How to Incorporate Calisthenics into Your Workout Routine for Maximum Results

When most gym-goers and weightlifters hear the term calisthenics, they automatically think of a sub-par form of training that is only relegated to new trainees and people that do not have gyms in their nearby vicinity. However, this just should not be the case.

Incorporating calisthenics into your routine can help you increase muscle growth, boost strength, improve flexibility, and hone in on your ideal body, and this makes calisthenics an essential tool for almost anyone who likes to work out. Here’s how you can incorporate calisthenics into your workout routine for maximum results.

Understanding Your Current Workout Routine

The first step to incorporating calisthenics into your workout routine is to understand your current workout routine. If you don’t fully understand what your aim is for working out as well as what your workout routine is designed to do, it will be hard to bring in new exercises and optimise your results.

It’s also worth noting that understanding your workout routine is essential for spotting weaknesses or areas where you can improve, as you will not be able to properly decipher which exercises are optimal.

If you have already worked out for any reasonable length of time, you should likely have a good understanding of what your fitness goals are as well as how each of the exercises you perform helps you achieve your desired results.

However, if not, we will give you a few key insights that will help you discover what you want to get from working out and how different exercises/routines can accomplish different goals.

Identify Your Fitness Goals

To identify your fitness goals, you have to think about why you work out.

Do you work out to get stronger, improve your body, or improve your overall health? Well, each of these goals requires different training techniques, and knowing what you want can allow you to optimise your training.

For example, those looking to build their ideal body should be mainly focusing on movements that build muscle around their whole body to create a well-balanced and muscular physique, while those looking to build pure strength would be better off just focusing on a few key movements and doing repetitions in the 1-5 rep range.

Knowing what your aims are with training is essential when it comes to optimization, and this is the first thing you need to do if you are looking to optimise your training with calisthenics.

Evaluate Your Current Workout Routine

Once you know why you train, you can evaluate your current workout routine to see if it can satisfy all of your requirements.

The main aspects you may want to change depending on your goals are exercise selection, volume, and intensity.

To give an example, people who are looking to build an awe-inspiring physique would not be too well-suited to a routine consisting of heavy bench press for 2 repetitions at 90% 1RM (one rep max). Instead, it would be much more efficient to do weighted push-ups for 10-12 repetitions or to alter your current bench press regime to include more volume.

The optimal way to work out for you will vary drastically depending on your fitness goals, and without knowing your specific goals, it is incredibly difficult to give you a compressive answer to how to train to achieve certain goals.

However, to give you some semblance of an idea; for pure strength, you will want to focus on a couple of key exercises that you want to get stronger with and stay in the 1-5 rep range while using relatively heavy weight.

For bodybuilding/aesthetics, you will want to perform a variety of exercises that hits muscles all over your body to create a well-balanced and appealing physique while sticking in the rep range of 8-12.

For general health and fitness, you can do whatever you find fun as long as you challenge yourself and are happy with the results you see.

In all cases, you will want to implement progressive overload (increasing reps or weight over time as you get stronger) to ensure that you efficiently make progress.

Benefits of Calisthenics

As you may expect by the existence of this article, there are a plethora of benefits to calisthenics that make it pretty enticing to the average weightlifter.

Here, we will take a look at a few of the most significant.

Increased Strength and Flexibility

One of the main benefits of calisthenics is the strength and flexibility that many exercises provide. Some calisthenics exercises, such as the push or dip, are known for being some of the best muscle/strength-building exercises in the world, and incorporating them into your routine is going to be highly advantageous if you want to hit multiple muscle groups at once.

On top of this, many calisthenics exercises require some sort of flexibility to perform, making them incredibly effective at improving flexibility and strengthening supporting muscles. This is especially the case for more advanced movements.

The benefits that calisthenics exercises can give in terms of strength and flexibility are incredibly potent, and if you want to increase your strength, build muscle, and become more flexible, then including them in your routine is a must.

Improved Cardiovascular Health

Another important benefit of calisthenics is improved cardiovascular health. Many calisthenics exercises can be pretty strenuous to perform, making them excellent vessels to get the blood pumping and improve your overall health.

Of course, this same point can be made about any exercise, but calisthenics exercises in specific usually do a much better job at achieving this goal since they incorporate a wide range of muscles and require a lot of effort to perform.

There are numerous reasons why having good cardiovascular health is important, many of which you likely already know. From improving athletic performance to reducing the chance of getting serious diseases, having good cardiovascular health is incredibly beneficial, and it should be a priority for everyone.

Convenience and Accessibility

Lastly, calisthenics exercises are incredibly convenient to perform and accessible to almost anyone. Not only do calisthenics exercises require virtually no equipment, but they are also tailorable to an individual’s wants and needs.

Most calisthenics exercises have a plethora of variations that can be utilised for people who are unable to perform certain movements, and this makes them a great choice for people at all strength levels.

On top of this, calisthenics exercises can even be a great choice for people with certain disabilities. Many calisthenics exercises can be modified to include or not include certain body parts and limbs, making them much more adaptable than traditional exercises.

That all goes without mentioning the fact that the vast majority of calisthenics exercises can be performed anywhere. You do not need to live near a calisthenics gym or park to partake in this style of training – even your back garden will do.

When you factor in that calisthenics is inexpensive, easily accessible, and tailorable to the individual, it becomes evident why this form of training is appealing to more and more people around the globe. There are no barriers to entry, and for the package that calisthenics brings, it just offers so much for so little.

Incorporating Calisthenics into Your Routine

Now that we have gone over why including calisthenics in your workout routine can be so beneficial, we can move on to taking a look at how the actual process works. If you are already somewhat experienced in the fitness world, then incorporating calistheincs into your routine will be relatively easy.

It could take you a matter of minutes to incorporate some calisthenics exercises into your routine by redesigning your plan to include a couple of key exercises, and this is yet another advantage of calisthenics. It’s just so convenient and easy to do.

However, there are still a few tips that could help you along the way. Here are a few of the most notable.

Start slow and Build up Intensity

One of the most common mistakes people make when trying to incorporate new exercises into their routine is jumping right into the thick of it and taking on more than they can handle.

It can be incredibly enticing to just incorporate a couple of the most difficult calisthenics moves into your routine as if you have been at it for years, but in the overwhelming majority of cases, this just isn’t going to work.

Some calisthenics exercises require a ton of specified strength and flexibility, so even if you consider yourself to be strong and up for the task, it is unlikely that you are going to be able to perform high-level calisthenics exercises with no experience.

This is why it is so important to start slow and build up the intensity. Start with simple exercises like push-ups, dips, pull-ups, or planks, and then move on to more difficult variations and exercises once you have accumulated some experience.

This will allow you to slowly ween yourself into calisthenics and reduce the chances of you scrapping the idea altogether out of frustration because you are unable to perform certain exercises with good form.

You should always start slow when trying to incorporate calisthenics into your routine. So, get out there, reduce your expectations, and acquire the strength and experience to perform more difficult variations and routines in the future.

Incorporate Bodyweight Exercises into Your Existing Routine

If you have already crafted a routine that is perfect for you and accomplishes all your goals, there would be very little sense in suddenly switching to a calisthenics routine that replaces your current workout routine entirely. This would be counter-intuitive.

Instead, you would be much better off simply introducing a few calisthenics exercises into your existing routine. This will allow you to reap the benefits of your current routine without having to drastically switch things up, while still allowing you to incorporate a few calisthenics movements.

Of course, you don’t just want to pick a few bodyweight exercises at random and just stick them on at the end of your workout. You will want to pick exercises that further your goals and fit in with your current program, allowing you to get the best of both worlds.

For example, if you feel like your chest is lacking and your current routine does very little to address this issue, you may want to introduce some push-ups into your routine. Alternatively, if you feel like your back is dragging you down, you may want to introduce pull-ups.

You will want to put a considerable amount of thought into the exercises you choose and ensure that they are not just added to your routine needlessly if you want to see a noticeable benefit from introducing calisthenic exercises into your workouts. If you do this, you can address issues in your current routine without hindering the effectiveness of your program.

Alternate Between Calisthenics and Weight Training

After introducing a couple of different calisthenics exercises into your routine, you may find yourself longing for more. Instead of just abolishing your current weight training regime altogether, it could be a good idea to alternate between your current weight training routine and a calisthenics routine.

Not only will this allow you to switch up your training and make it more fun, but it can help you bust past plateaus. You see, after training for a while, our bodies begin to get used to the exercises we perform which reduces the effectiveness of any training regimen we may be following.

By altering your training from time to time, you can ensure that your body is unable to get used to the stimulus you are providing it with, meaning you will be able to maximise muscle and strength gains.

This same effect can also be achieved by performing different variations for different exercises – there is nothing particularly special about calisthenics that makes it produce more stimulus than other types of training.

However, calisthenics can be a great way to maximise your progress in an easy and fun way, and alternating between a weight training routine and a calisthenics routine can be enormously beneficial if you want to optimise how you train.

Tips for maximizing results with Calisthenics

As is the case with any exercise routine/type, there are a couple of important variables you need to get in control of if you want to maximize your results with calisthenics.

For the sake of simplicity, we are going to assume that you already have a pretty good understanding of how important diet and sleep are when it comes to building muscle and strength, so these factors are not something that we are going to touch upon in-depth.

As a general rule of thumb, if you want to build muscle and strength, then you will want to eat in a caloric surplus and eat an adequate amount of protein, and if your primary goal is to lose excess fat, then you want to be in a caloric deficit.

Sleep and adequate rest in between training session is also of paramount importance no matter what your goal may be, as this is what allows the muscle/strength-building process to take place and also ensures your metabolism is functioning correctly for weight loss.

Apart from these variables, there are a couple more that we want to showcase to make sure you can maximise your results when incorporating calisthenics into your workout routine.

Proper form and Technique are Essential

First things first, you are not going to get anywhere without proper form and technique. You should prioritise perfecting the technique of any calisthenics exercises you perform to maximise their effectiveness and reduce the chances of getting injured.

Listen; we get it. It can be all too tempting to just jump straight into a difficult calisthenics exercise to impress your friends or make you feel stronger. You might even consider using poor form on normal exercises just to get in more reps. However, despite its enticing nature, you should never sacrifice good form and technique to perform difficult exercises or do more reps.

Not only will training with poor form and technique lead to less muscle and strength gains due to your muscles being targeted ineffectively, but you are also increasing the risk of becoming injured exponentially.

If you want to maximise gains, stay injury free, and participate in calisthenics for years to come, you need to put tremendous importance on form and technique. If you don’t, you will regret it.

Increase Intensity and Variety

As we briefly touched upon before, our bodies have a plethora of systems in place that make us adapt to any given stimulus over a long enough period. Eventually, there may even come to a point when you struggle to increase the number of reps you can do on an exercise by one if you keep everything the same.

This is why manipulating exercise intensity and variety is essential if you want to make progress in a timely and efficient manner. What do we mean by exercise intensity and variety? Well, it’s simple.

Exercise intensity simply means performing exercise variations that are more challenging over time, leading to more stimulus and fewer adaptations in your body. Exercise variety simply means performing different exercises to optimise muscle and strength growth. It can also mean changing the number of reps you do on a certain exercise.

In practice, this could be something as simple as doing wide push-ups instead of regular push-ups one day a week, or you could do weighted pull-ups for eight reps instead of regular pull-ups for fifteen.

Increasing exercise variety and intensity will help you make progress much more quickly than if you decided to just stick to the same exercises and keep the intensity the same, and in the long term, your results will be far superior.

Incorporate Progressive Overload

Last but not least, we have progressive overload. Progressive overload should be a concept that you are more than familiar with if you have been weightlifting for a long time – it is an essential requirement to build strength and muscle.

Progressive overload simply means increasing the amount of weight or the number of reps you can perform over time. As you train, you will gradually get stronger, allowing you to perform extra reps or up the weight for the reps you are already doing.

Taking advantage of these increases in strength is essential if you want to progress, and if you decide to keep everything the same, you will not make any progress.

This same concept applies to calisthenics. You should always be trying to increase the number of reps you can perform, perform new and more difficult exercise variations, or increase the amount of resistance you use when training if you want to make good progress while working out.

The importance of this point cannot be stated enough – without progressive overload, you will quite literally be wasting your time. Progressive overload is the key to gaining muscle and strength.

Conclusion

We hope this article will be of some use to you. Calisthenics is highly-underrated when it comes to its muscle and strength-building properties, leading many gym-goers to miss out on the various benefits it can bring. This becomes even more so the case when you factor in the fact that incorporating calisthenics into a workout routine can be incredibly easy – it’s possible for anyone.

Calisthenic exercises can be just as effective as regular weighted exercises when done effectively, even more so in the right conditions. If you follow the tips in this article, you will be able to get access to all of the benefits that calisthenics can give without switching your entire routine up.

Have fun, and we will see you next time.