Calisthenics, also known as body weight exercises, are a strength training technique which exclusively uses the resistance of the body’s weight to develop strength. Calisthenics have been around for a while and while it may seem more macho to pump massive and probably more impressive looking weights in the gym, calisthenics will help build your endurance, increase strength, burn fat and get you looking lean. Read on to find out more about how calisthenics could help you achieve your fitness goals.
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Can be done anywhere
The first and perhaps, most obvious benefits of doing calisthenics, is the fact that they can be done practically anywhere and at any time; you don’t need a gym membership to develop impressive, looking lean muscles. This could be an important factor for people who simply don’t have the time to head over to the gym after work every day, or for people who might have the time but would really rather not spend that much time around sweaty people. Calisthenics offer a perfect solution.
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Multiple Muscle Activation
Isometric calisthenics exercises, such as wall squats, will focus specifically on one targeted muscle but most other types of calisthenics exercises will usually target multiple muscles and joints at the same time, which means you could be developing strength in multiple muscles at the same time. Also, individual muscles have higher strength gains when multiple major muscles and joints are activated simultaneously. An example of a great calisthenics exercise is push-ups: with push-ups you can target multiple muscles in your upper body and core at the same time.
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Better coordination
The body performs much better when multiple parts combine efficiently to execute physical tasks. For example, bending down to lift a heavy object requires much more than just strong arms; strong quadricep, calf, back and core muscles will play an immense part in making work easier.
Calisthenics not only strengthen various muscles and joints simultaneously but also teach these muscles and joints how to work together to produce better results.
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Better Agility
Calisthenics usually requires muscles to do a significant amount of stretching which helps to improve flexibility and agility unlike most free weight exercises (exercises that artificial weights) which actually have the potential to decrease flexibility.
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Develop Endurance
Even though some calisthenics are very good strength building exercises (such as pull-ups and sit-ups) when done at a high enough intensity and frequency, calisthenics can significantly help improve endurance.
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Burn Fat
The fact is, calisthenics aren’t better than cardio for fat loss, but you can perform a calisthenics exercise in such a way that it has an element of cardio to it. To do this, you could do circuit training or high-intensity interval training or even combine both, using only calisthenics exercises.
A very basic calisthenics circuit workout would go like this:
10 pushups- 15 squats-15 sit-ups-30 seconds rest and repeat.
Conclusion
Even if you prefer free-weight training (and there’s nothing wrong with this) you should try to work in some calisthenics into your workout routine such that you can gain the maximum fitness gains from training.
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