Why Everyone Should Do Calisthenics - Including You!

Calisthenics is one of the most primal, effective and ancient training modalities on the planet. Originating from 2 Ancient Greek words: Kallos which means beauty and Tsthenos that means strength, Calisthenics is a combination of bodyweight, gymnastic and skills training variations. As well as Calisthenics being one of the most elite ways to train your entire body, it has a lot of artistic skill and poise involved, producing some amazing feats from incredible athletes making it very similar to gymnastics in many ways.

That sounds advanced and complicated right? Actually it’s really not. Calisthenics can be scaled for any age, size or ability. Also because Calisthenics can be done with no equipment at all, you can train anywhere and everywhere, even if you only have five minutes at your desk during the day!

Moving your body correctly, and safely, starts from the ground up, regardless of level or skill. Establishing good form and joint movement is key, which in turn builds strength, muscle and builds the mind to muscle connection so that your body can adapt to proper muscle engagement. From this considered approach to movement, we can look to build mobility (end range strength) and flexibility (range of motion through the joints and tissues) as well as improving our all-round fitness and endurance. 

To begin with, set up goals for your skill level. Don’t try and shoot the moon straight away. Like anything that is done right, you need time to hone and practice your craft. A master woodworker, for example, would not be able to pick up a lathe and a saw for the first time and create a stunning chair, but could very easily cut off their own fingers!

Start at zero and work your way up. There is nothing wrong with covering and mastering the basics, in fact it is encouraged! Be kind to yourself and learn to roll with the punches. Get to know your own body, and what it’s strengths and weaknesses are. When I’m coaching my clients, I like to separate movements into pieces that work specific movement patterns or parts of the body, mastering each with correct form and then we put everything together later on.

Because Calisthenics works the whole body, it’s supremely effective at giving you the best bang for your buck by building strength in muscle, in the end ranges of joints and the nervous system. You also learn about your body and how it functions and moves. Gaining that body knowledge is key to injury prevention and general health, but also helps you to build functional strength, strengthen your connective tissues and improve general joint and tissue health as well. It doesn’t have to all be about levers, planches and muscle ups and that’s what makes Calisthenics so wonderful! It can just be about body flow, and more yogic principals too! 

And because of the nature of calisthenics, you can always find a way to progress and regress, meaning a fitness or weight loss plateau, or hitting a wall in your training, is normally very rare as there are always new techniques or skills to master, adapt and change.

So whether you’re 17 or 70, Calisthenics is a great way to train and to meet other people too. The community and support around Calisthenics is fantastic so we’d recommend you get out there and explore it!

You can always ask us any questions @gravity fitness on IG and we would love to help you get started with Calisthenics in 2023! Also tag us in your posts to show us how you’re getting on! We love to see it!