Calisthenics, also known as street workout, is a rather recent sport that focuses on compound movements using the own body weight. It will teach you amazing skills while building solid strength and improving your body control at the same time. Many calisthenics movements, like the front lever and the planche, have been taken over from gymnastics, whereas others were created freely by street workout groups. It is important to know that there is a lot of technique and training behind moves like the front lever, even though on first glance they often don’t look that hard. Positioning the limbs at the correct angle and knowing in which way the muscles need to be contracted, is key to making progress in calisthenics. That’s why you should always put emphasis on good form and controlled movements.

Unlike in the gym, you can’t simply add more weight to make exercises more difficult. Instead, calisthenics uses variations of exercises that adjust the amount of body weight that needs to be moved. If you want to learn skills, like the front lever, there are a bunch of such exercises, called progressions that increase the difficulty step by step. Going through these progressions step by step will help you to build enough strength to eventually achieve the skill. More information about the specific progressions and advice on how to train them best can be found in the respective articles about the handstand, the human flag, and the front lever!

Furthermore, there are a few principles that can be used to adjust the difficulty of basic bodyweight exercises like the pull-up. To make the pull-up easier, you attach a resistance band, that carries part of your body weight, to the bar. If you can easily do more than 15 pull-ups, it is time to increase the difficulty. Firstly, it is possible to add additional weight by wearing a weight vest. Another option is explosive repetitions that require you to do the pull-up as high and as fast as possible. For very advanced athletes, there is even the possibility of doing one-arm pull-ups. These principles of adding weight, performing explosive repetitions, and performing a one-arm movement can be applied to almost all body weight exercises.

To start training calisthenics, you need no other equipment than a bar, a bench, and a wall. These can be found in any conventional gym, but it’s also possible to train at home if you want to save money. Just purchase a pull-up bar for the wall or the door frame and you are ready to start. However, personally, I prefer training outside in a calisthenics park or on a playground since there you often meet other people to train with.
Moreover, purchasing some additional equipment can be helpful to shape your training more efficiently as you advance. A weight vest or a weight belt permits you to add weight while performing calisthenics exercises which creates more progressive overload. Alternatively, you can fill a regular backpack with water bottles even though the weight isn’t distributed optimally with this option. Resistance bands can both serve to decrease and increase the difficulty of an exercise depending on how they are used. They are very affordable and available in various levels of resistance, which is why I would definitely recommend them for any fitness level. Chalk or liquid chalk is very useful to prevent slipping from the bar while doing any type of calisthenics exercise.

The fascination for the calisthenics sport can best be transferred by the best calisthenics athletes in the world. So I would highly recommend you to watch some videos of Andrea Larosa, Chris Heria, and Osvaldo Lugones to see what the human body is capable of. However, reaching that level requires both, gifted genetics and also a lot of dedication to training hard. Hopefully, that will give you some motivation for your own training. Have fun learning and progressing! If you want to learn more about the specific skills, check the other articles in the calisthenics section.