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Cataphract
Cataphract's picture
Make Calisthenics Great Again

Ordinary exercises like pushups and situps can become a bit annoying when you can do more than fifty in a row. Adding more doesn't feel like a accomplishement any more. Somehow it doesn't feel like a healthy activity either.

What do you do to keep your exercises challenging?

I have found that extending the range of motion can drastically increase difficulty. For example take three chairs, one for each hand and one for the feet. Lower your torso below the palms and push up. Repeat. Doing twelve of those is challenging for me. I got that one from Charles Atlas. (Handle with care and some common sense, please.)

Chris R
Chris R's picture

The key thing is to have a system of progression that you work through. You should have an end goal (e.g. a one arm push-up), and multiple steps towards that end goal. Once you have mastered one movement in the progression, you move onto the next one. If you can do over fifty push-ups, you should move on to a harder push-up variatoin (like an archer push-up or even an assisted one arm push-up), and use that movement instead.

The reason why this system works is because it allows you to provide resistance progressively, and also perform the same movement pattern with different parameters (e.g. changing the rep range or time under tension). This makes the exercise very scalable, allowing you to work on different things like strength, power, endurance, or hypertrophy. If you want to learn what progressions to use, I suggest doing some research on this. For example convict conditioning has a good progression system.

Here is an example with push-ups: Assisted one arm push-ups with low reps for strength, archer push-ups with a moderate rep range for hypertrophy, regular push-ups with high reps for endurance, or clapping push-ups for power development. Once the variation you are using feels easy, then you should move onto a harder variation of the push-up to increase the challenge involved, and move closer to your goal (e.g. the one arm push-up).

The idea is that you can use this with pretty much every calisthenics exercise (push-ups, pull-ups, rows, squats, bridges, handstands, leg raises, planks, dips, etc), and you will never be stuck wondering how to make the exercise more challenging, or how to use it to work on a different aspect of fitness.

Hope that helps.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

I’m a great believer in Calisthenics. For someone who travels as much as me, I don’t always have access to my weights. One of the key things that can make bodyweight exercises effective and just the right level of resistance is a suspension trainer (TRX). They take up very little space, take seconds to set up, you can target muscles and motions in a way you can’t with bodyweight alone, and it’s very easy to increase / decrease resistance simply by moving your feet or lengthening the straps. The range of motion is also increased.

All the best,

Iain

Cataphract
Cataphract's picture

Progression to one arm pushups was surprisingly easy. It took me less than two weeks of a systematic approach.
I started by lowering myself on one arm without crash landing. Then I added halts on the way down. From there pushing up once was no big step any more. Then followed two repetitions and so on.

Just found out that the chair pushup can be made arbitrarily harder by placing the chairs further apart.

TRX looks like a nice thing to have, but I know myself. It will irritate me lying around, end up in a box with all the other training stuff, not to be seen again until next summer. That's why calisthenics, qi gong etc. are so great. They subvert my laziness.

Chris R
Chris R's picture

If you don't like equipment lying around this might not be suitable either, but have you considered using gymnastics rings to train calisthenics? Lots of very useful as well as more challenging things you can do on those. I've seen people develop insane upper body strength and mobility by using rings. Seems similar to trx but they are not the same thing; rings have their own advantages.

Cataphract
Cataphract's picture

Yeah, I'd like to install rings. But that will necessitate some sort of cage construction. I've looked into the cross fit diy gym recommendations. I have plans. ;) But in a shorter time frame, doing sit ups on a gymnastics ball hits the abs hard, again by extension of range. If you have no ball rolling around, a chair and a big cushion will do.

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Cataphract wrote:
... doing sit ups on a gymnastics ball hits the abs hard, again by extension of range. If you have no ball rolling around, a chair and a big cushion will do.

They are good bits of kit too … and I have a couple due to the fact they are helpful during pregnancy (daughter born last year) in relieving backache etc.

These simple bits of kit are definably useful to make bodyweight exercises more fun and challenging.   

All the best,

Iain