A Beginners Guide To The Galax......I Mean, Training Methods (Part 1 Calisthenics)

Rosa Salvatierra
Nov 6, 2017
3 min read

So you are new and you want to train. You hopped onto google and googled “best training method/program.” You are rewarded with roughly 5 million training plans and most of them are even free! You then fall prey to analysis paralysis. You have no idea where to start and do not know enough to sift through all the bullshit that you just read, what is a poor young soul to do? Read this series!

In the following series I will list out and give brief explanations of the most tried and true methods for becoming a badass.

Part 1 Calisthenics

Pull-ups...they work

Calisthenics is defined as “gymnastic exercises designed to develop physical health and vigor, usually performed with little or no special apparatus.” AKA body-weight training. Appealing to most because it requires little to no equipment and there are a ton of those “OMG BODY TRANSFORMATION” videos on YouTube. You can break calisthenics down into two schools of thought. Progressive calisthenics and high volume calisthenics.

Progressive calisthenics focuses on progressing towards increasingly difficult movements. So for example you might start with your basic push-up, then progress towards an archer push-up, with the end goal being a full one arm push-up. This training style basically tries to force your body to grow by decreasing your leverages with each progression of a movement. If your talking about progressive calisthenics eventually someone will bring up Convict Conditioning. It is considered to be the holy bible when it comes to progressive calisthenics. The book lays out how to progress each of the basic movements toward some predetermined “most difficult” movement.

In my personal opinion this style of training is EXTREMELY boring. Each workout contains a very few number of sets, granted they are difficult sets however I always felt like I did not do enough once I was done. On top of that there seemed to me to be a very large potential for stalling out. For example some of the progressions would take a RIDICULOUS amount of time to get good enough at in order to graduate to the next one i.e. uneven pull-ups to ½ 1 arm pull-ups to a full 1 arm pull-up. That can be very discouraging and is more than likely to make you want to change training plans once you hit a wall. However for those of you interested the best resource I know on progressive calisthenics is Red Delta Project. He has been using it for a while with great results and his whole channel is just overall immensely helpful.

High volume calisthenics focuses almost exclusively on the most basic movements: Push-Up, Pull-Up, Dip, Squat/Lunge, Chin-Up, Handstand Push-Up, and the almighty Muscle-Up. Once you have that down the name is self explanatory you just perform the basic movements for STUPIDLY high reps and sets, and it is GLORIOUS! This training style forces your body to adapt by blasting it with more volume than Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Bar-Barians known for insanely high volume calisthenics training

This training style seems to be more popular and is also, in my opinon WAYYYYYYY more fun. There are so many different variations you can do and it ultimately comes down to just randomly testing out your skills whenever you feel like it is time. I am partial to this method because it focuses almost exclusively on the basics. You build your base as wide as you can and then just mess around on the bars or the floor until you can achieve some of the more difficult movements. The most common starter program you will here about when it comes to this style of training is Hannibal's "Around the World" program. It is a solid starter routine and you can always scale down the difficulty of the movements if you can not yet perform full pull-ups or push-ups.

Now as this series continues it is VERY IMPORTANT that you keep this golden rule in mind. Take what works discard the rest. The fitness industry would have you think that you have to fall perfectly into one training camp. So you are a bodybuilder and you only use weights, or you are a calisthenics athlete and you wouldn't even TOUCH a weight to save your own mother. THIS IS WRONG! Always remember it is usually wise to take the best parts of each training method and use whatever works for you! If you do not yet know what works best for you TRY EVERYTHING, but make sure you give it a fair shot. Give it at least 8 weeks before you move on to something new. So you don't have to choose between high volume or progressive calisthenics I say...............................................................................................................