The Best At Home Workout Book For Calisthenics
If someone told you that gym and weights went really required what would be your response to them?
Paradigm changes don’t always have to be traumatic
Sometimes, they help you to free yourself of chains that you had been carrying around for years. You’ve ditched your weighted clothing and now you can move about freely.
One of the reasons I find exercise valuable is because it gives you a sense of control as well as accomplishment. Isn’t that what all of us want? Knowing that if we have enough tools at our disposal we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps? At-home workouts or “non-apparatus training” as the old-timers called it will give us this sense of control same as working out in the gym but with a few caveats…
You won’t be reliant on a gym that has a poorly running payment system.
You won't be reliant on machines or equipment that’s always taken
You won't have to drive through the traffic dodging Nissan Altima and Tesla drivers to gain this sense of control
You can gain strength
You can gain muscle
You can strengthen your ligaments
Improve your mobility
And keep this in old age…
It’s in your hands.
This book opened my eyes to the possibilities of training with just my body weight.
Gravity
Your muscles and nervous system can’t tell whether you’re lifting a weight or your own body. All they know is resistance. Apply enough resistance, and you can add strength and muscle over time.
With body weight, it’s a question of, “How can I make this more difficult?” This book provides steps for almost every bodyweight movement and starts off each of these sections with titles that grab your attention.
“Armor Plated Pecs And Steel Triceps” Push-ups
“Elevator Cable Thighs” Squats
“Barn Door Back and Major Guns” Pull
How It’s Framed
There are several approaches to using bodyweight exercises some of which you already have and some you’ll find online.
Calisthenics movements as a warm-up
Calisthenics movements for conditioning
Calisthenics movements for Muscle Mass
Calisthenics movements for strength and a high bodyweight-to-strength ratio.
This book mainly comprises the last two which attracted the attention of my 20-year-old self. But this book or progressive calisthenics in general is great for anyone. It provides the tools and mindset to treat your own body as a gym. Unless given a specific reason most sets in this book don’t go above three and reps are mostly in the double digits. Starting off on a movement you will build up in
proficiency,
In strength not only in muscle activation but tendons as well,
and in some muscle size.
Once you reach a certain number you move on to the next step which will be a more difficult movement.
Later, when I was studying for my personal trainer certification the book I had for study talked about the Optimal Performance Training (OPT) Model. It’s a level-up program where when you get a new client you first focus on their Stabilization/Endurance, then focus on their Strength Endurance, Muscular Development, Maximal Strength, and then Power.
I wasn’t really impressed by this model since I had already been doing this with my progressive calisthenics over the past 10 years. If someone is utilizing progressive calisthenics in this manner this stuff will be trained automatically as you start reaching the higher levels of body weight movement. The text in my book kept using the buzzwords, “Science” or “Backed by Scientific Research” multiple times on the same, 8 X 11 sheet which caused me to be somewhat cynical.
With calisthenics, you're treating your body as a unit. Not training different parts in isolation. It's all connected. And it won't take more than half an hour a day.
The “Big Six” Progressions
This has gotten some flak for some of its progressions although despite this it’s still a decent book. For this book, any chart you see on progressing in your calisthenics(including my own) movements remember that, each person is different. We all have different experiences, injuries, and work schedules. This plays into how fast we will progress with certain movements or how some may cause joint pain in different areas than others. The author Paul Wade has stated elsewhere to treat the Big Six steps not as an exact template.
Reading vs Doing
A great deal of information can be gained through reading. But what truly matters is how that information is utilized in life. This is where wisdom is gained. With this wisdom not only will you be able to help yourself but you can help others. This is part of the reason why I choose to communicate all this through my brand. I enjoy the time in which I get to teach and this is one of my outlets.
Frequency
This book also provides some frequency templates for workouts you can do. You can do a movement each day, two different movements every other day, etc. For beginners doing a movement every day can work in the beginning but after a while more consolidated approach will be required. By consolidated I mean adding more than one movement for example doing squats, push-ups, and ab work on the same day. Doing one movement on a certain day of the week will mean that there will be 7 days until you train that movement again. For some movements which require a good deal of coordination, this may be too much time and your progress will wane. Treat strength as a skill. Therefore, I believe some type of consolidated or full-body approach will be best for all trainee levels.
History
The history portion is mainly at the beginning of the book and sprinkled throughout the rest. What can be gained from this history lesson is that advanced calisthenics exercises were part of the training tool bag of many of the old-time strongmen/physical culturists as well as possibly utilized in older times.
Overall, it’s a good book.
Thank you for making it to the end and if you have any questions let me know.