Why I Prefer Calisthenics Over Lifting Weights

And it’s specialty will motivate you too

Ever wondered how some people around you never go to the gym but have a solid physique? It’s not that if they aren’t going to the gym they aren’t working out. They might be using this special form of exercise called calisthenics. Why special? That’s what we are going to learn here.

Let's get to the points and get started.

Convenient and easy to get started

The very first set back from going to the gym and working out is the discipline and due to that, the gym membership cost.

Most of the calisthenic exercises do not require any equipment except for a pull-up bar and moreover, they don’t cost you a gym membership. They can be done in your room, a nearby park, or ground.

Compound movements

Why do you go to the gym? To build muscles and burn calories. Right? And the best way to do both of these simultaneously is by doing compound movements.

Each calisthenics exercise is a compound movement, so you can burn more calories and build lean muscles simultaneously.

Bodyweight

Another benefit of calisthenics is you utilize your own body weight, at least in most of the cases, and the root of most of these exercises are natural movements that can also increase your flexibility as well as the range of motion.

So, when training calisthenics, the only overload is your own body weight and what makes the exercise easier or harder is the angle that you put your body in during the exercise.

To really make gains with weights, you’re going to need a whole bunch of weights, whereas, if your body itself is the weight, and you are the gym, then you are just walking around with the weight you weigh to work with.

It’s fun

And not only is it fun, but it can be done anywhere. There are hundreds of movements and progressions you can learn. Really, your creativity is your only limit.

You can practice it anywhere, anytime, and with no age restrictions. So, if you think you’re too young, too old, too big, too small, there’s no excuse.

There’s always progressions to get started, and you can always use a fraction of your body weight, and slowly over time, you’ll add more weight to these exercises by changing the angle, going on to harder progressions, and eventually, utilizing your whole body weight in every rep and really seeing your body starts to evolve.

When you go to the gym, you have a whole selection of 5 to 10 pounds of how much weight you’re actually going to curl. When it comes to calisthenics, and you’re doing real pull-ups, there’s no 20 pounds, 25 pounds, or 60 pounds.

You’re pulling up your body every single time. Every single rep is going be your entire body weight distributed evenly between both arms every single time.

And if you really want to take it to the next level, you just take one arm away, and you put all that weight onto one arm, and that’s how you increase the overload in calisthenics versus going into the weight room and just racking up a whole bunch of other plates.

At the end of the day, you’re either going to be racking on more plates, or utilizing more of your body weight. Both of them are going to get you in shape but remember one thing,

The person that’s doing the one arm pull-ups is definitely going to be able to lift heavier weights, but the person that’s lifting heavyweight is not necessarily going to be able to do a one-arm pull-up.

Let’s take an example

Let’s start with push-ups, the fundamental exercise to build the muscle-body connection, and you’re going to use your whole body to initiate this exercise, i.e your triceps, chest, shoulders, core, and some parts of your legs.

So, if you have mastered conventional push-ups, you would go to the next progression, explosive push-ups. And there’s an interesting thing, you can add an explosive variation to almost every exercise in calisthenics, whereas it can be very dangerous if you are using weights like in a benchpress.

If you’re exploding when you do pushups, then when you do normal pushups, not only is it going be very easy, but you’re benefiting from that explosive training as well as the concentric part of this exercise.

What if you have mastered explosive push-ups, go to the next progression, and that’s when you put all your body weight to your chest and triceps. It’s the full planche push-ups. It doesn't matter how much you bench, you’re not going to do that if you don’t train for it.

You can increase the overload and work on the same stuff for the rest of your life, or try something new, work into harder progressions, start learning more about your body, mastering your body, then applying more weight onto your body, taking it from there.

Enjoy your training, have fun, take it anywhere, anytime, and you can get started right now.

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