The Calisthenics exercises are comparatively quick exercises that rely on your body weight rather than other equipment.
Calisthenics was developed in ancient Greece but became widespread in the early 90s again due to their development in strength, flexibility, coordination, and endurance.
This article explains about what is calisthenics exercises, calisthenics vs weight exercises, and calisthenics workout routine.
Calisthenics exercises can be a warm-up or cool-down for your fitness routine. You can perform these exercises with a different rhythm and intensity levels.
Some of the calisthenics exercises are performed with light palm-top tools such as wands and rings.
No matter if it’s for warming-up or to build up the body, calisthenics is widely used by athletes, military and law enforcement officers, and everyone trying to stay in shape.
Calisthenics vs Weight Exercises
Calisthenics exercises involve all or most of your body weight to perform strength training movements.
On the other hand, to perform strength training movements weight exercises require you to use weighted tools like dumbbells.
Besides the differences, both calisthenics and weight exercises offer similar physical results, certainly for a short period.
According to the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, a recent study in 15 men following a weight-based training exercise and 17 men following the U.S. Army’s calisthenics based physical training for 1.5 hours, five days a week up to eight weeks, both groups showed alike increase in their fitness.
Calisthenics Workout Routine
Try performing these calisthenics exercises thrice with a rest count of 30-seconds between each exercise set and a 3-minute rest count between each circuit repetition.
Below is calisthenics workout for beginners that involves various parts of your body for a full-body workout:
1. Pull-ups
Pull-ups are upper-body strength training. It is also considered an advanced exercise and is more difficult than chin-ups.
It is a closed chain movement in which the body is up in the air by the hands and pull-ups.
While performing pull-ups your elbows flex, shoulders extend and adduct to bring the elbows to the torso.
Also, you can modify pull-ups and if you are a beginner you can perform it with the assisted machine, it’ll still be beneficial from these variations.
2. Squats
Squats is a dynamic strength training. While performing squats, you lower your hips from a standing position and then stand back up.
During the drop of squat, your hip and knee joints flex whereas your ankle joint bend dorsally; contrariwise when standing up your hip and knee joints extend and the ankle plantar flexes.
Squats aids in boosting your exercise performance decreases your risk of injury and keeps you moving easily throughout the day.
3. Push-ups
Push-ups are effective and yet simple bodyweight exercises. It aids in increasing strength in the core and upper body.
Push-ups target the pectoral muscles in your chest and triceps, muscles in the back of your upper arms.
Push-ups are very suitable for beginners and for trainees who are advanced with exercise.
Also, to perform push-ups you don’t require any extra equipment or tools.
4. 30-Second Wall Sit
The 30-second wall sit is an exercise performed over a specific amount of time instead of a specific amount of repetitions.
It requires you to hold yourself in a seated position for a specific amount of time, generally between 30 to 60 seconds.
30-second wall sits mainly targets your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, and your pain threshold.
5. Bench Dips
Bench dips are a versatile exercise to add to your workout routine.
No matter if it’s to take on more of a challenge or to ease some pressures, bench dips are multipurpose and they are also simple to scale.
Bench dips target and strengthens muscles in your chest, triceps, and shoulders.
Also, to perform bench dips all you need is an elevated surface and no extra equipment or tools.
6. Chin-ups
Chin-ups are a strength training exercise and it is a variation of pull-up exercise.
In chin-ups, the repetitions are performed with the palms facing towards the body in an underhand position with a narrower grip than the shoulder width.
Just like other pull-up variations, it aids in strengthening and building muscles in the core, biceps, and latissimus dorsi.
You can use it as a more shoulder-friendly alternative to straight bar pull-ups or to perform more repetitions than you can perform overhand.
7. Hanging Knee Raises
The hanging knee raises are a bodyweight exercise. It aids in increasing abdominal strength, stamina, and endurance.
Also, you can use it as a reversion of advanced core exercises like leg raises, L-sits, and other gymnastics movements.
Moreover, you can perform hanging knee raises on nearly any level filter and it can be advanced to a variety of more complex movements.
8. Pike Push-ups
Pike push-up is an ideal workout for building shoulder strength and improving core stability.
It helps extremely for a fitter you as it aids in strengthening and toning your whole upper body.
Pike push-ups tremendously target your shoulders, arms, chest, and back.
It targets the upper body, serratus anterior, triceps, and core, with more focus on shoulders and chest.
Conclusion
Both the calisthenics exercises and weight exercises provide similar physical results, certainly for a short period.
However, the benefit of calisthenics exercises overweight exercises is that calisthenics relies on your body weight and requires no additional equipment.
