Calisthenics Workout

Summary

An individual passionately documents their transformative journey with calisthenics, emphasizing discipline, consistency, and self-improvement while sharing personal challenges and lessons learned.

Abstract

The author recounts their calisthenics journey, which began with the challenging exercise of wide pushups on parallel bars, initially using only half their body weight. Despite weighing 256 lb, they persevered, reducing their weight to 246 lb, and drew inspiration from their own poem to maintain motivation. They stress the importance of consistent persistence, respecting and understanding one's body, and not being deterred by past surgeries or limitations. The author admits to not initially documenting their training regimen and made several mistakes, such as not filming exercises properly, underestimating viewers' attention spans, and not using adequate equipment for recording. Through trial and error, they learned to listen to their body, adapt their content, and keep their workouts engaging. They aim to collaborate with calisthenics experts like AndryStrong and use their own experiences to encourage others with similar physical challenges. The author's current achievements include a 15-second wide full body hold pushup and 40 regular pushups, with a commitment to continuous improvement and inspiring others.

Opinions

The author believes in the power of disciplined determination to overcome the natural inclination to quit.
They advocate for a deep understanding of one's body, including its prowess, limitations, and the need for proper care through stretching, warming up, and respecting one's physical boundaries.
The author values intuition, suggesting that by training it in tandem with bodily awareness, one can reduce errors and improve judgment.
They emphasize the importance of patience and incremental progress, viewing each small success as a step towards larger goals.
The author acknowledges the significance of adapting content to audience preferences and platform algorithms, as evidenced by their adjustments to video length and content.
They express a desire to collaborate with established figures in the calisthenics community, viewing it as a motivational target rather than a far-fetched dream.
The author is committed to a lifelong practice of calisthenics, finding joy in the discipline and the sense of vitality it brings.

Calisthenics Workout

I am disciplined, I grew my backbone of consistency. I started my journey by doing a wide pushup atop 9.5 inches high parallel bars. The training not being easy, is an understatement, it felt excruciatingly difficult. I started with half of my body weight, this means knees to shoulders as my only body going up and down, my feet were just two dangling bystanders following along. I used to weigh 256 lb, I lowered my body weight down to 246 lb, so yes, I could have easily said F- it! yet what would I achieve!? Remember my poem, Achieving? That ran through my mind every time I felt like quitting. Always pursue your passion and use disciplined determination to fuel your unsure nature.

You will never, did I just say never? You will NEVER achieve your dreams, regardless of what friends family neighbors say, if you do not stick with consistent persistence. You must learn and respect your body at all times, learn from your mistakes, learn your body prowess and limitations and work on stretching respecting warming up and widening your abilities within reason. If you have had surgery, I am by no means suggesting you to be STUPID and mindless and “Believing” in yourself by irresponsibly following what I am saying. I am telling you, talk to your physical therapist and know your body, listen to your intuition, and be patient with yourself. Your intuition can be wrong yet if you listen to it more often, train it by listening to your body, you will decrease the margin of your error and help your intuition achieve higher percentage of correctness. No one and nothing is perfect, Calisthenics just like your body is an art and requires you to be quiet and listen to your body. Your body knows best and your mind must learn to understand your body as well as respect it and accommodate it. I dumbly did not write down my training regiment, despite not having a concrete plan, I had ideas, yet, I needed to dabble which ideas to try before I started it, yet the way I started it, by trial and error and being responsible, is also responsible.

I started with a set of holding my body above ground for 1 second, then graduated to 2 10 20 seconds over a span of 4 months. After each workout, my arms felt like they were going to fall off. Another mistake that I managed to succeed in was to not ask my parents if I can film the exercise videos inside the house. This decision resuled in being unable to use the recorded footage. You would think that is it, he he he eh no, I assumed that people’s attention span was between 20 minutes to half an hour. My parents told me that 5 to 10 minutes was the maximum people will view my videos, regardless of how good they are. I thought they were wrong, on this point they were 1000% on it. I learned it the hard way, by making warm up session and training session 20 and 22 mins and it got under 20 views, yet when I did videos 8 11 minutes long respectively it got 33 views and growing. Yet another mistake was including too much content in a 22 minute take while keeping the warm up for a meazily 8 minutes in length. As the warm up got double the views over the training, my heart kept sinking like a delicious ice cream on a warm sunny day. I started recording with only using my cell phone, before using a stand, despite having own cell stand, before having a proper microphone, I quickly learned that was not going to work, from me being at an able to barely being able to hear myself. These mistakes, including long explanation, breathing too heavy, even when I used the cell holder it did not help, this is the footage that I will be re-recording. You think that is it? Aside of my microphone quitting on me amid a training session because I did not charge it enough, a little respect, my last warm up video was 8 minutes long and fairly good, yet the training did not get recorded for some reason. I had some good takes on Gymnastics rings that I bought off of Amazon which I have included on several of my videos, so I will have to re-record fifth training session on coming Wednesday September 13 2023. Yet another lesson that I learned, warm up sessions become repetitive and YouTube looks for fresh content, so I decided to add new warm up videos only if I will include new warm up content, and will pursue doing only 5 minute takes from here on out.

After all previous sessions, my arms have been hurting for at least fifteen minutes straight, to me, this is a sign to keep going and progressing and enjoying the benefits bit by bit. Now, you might say, why waste your time on a YouTube channel when there are titans such as AndryStrong or others. My goal is to hopefully one day work with some of these titans if the opportunity will allow. I know that it is a far fetched desire, yet as I keep working and excelling, dreaming never hurt anyone. I do learn proper technique from AndryStrong’s YouTube content and hope that he will see it. My videos are my own and I do my own content with proper technique.

As of now, I can do a set of 15 seconds wide full body hold pushup. I am able to do 40 pushups 20 dips yet more to come. The main reason that I am doing it is mainly for myself and subsequently to let others with similar or worse physique know that they have got-it keep-pushing and believing in themselves.

Ever since I started YouTube, it has become a commitment where I set a high standard for myself to achieve and hold myself at. You turn on that camera and in 90 seconds must push yourself off ground and hold it there, do it again after a short rest, Holding yourself atop parallel bars only using your hands, say what you will, it is tough. That does not stop me but only keeps me going, disciplines me and provides me with unshakable drive. Be consistent persistent strong patient kind loving caring mindful of yourself and others and spice it all with a tad of charisma.

I will likely do Calisthenics for my whole life, I enjoy the feeling after an exercise and feel alive practicing it. I implore you to grow at your own pace and enjoy your own successes as they come.