The Benefits of Calisthenics
What is calisthenics and what are its benefits?
What Is Calisthenics?
Calisthenics is defined as a form of exercise that uses one's own body weight as resistance. That's it! Yes, there are many forms of calisthenics and various add-on pieces of equipment, but at its core, calisthenics is just bodyweight training.
What are the benefits?
Benefit #1: Habits Habits Habits
The same old story: A routine that fizzles...
Meet Jessica. She has a beautiful workout routine where she goes to the gym every day at 5 p.m. and works out for an hour. She has achieved great results this way for the past 3 months, and just in time for upcoming vacation to Miami! There's just one problem. When she gets to Miami, the Airbnb she's staying at doesn't have a gym! That's okay, Jessica will just start her routine again once she comes home; one week off isn't so bad. Right?
Wrong. For Jessica, it was the end of her routine and the start of a 3-month hiatus from working out.
Calisthenics: A routine that goes wherever you go
Here's where calisthenics truly shines. With the right routine, no matter where you are and as long as you have your body (if you don't, working out might be the least of your problems), you can get your workout in and continue building your habits. There's a reason so many apps focus on streaks! Our brains like routine.
Enhance your habits with minimalist equipment
With the right equipment, you can vastly increase the difficulty and get even more out of your calisthenics routines. Whatever your goals are, picking equipment that travels with you will be the difference in keeping your great workout habits going!
Benefit #2: Functional Strength
Calisthenics workouts can be as hard as you need them to be.
Meet Barbara. She wants to get back into working out, but is intimidated by all the fitness influencers who have colonized her local gym. She's bought a set of dumbells and enjoys using them at home, but after a few weeks, the exercises she's been doing with them don't give her the same burn. Distraught, she adds an $800 cable machine to her shopping cart so that she'll be able to increase the weight that she uses. But the expensive, dusty treadmill in the corner shames her into backing out of the purchase. Perhaps she'll have to go to the gym after all and fight all the influencers for time on the machines.... Right?
WRONG!
Progressions will show you the way
Progressions are the same exercises at varying degrees of difficulty. Let's do an example with the classic pushup.
- Wall Pushup: A standing Pushup against a wall, as easy as it gets
- Leaning Wall Pushup: Just a bit harder than a standard wall pushup
- Floor Knee Pushup: Exactly as it sounds. A pushup on your knees on the floor
- Regular Pushup
- Feet Elevated Pushup
- 1 handed pushup
- Feet elevated 1 handed pushup
7 difficulty levels and you haven't spent a dime! Purchasing a set of rings, gives you another 10-15 progressions for pushups alone.
Fascial Tissue and Balance: Why am I shaking?
Meet Margaret. She's just purchased a set of Tree Rings and is attempting to do a ring pushup for the first time. As she gets into position and lowers her body down, her arms begin to shake, then her core, then her legs, until after her final rep pretty much every muscle in her body is shaking! Embarrassed, Margaret figures she must be doing something wrong and decides to go back to knee pushups, as those don't make her muscles shake.
Balance is King
What Margaret doesn't realize is while she's shaking during her ring pushups, her brain is firing signals to all the little stabilizer muscles throughout her body. At first, the firing is out of sync, thus the shake, but as she continues on, not only will they be in sync, but those muscles themselves will grow and adapt to the new stimuli. After a few weeks, her balance and posture will even improve! There's even a study that quantifies this effect!
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317321468_The_effects_of_a_calisthenics_training_intervention_on_posture_strength_and_body_composition
Benefit #3
Oh the sun.. How I've missed you.
It's no secret, sunshine is good for you (in the right doses). So, why do so many people work out inside? Because gyms have equipment that needs to be protected from the elements! Our bodies, on the other hand, have different needs.
Studies show sunlight, fresh air, and even spending time in the forest all have benefits to human health and happiness. Okay, so where does calisthenics fit in?
Hang your rings from a sturdy, healthy tree and see for yourself. Let the cedar outside your house be your accountability buddy instead of Chad, who sleeps under a bench press and growls at anyone who comes near his favorite squat rack.
What's that? Trees don't require memberships! No more need for a guest pass; bring your friends, your kids, your dog, your pet turtle, and whoever else to work out with you as you bask underneath the sun and the leaves.
Conclusion
There's a lot of information out there on how to be healthy and fit. There's a lot of information thrown at us in general. Hopefully, this helps you cut through the noise. Calisthenics can help you achieve your goals, and it does so for very specific reasons. It can help you build strong habits that can last a lifetime, going wherever you go. Calisthenics can adapt and change as your body changes, giving you the functional strength you need to live well. And lastly, you can do so as you were intended to do: naked and in a forest somewhere. Hope you enjoyed, and please reach out if you have any questions!
