#1 What is Calisthenics? Everything You Need To Understand About Street Workout & Calisthenics
- Punit Shah
- Nov 16, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 9, 2020
While the sport is spreading like fire, people are coming across the term calisthenics quite often in India. Fitness influencers are talking about it on Instagram, videos of athletes are getting viral & the term is spiked often in the reality show MTV Roadies. But what exactly is calisthenics & what is street workout? Are they same? How can I start? Let's Understand.
What is Calisthenics? What Can Be Achieved With It?
Calisthenics or also known as Street Workout is a popular European fitness sport. Yes, calisthenics & street workout are both the same, it indicates the same style of training. Calisthenics is very similar to gymnastics yet quite unique. It involves training with your own body-weight for developing all-round fitness. Strength, control, balance, flexibility, muscle endurance, cardio-endurance...calisthenics & body-weight training can simply deliver it all. This means calisthenics is a medium through which you can achieve all your fitness goals without the gyms, machines, or equipment. Calisthenics or often called as street-workout is probably the best method for building muscle mass, fat loss, improving body control & building massive strength.
How Is It Practiced?
Calisthenics includes all types of bodyweight exercises that simply use the resistance of your own body to make you stronger. Exercises such as pull-ups, pushups, burpees, jumping jacks and combination all other body-weight movements together can be used to progress in street workout.
What Do I Need To Get Started?
Other than requiring consistent efforts for pushing yourself, calisthenics requires minimal equipment. A firm pull-up bar and a set of double bar dips will do the job for starting out. A few add-ons like parallettes, support bands, chalk powder, can be of additional help but these are totally optional. You can start with something to sturdy that can support you to hang and parallel bars to perform dips & other variations.
How To Get Started?
Calisthenics is based on 5 elements that cover all the muscles of your body. The most important movements that represent themselves as the fundamentals of calisthenics are:
Pull-Ups & variants.
Pushups & variants
Dip & Variants
Core Workouts
Squat & Variants
If you want to learn calisthenics then these 5 elements become essential to start with & master. So scheduling your workout around these elements & training to master them should be your goal.
I Am A Complete Beginner...I Have No Fitness Background, Can I Still Learn Calisthenics?
The beauty of calisthenics is that it is fit for everyone. No matter how de-conditioned your body is right now, you can start with calisthenics today. The best part about calisthenics is that it covers the whole spectrum of intensity. Street-Workout includes the most basic variants of movements that can indeed be practiced by every individual and it also includes movements that require unusual strength and endless practice to master. Thus the intensity of your workouts can completely be altered and you can progress at your own pace.
If made an attempt to list the most intense forms of exercise, calisthenics can undoubtedly be seen at the top.
How About Gender? Does It Matter?
Not at all, I am super proud to say that some of the women athletes of India have set the standards super high. These women have re-defined fitness for ever. You really need to check them out! Some of them are Pearl Montiero ( can do muscleups), Hema (CB Girl) (can hold a front lever), Anupama Shivacharya. There are no limits in calisthenics, these super women are simply amazing!
I Think I Have Passed My Age Of Learning Calisthenics!
There is no such thing as an ideal age factor when it comes to learning & progressing in calisthenics but it is always an advantage to start at an early age. While excluding all the exceptions and great willed humans, anyone from age 8 to 50 can start with calisthenics. Again, there are no limitations at all, as long as your body supports you, any age is fine to start with. We at Pure Calisthenics focus more on spreading awareness about the sport among the youths. It is because we have known that calisthenics can be a game-changer and the youth being the future of India, it will work wonders for their physical & mental health.
Calisthenics is for you, me & everyone. It is efficient, fast & life-changing. Calisthenics is a diverse sport. There is much more to calisthenics that you can ever imagine. Learn more about the types of calisthenics athletes & sub-divisions of calisthenics in the next post.
Pure Calisthenics encourages you to start your fitness with us & we would love to lend a helping hand to design your routines for you. You can connect with us here.
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