THE ULTIMATE GUIDE To Calisthenics & GYMNASTICS FOR BEGINNERS.

Everything you need to know about Calisthenics and Gymnastic for beginners. Find out more about common mistake, different paths of success and some of the philosophy.

In my continuing quest of pursing fitness, I came to the conclusion that fitness wasn’t about pursuing extremes but above averages as a whole. As well as that it must have some sort of practicality to your life. I understood, that the overweight powerlifter although incredibly strong they are very limited with their bodyweight movement on a daily basis. The same people that could deadlift x3 over their Bodyweight couldn’t comfortably do basic movement like the pull up and the dips. On the other hand I also know that a lightweight that couldn’t exert any force on an external object was also considered very strong for being able to achieve bodyweight movement with ease.

I can tell you now, there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to move your body in a certain way and not being able to. Weight training has a very simple approach and easy answer for that. If a 50kg deadlift is too hard just take off a bit of weights and try again later right? Unfortunately this doesn’t apply to bodyweight practices. Hence why the entry level is so high. You need extensive knowledge to understand a movement, your limitations and how to scale a path towards progression. This also created a sort of auto self-selection in the sport. Where a lot more lighter, smaller people are drawn to it compared to bigger heavier people. It is also for that reason that I think larger people are better coaches, simply because unlike the lighter people, they had to learn all the step and variation before being able to accomplish a certain movement.

So cali is confusing and very accessible to some but not others. Let’s dive into how to get started in the best and easiest way!

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The origins

The word “calisthenics” comes from the Greek words kallos (meaning beauty) and sthenos (meaning strength), combining to mean “beautiful strength.” — In ancient Greece, gymnazein (meaning “to exercise naked”) referred to various forms of athletic training, including wrestling and exercises on apparatuses.

The Greeks used calisthenics to train soldiers and athletes. Greek warriors, including the Spartans, practiced bodyweight exercises to stay in peak physical condition for combat. Back then Cali was very far from the modern Instagramy Cali that we know of today. Perhaps it was very much like the very start of strength and conditioning, they practiced running, body weights movement like push ups and pull ups as well as lifting rocks!

In recent years, street workout and modern calisthenics movements have blurred the lines between gymnastics and calisthenics, especially in terms of advanced movements like muscle-ups, planche, and human flags. These movements are often rooted in gymnastics but are now part of advanced calisthenics training.

Gymnastics: is a competitive sport involving highly technical routines, often performed on apparatuses like rings, parallel bars, and the pommel horse. It’s more about agility, balance, and precision.The focus is on form, technique, and performance. Whereas you can see similar movement shared such as the muscle-ups and planches, in gymnastics they are part often part of a larger routine (series of movement) that includes flips, twists, and artistic dancing.

Calisthenics: is about building functional strength, control, and endurance using bodyweight. It’s focused on exercises you can do anywhere, using minimal or no equipment.

Muscle-ups and similar movements are used more as a measure of raw strength and endurance, often done in repetitions for strength building.

How to start?

The common mistake is to pick a really cool looking advance skill and attempt to drill it in over and over again. With a complete disregard for the fundamentals, each sport has some, and here they are for Cali:

1. Create full body strength, through the basic compound lift. In upper body pushing pattern that would look like, push ups, dips, pike push ups and even handstand hold. Upper body pulling would include pull ups, rows and all variations such as hangs and scap pulls. Finally the most often overlooked is core strength, strict toe to bar, L-sit dragon-flags and loads of hollow holds.

2. Learn the false grip, I can’t stress enough how important this is! It will be slightly uncomfortable, it will take time, but if you’re not willing to put time and effort into this, honestly just go do something else. A very easy way to get better at the false grip is practicing the false grip row. Feel free to stand as high as you want to make it easier. The secret here is in frequency over intensity, your wrist, elbow tendon and ligament are going to be very foreign it so its very important to take you time and make you’re giving your body the right dosage with the right recovery so you can get stronger. 3x8-12 false grip ring row 3x a week is a good place to start. Eventually lower yourself towards the ground before attempting the false grip on pull ups.

3. Address your weaknesses, some things will limit you and you have to identify them quick. For me for example, I have a limitation with my overhead mobility limiting my movement options in handstand and other overhead skills. Working on this will open the door too soo much more freedom and benefits. I’m also not very strong in end ranges when it comes to chest and biceps. That will limit front rolls on rings but also put me at risk if I do miss a rep in movement like ring muscle ups, doing stuff like pelican dip or pelican curls is great conditioning for that. It’s very easy to ignore those limitations and lean into more compensatory patterns, but in reality they’re huge low hangin fruits in addressing those head on!

ThE PHILOSOPHY

Ultimately, just like you the practice is constantly evolving. It can be and mean whatever you want it to be. Your goal could be as easy a getting your first push up or your first muscle up or both :)

No matter your fitness level there’s something that you can do. You’re already taking a huge step right now learning. That alone, knowledge will bring soo much more confidence into your journey.

If this sparked some desire to start Calisthenics, don't hesitate to ask for more help and advice. I provide personal training in Hackney Wick and also online coaching globally. I've also got plenty of Cali and gymnastic programs for all levels, from beginners to advanced.