pull-ups in three sets, 1,000 push-ups daily, 30 minutes of planks, and about 10,000 steps of barefoot walk, I had to increase protein and fat intake by another 10%.
That’s when I started consuming 200 grams of healthy fat as my metabolic rate significantly increased.
Metabolic Rate and Body Definition
Interestingly, despite the around 30% increase in my calories, I did not gain noticeable weight. My belly shrank, but my weight stayed steady.
As my body was fat-adapted and did my workouts on an empty stomach, the main energy source was visceral fats.
I was consistently in ketosis during that period, so my mood for physical activities was good. As a result, my visceral fat stores decreased while my muscles grew.
As I consumed my one meal after the workouts, the rising insulin after the meals sent the calories from food directly to my muscles.
Therefore, my body stayed insulin-sensitive despite consuming extra protein. I don’t consume any carbs and eat only one meal a day. So my body activates insulin and mTOR once a day, which is my choice for health reasons.
In addition, my glucose stayed flat, neither raised nor dropped. When the body is fat-adapted, gluconeogenesis and lipolysis processes work well.
Objective and Subjective Results
When I completed my first 100 consecutive push-ups, I felt like completing a marathon. One hour after, I felt terrific. When I checked my ketones, my bloodstream had over six nmol BHP (β-hydroxybutyrate).
I slept like a baby that night. The smartwatch first showed over 95% sleep quality with increased deep sleep. Subsequent sessions provided similar results, so I did not stop.
After a year, when I got my DEXA scan results, I discovered that my muscle quality increased by 40%, and my body fat rate decreased by 3%.
This was an introduction to gaining abs first time in my life without doing significant abs workouts. These workouts also contributed to shrinking my loose skin.
My endurance increased, my posture improved, and my agitation while sitting in front of computers disappeared.
During hour breaks, I did 100 push-ups in one go in front of my computer in the office, encouraging colleagues to do stretch exercises.
Some people laughed initially, but they got used to it after a while and even became supportive.
I felt incredible with the motivation of objective results, high energy, and inspiration from the community. In addition, my self-esteem and self-love increased.
Furthermore, I became more compassionate toward others. Thus, I passed along my skills to other community members who had just begun calisthenics.
Observations of Others
My diet was proper to start calisthenics as my body was fat-adapted. Therefore, I gained instant benefits with no side effects.
However, some people in my circles first had to fix their diets to benefit from intensive calisthenics. However, they did not make radical changes.
They also did not have to change their dietary styles. Those who ate plants or animal products continued with their regime.
Most of them only had to play with macronutrients and fix nutritional deficiencies by paying attention to their micronutrients.
Interestingly people in both high-carb and high-fat diets performed well. They had to adjust their protein to reap benefits.
Some people, unfortunately, left after a few sessions believing calisthenics were not for them.
Conclusions and Takeaways
This experience taught me that our bodies are adaptable to stress. If we do it methodically and with a good recovery regimen, the body responds, grows the muscles, increases strength, and melts belly fat.
Muscles only grow with acute stress. Likewise, the body also burns fat with acute stress when it consumes glycogen stores.
In my experience and observation of community members, calisthenics is an excellent workout for healthy people.
Like others, I made calisthenics a hobby. Unfortunately, due to work, family commitments, and traveling, I couldn’t attend community events in later years. However, I always used calisthenics at home, when walking on the grass, and in traveling accommodations overseas to stay fit.
Calisthenics allowed me to stop my long-distance running habit, which used to boost my mood by releasing endorphins while catabolizing my muscles. In hindsight, it was a mistake.
So, I said goodbye to excessive running and welcomed convenient calisthenics to my fitness journey that defined my body and enhanced my mood. I made it a lifestyle habit.
In hindsight, I wish I had known about calisthenics before starting long-distance running.
Long-distance running is catabolic for muscles and brings numerous health risks, as I highlighted in this article. In contrast, calisthenics is anabolic, maintaining lean muscles. As we get older, keeping muscles become more critical.
As calisthenics puts significant stress on the body, it might not suit some people. Therefore, it is essential to obtain support from qualified healthcare professionals before starting these types of workouts.
Those proficient in Pilates and Yoga can quickly learn calisthenics and add it to their fitness regime as resistance training. Meditating and taking cold showers after calisthenics accelerated my recovery.
You can find many educative videos about calisthenics on YouTube.
The critical success factors are starting slowly, having an open mind, joining like-minded people, improving gradually, enjoying it, and staying committed.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a happy and healthy life.
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