Calisthenics for Beginners | In Depth Step-by-Step Guide to Building Strength and Muscle

hey guys it's Leo here and I just want to start this video by saying how thankful I am of all the support you guys have been giving me and it's kind of crazy to see how far I've grow about posting much of anything on YouTube and I just want to use this video to address one of the most high requested topics which I've been getting my comments which is how to start calisthenics as a complete beginning and for those of you are new to this calisthenics is a form of Fitness where you're using your body

weight as resistance and there are four main categories of calisthenics which is weighted endurance static and freestyle calisthenics and they're each unique in their own ways do not limit to one pathway or the other however regardless of whichever pathway you want to take I find that is essential for you to build up a strong foundational base before pursuing those cool and advanced skills I know this may sound like a bummer to some but trust me skipping these stuffs may lead to injury or even stagnated progression which may discourage you from training completely now that you

know why training the basics is important let's go over to four main movements which make up all of Cal stomachs so first we have vertical pushing and vertical pulling which means you're pushing and pulling while your body is vertical or near vertical to the ground for example a skill such as a handstand push-up would be considered a vertical pushing skill while something like the one arm pullup would consider vertical pulling skill on the flip side we also have horizontal pushing and horizontal pulling which means you're pushing and pulling or your body is horizontal or near

horizontal in relation to the floor for example something like a PL should be a horizontal pushing skill while front lever will be a horizontal pulling skill in order to gain complete and balance Str thought training calics is important to implement all four of these movements into your routine and I'll also be providing you essential exercise from each of these categories later in the video a lot of information about how to program their own routine and progress in calisthenics as these topics going to be quite a lot to fit into one video I've tried my best

to Summarize each of them to help you guys get started off on the right foot and if you guys want I can also post more in dep videos about each of these Topics in the future by the end of this video you should have a basic Cal template to build upon a lot of knowledge on how to personalize it to your current strength here I have a list of all the content which will be covered in this video so you can easily refer back to it in the future I also like to say that this

video is a pretty long and detailed one so feel free to take breaks and watch it multiple times as needed now before we start I want to take a moment to thank the sponsor of this video proses and for those of you who don't know proses is the leading European retailer for Sports Nutrition and I've personally been using supplements from proses for a while and also can assest for the quality and pricing of their products in addition to supplements they also have a large variety of products from prote snacks workout clothing and even Fitness GE

froses is essentially the Amazon for Fitness enthusiasts and you're bound to find something that will complement your training right now if you use my exclusive code Leo way you can save 10% off your order and plus depending on how much you spend you can also receive free products with your order and if that wasn't enough proes is also currently having a sale of up to 50% off which will stack on my code for free items so head on over to press.com and check out their amazing selection of products and once again thank you to proes

for sponsoring this video and don't forget to use code Leo wank to save 10% off your order now let's get back into the [Music] video now before doing any type of exercise is important to warm up and stretch properly to prevent injury since the majority of calus exercises are relying on your wrist and shoulders I always make sure to properly warm them up before any type of upper body workouts for my wrists I like to do a series of wrist postes with different hand positionings and you should ease into these wrist stretches with short 1se

second holds for 10 to 15 reps in each position as you do these exercises you should feel your wrist start to loosen up and you should try to go deeper and deeper with each rep you should make it your goal to be able to maintain at least 90° of wrist extension comfortably as it plays a big role in most caling skills and exercises as a beginner your wrist flexibility may not be the best but by doing your stretches before every session you can improve it over time up next we have shorter the slow Cates which

helps your increase the range of motion of your shoulders and will help immensely for when you start skills such as the handstand and the back lever to do this stretch use a band or a stick and lock out your arms keep your core and chest tight and slowly bring the band over your head and behind you then reverse the movement this movement should not be rush and should take at least 5 to 8 seconds to complete one rep to make the stretch easier you can hold the sticker band wider and as you slowly gain shorter

flexibility over time you can make the grip narrower the next stretch we have is a standing hamstring stretch and it will increase your lower body mobility and flexibility preing you for skill of the lit and the pistol squat for this stretch keep your back straight and exhale the air from your stomach then slowly Bend forward maintaining a straight back and reach down for 10 to 15 reps as the hamstring starts to loosen up you should try to reach lower and lower and formform hold of the last rep after the stretches I also like to warm

up further with easier progressional exercises based on what I'll be doing that day for example if you're going to be doing a push workout you can simply do a few reps of knee push-ups or any progression that is Eed to you the purpose of warming UPS is just get the blood flowing into your muscles and increase muscle elasticity you should not be feeling tired or fatigued after your warm up while this is a no way a complet list stretches that you can do there are a few vital ones which you should Implement into your normal

stretching routine when training calics now that you guys understand the points of stretching and warming up I'll be teaching you guys to exercise of each of those categories and movements mentioned earlier in this video starting off with horizontal pushing we have one of the most versatile and foundational exercises in C which is the push-up to perform the push-up place your hands a little over shoulder width apart and go into a plank position your Corin gluch you be activated to prevent your hips from sagging as you lower yourself make sure your elbow does not flare out

and aim to get your chest as close to the floor as possible before going back up another thing to keep in mind is to let your shter blades naturally retract backwards as you go down and then protract them as you come back up with scap positioning in push-ups is often overlooked but by properly retracting and protracting in your push-ups it will help you maintain good shorter Health in the long run and also prep your scapular for skills such as a plch to make the push-up easier for you you can first start doing them on your

knees and when you get stronger you can work your way up to an incline push-up and finally a standard push-up as you get better with the standard push-up you can start increasing the difficulty by doing different variations for example placing your hands closer together will load more of your inner chest and triceps while keeping the hands closer to your waist level will favor your interior D towards you can also play around with the tempo of your push-ups such as increasing the time of the ne un van also implementing isometric holdes this will help you target

the specific range of motion where you're struggling the most if you want to gain explosive strength you can also do these variations of push-up explosively but just remember to always control that negative which is a lowering portion of the push-up if you want to further increase the load of the push-up or fix any imbalances that you might have Archer push-ups are a great way to do so as it allow you to train each arm separately for extra layer of difficulty all these varations of push-ups can also be done on the decline to put more load

on your entire upper body due to gravity up next we have a go pushing movement where you're pushing towards the floor which is a dip and a dip is the only beginning push exercise where you're supporting your entire body weight with your upper body which is what makes it a staple in any good cous routine the dip can be performed on two PE bars or if you don't have access to one you can also use two chairs to perform the dip keep your core tight and fully extend out your arms and also depress your shoulders

so that your shoulders are as far from your ears as possible and then slowly lower yourself and bend your arms until they approximately at a 9 90° angle before going back up if you have good shoulder Mobility you can also go slightly below 90° but don't overdo it as going too deep may lead to injury or shoulder pain now you should also notice the tempo of which I'm doing these dips I'm always controlling a negative portion of the dip before trying to explod back up during this will help you build fast twitch muscle fibers which

will increase your explosive power over time and this rule will apply to most basic calenic exercises so keep that in mind when you're doing them now if you're strugging up dips you can also do banded dips and banded dips will help you reduce the load of the actual dip and you can adjust the difficulty of it by either using a thicker band to make it easier or a thinner band to make it a little harder and we also have negative dips where you'll be strling the motion where you struggling the most and like all negatives

if you keep doing the negatives you will eventually get the positive now all dips will cover the strength building of vertical pushing in the downward position we also have to train our vertical pushing strength in the overhead position this can be done with the pike push-up which is a early progression of the handstand push-up to perform the pike push-up get into a standard push-up position with your arm shoulder width apart then slowly bring both arms back and towards your legs now once you get into this position make sure you elevate your scapula doing so will

help you train the proper shoulder position during handstands and will increase the range of motion of the push-up now slowly descend and lean forward slightly making sure you're not flinging your elbows out during the process once your nose is close to touching or touching the floor remember to apply the rule mentioned before and push up as explosively as possible once you reach the top make sure you return your scapula to the elevated position if before continuing the next rep the difficulty of this exercise can be increased by moving your hands closer to your feet and

vice versa however closer your hands are to your legs the more compression and hamstring flexibility you will need to maintain the pike position doing Pike push-ups on the decline will help alleviate this issue but will also increase the overall load on your upper body as you get stronger you can do pike push-ups on parallels to increase the range of motion of the push-up increasing the angle of the decline will also increase the difficulty one thing to keep in mind when you perform your P push-ups is to not down your hand and hip position as even

a slight change can significantly increase or decrease the difficulty of the push-up by keeping your form consistent it prevents you from accidentally doing harder easier variations of the exercise every workout making it much easier for you to gauge your [Music] progress now up next we have pole movements grouped into vertical and horizontal pulling for vertical pulling we have one of the best upper body exercises which is the pull-up not only will mastering and pull-up open up a new world of skills for you but it is also one of the best exercises for building a strong

physique and calisthenics to perform a pullup start from a dead hang with your hands slightly wider than shoulder width then pull up as explosively as possible as you're pulling out make sure to depress your scapula and maintain that depression your core should be activated to prevent any swinging during the pullup once your chin clears a bar of a neutral head position make sure to control the descend all the way down into a dead hang before starting your next R neutral grip pullups are generally easier for most people and it will help those who feel drawn

pain in their elbows on the other hand supern grip will help you target your biceps more however I would recommend you MK it a prated grip as it is the hardest of the three and will carry over strength needed for the other grip variations now because we simply do not do much overhead pulling in our day-to-day lives I find that most people struggle with pull-ups when they begin calisthetics however you can bridge this Gap over time by doing progressional and supplemental pull-up exercises when you're first starting out dead hangs would be a great supplemental exercise

to increase your grip strength as many people's forearms give out before the back and bicep does in addition to dead hangs you can also Implement scapular shrugs as it will increase your shter stability for pull-ups and also lead you on the right path for the front lever along with these supplemental exercises you should also include progressional exercises such as the pull-up negative and the abanded pull-up by strengthening the Ecentric range of motion with pullup negatives you will eventually gain enough strength to do the concentric portion of the pull-up the negative pull-up can be started by

either jumping or stepping up to the topmost portion of the pull-up and then dropping down to a complete dead hang before starting your next negative as most people sure go of the upper range of motion of the pull-up you you should also do isometric holdes at the top as it will shren that specific area of motion band and syst pull-ups are another great exercise to build up Sheng pull-ups as it allows you to practice the full range of motion of the pull-up with reduced body weight when doing band pull-ups you should follow the same form

qes as a normal pull-up but try not to use a momentum generated from the band to cheat the pull-ups up next we have horizontal pulling movements which can be strengthened with inverted rows to perform the row place your hand shoulder width apart and extend your legs until they are in line with your body you should also be engaging your cord to prevent any swinging as you pull up make sure to retract your scapula and imagine pulling your elbows back rather than your arms try your best to keep your chest as close to the bar as

possible before descending back into a passive hang with a scap of protraction if you do not have access to a parallel bar inverted rolls can also be done on rings and under a stable table doing rows on rings will allow you to transition between grips during reps and reduce the stress on your wrists you can decrease the difficulty of the inverted row by first doing them with bent legs and increasing the height with the bar or rings will also make the movement easier if normal rows are too easy you can also do rows with elevated

legs to make it harder similar to pull-ups a super grip will have a larger bance on your biceps while a pronated grip will put emphasis on your lats and [Music] forearms up next we have core training now contrary to poly belief intensive core training is not necessary when doing calisthenics this is because most calisthenics exercises are compound exercises which really utilizes your core in one way or another rather than having specific training days dedicated to to core it is sufficient to fit them into the end of your workouts once or twice a week I would

also like to be completely honest with you guys and say that ever since I've learned to hold elit I have not specifically trained core to this day now despite not actively training on core it was not a limiting factor in my skill work as most skill progressions already force you to use your core one way or another in addition to this I would also like to say that spamming core workouts will not give you visible sixpack abs and I am tired of seeing those 5minute ad workout videos on YouTube while training ads may make them

look slightly bigger 90% % of it comes down to your body fat everyone has abs and it comes down to whether or not you have a low enough body fat for them to show as a beginner learning to be able to maintain a lit is a solid goal to have this is because if you're able to maintain an Els hold you will already have the core strength prerequisites for most advanced skills such as a plch handin push-up and front L to begin hanging knee raises are a great exercise to build up the core strength needed

for the Els when doing the hanging knee raise use a supernat grip with whiff that is comfortable to you then lift your legs up in a controll manner until you hear ABS contract before dropping down to the starting position when doing the knee raises make sure you're not treating yourself by leaning backwards before each rep and also maintain your core activation in addition to this your arm should be completely locked out throughout the whole movement as you get better at knee raises you can also extend your legs to the full L position at the top

and eventually get strong enough to complete the whole raise of extended legs in addition to raises you should also Implement isometric holes where your legs or knees are parallel to the floor this will help you specifically train the El position and also gradually increase your whole time up next we have seated Pike lifts which will strengthen your compression power which is a major component in the El this exercise is a pretty intensive one so don't get the scurs if it takes you a while to get I'll provide you guys with different progression of variations so

don't rush the process and Pick A variation for your current level as compression shm is often neglected in calisthenics training it early on will prevent Road Blocks later down the line to start sit on the floor of legs extended in front of you then Place both hands to the side of you from here raise your legs up as high as you can while making sure your butt remains in contact with the floor when doing this make sure you're powering the movement with your hips and not rocking back and forth with momentum your leg should be

locked out the whole time and once you can no longer go any higher lower them to the original position as hamstring flexibility plays a big role in this exercise I would highly encourage you also do hamstring stretches in between sets the level of compression can be made easier by moving your hands back and harder by moving them forward in addition to this you can also lean back a little more to make it easier just make sure as mentioned before you do not rock back and forth the difficulty can be further decreased by doing the raises

one leg at ATT time to reduce the amount of core strength needed with the lit training covered we have one last exercise for core which is a hollow body hold the hollow body hold will help with static skills such as levers and handstands and will also increase overall horse stability when performing the hollow body hold make sure you're engaging your abs while maintaining a flat lower back extend your hands behind you and think of pressing your lower back against the floor while keeping both of your legs and shoulders off the ground the difficulty of the

hollow body hold can be decreased by shortening The Leverage from your legs keeping your hands to the side of you rather than behind you will shorten the average of your upper body making the hold easier if you find that the hollow body hold is too easy for you you can also Implement arm circles which will increase the amount of stability needed along with more core [Music] engagement up next we have legs which is one of the harder parts to train as our legs are already accustomed to our body weight from everyday usage because of this

the only way to put more load on them with pure body weight calics is by training them unilaterally or by using different leverages both of these require a decent amount of flexibility and Mobility but don't worry just like before I will include easier progressional exercises that you can follow along and use as stepping stones starting off with quad development we have the pistol squat and the pistol squat is a great exercise as it allows you to load your entire body weight onto one leg and we also help you improve your overall balance and stability to

perform the pistol squat stand with your feet hip withd apart and extend one leg out in front of you slowly lower yourself down on the other leg while keeping your back straight and your core engaged you should try to lean your body weight towards the leg you're training with and also extend your arms out in front of you for balance once your die is parallel to the floor push yourself back up to the starting position if you find that your hamstring flexibility is limiting you you can also first start doing single leg box steps eventually

as you gain flexibility and trm you can extend your legs and hands out in front of you using a wall as assistance the extent of which you extend your legs will also affect how hard the exercise is the straighter you extend your legs the more difficult the balance would be in addition to this doing pill of squats on the elevated surface can also help reduce the hamstring limitations as it will allow your opping leg to drop past horizontal next we have the ntic curl which is an extremely intense hamstring exercise as a concentric portion of

the ntic curl is extremely difficult even for elite athletes we will mostly be focusing on a negative portion of the movement to start kneel down on a mat or soft surface with your feet anchored or under something you can use a friend to hold you down but if you don't have any friends you can also use a stable couch or bed once you're anchored slowly lower your upper body down to the ground while keeping your core engaged with your back straight you should be using your hamstrings to control the negative and also to try your

best to lower down as controlled as possible once you reach the bottom catch yourself with your hands and from here engage your hamstrings to curl back up using a push-up for assistance if you find this exercise is too difficult you can do it with a slight hinge at the hips a larger hinge will reduce the leverage on your hamstrings making the movement easier while maintaining a straight hit Position will make it significantly harder in addition to this the amount of power used to push up from the negative will also dictate how hard the movement will

be if you do not have a setup to do ntic curls you find them too difficult you can also do sliding hamstring curls as an easier progression exercise this exercise requires a slider or cloth on a smooth surface start by lying down on your back with your arms on the side of you for balance and then elevate your hips and Brace your core then with your feet on the sliders slowly curl legs up towards your body and once your feet are close to your body extend them back out to the starting position similarly to a

Nordic curl the difficulty can be made easier by using more posterior pelvic toe and vice versa as your hand get stronger you can also eventually do the curl with one leg now to shengen our Cals we have to single-legged Cal ra to perform a single leg Cal r stand on one leg with your hands on a wall or a stable object then slowly raise up into the ball of your feet while using your hands to stabilize yourself when you get to the top you should feel a stretch and hold it for one and two seconds

then slowly lower yourself back down to the starting position if performing them on one leg is too difficult you can also first do them on both legs and to increase the difficulty of the Cav ra you can do them on an elevated surface and additionally perform a ho at the bottom of the Centric before going back up as a beginner these body weight leg exercises are great for building leg shm however as you progress in your Cal journey and become stronger you may want to consider incorporating weight and barbell exercises into your leg routine this

is because calics leg exercises will only get you so far since you're limited to your own body weight meaning you will easily Plateau if your goal is to build strong and defined legs you will eventually want to add weight to these calisthenics leg exercises or switch it out completely for a weightlifting regimen now that you have a large collection of exercises under your belt I'll teach you guys how to program and routine to suit your current level there are many ways of splitting your work out over the course of the week each ofit own unique

benefits and drawbacks the most common split is the push po leg split which is what I utilize myself as a name suggests you're splitting your workout days based on whatever the exercise you're doing is categorized as a pushing pulling or a leg movement for this split you would typically do five workouts throughout the week and if you wish the split can also be rearranged to your own schedule as long as you're leaving at least one or two days of rest between each category of movement this split is great because you're only focusing on one type

of movement per working day allowing you to push harder and also have shorter individual workouts the next split we have is a full body split which is for those who do not have a lot of free time for the split you will be doing a full body routine two to three days out of the week and while you're saving a lot of time with the split it also has some drawbacks since you're trading your whole body in one day it is very common to not be able to push through your fullest as you will accumulate

fatigue due to the large number of sets you will have to do in addition to this you'll most likely wake up the next day with your entire body feeling sore so please keep that in mind the next split that we have is what I like to call a skill split which will extend past a week with blocks of time allocated to strength building specificity and Del loading this type of split is meant for more advanced athletes and it's quite a long topic so I will go more into detail about it in a future video now

with that out of the way let's also discuss the different styles of training in cisic if your main goal is strength then you should be training with high intensity which means you should be doing harder exercises with less reps around 1 to five reps and longer rest times around 3 to 5 minutes other style of training is hyperthrophy training where you're training to build muscle mass when training for hyperthrophy your workouts will have more rep for set with shorter rest times typically around 8 to 12 rep sets with 1 to 3 minutes of rest in

between sets however it is important to not that while both of these training Styles promote muscle growth training purely for hypertrophy will not help you gain transation later down the line you may want to distinguish a two depending on your own goals as a beginner it is best to have a good mix of both strength and hyperthrophy training in your routine to ensure that you rest smoothly and maximize your results this can be done by mixing varying levels of exercises into your routine and also trying out different rep ranges and now when it comes to

creating your own routine you should be implementing exercises from all the different types of movement we mentioned earlier in this video for example if you're creating your push routine you should be including exercises from both the horizontal and vertical movement category this will ensure that the shf you gain is well-rounded and also prevent any hicups from trading for skills later down the road and here I have a list of all the exercises that we mentioned in this video in order of increasing inreasing difficulty so you can easily plug them in into this template or use

them in your own personalized routine now here's a template for a push pull and leg workout which you can follow or use as guidance when creating your own routine after properly stretching and warming up you will start off a set of a higher intensity exercise which will ran them later on into easier progressions to ensure that you get an adequate amount of volume by completing the more challenging progressional exercises in the beginning of your workout when your energy levels are the highest you can focus on building strength towards the next progression after that you will

move on to a less intense progression exercise with a higher rep range followed by any accessory work with a corresponding exercise whether you choose to do accessory work here will depend if you're struggling with an exercise or of a specific portion of run exercise for example if you find yourself struggling getting to the top of your pull-ups you may want to do some isometric codes in the upper portion as for the rest times aim to be resting around 3 to 5 minutes with more challenging sets as these will need more effort and require more time

for your muscles to recover for the less intense sets resting for 1 to 3 minutes should be sufficient however if you feel like you cannot complete a quality set in the provided rest times it is okay to rest a little longer as long as you stay under the 5-minute [Music] range as you get stronger it is important to progressively overload your workouts make them harder so you can continue to grow stronger and gain muscle with normal weightlifting this can be done by simply increasing the weight you're using both of calisthenics you do this by trading

more difficult exercises and or by increasing your reps and sets a general rule of Thum is that once you reach around 10 to 12 reps of an exercise it would be safe to increase the difficulty of it by doing a harder progressional exercise in the case of the beginner template shown here you will replace the 5 to eight rep progressional exercise with a more challenging progression exercise once you hit the 10 to 12 rep range the previous challenging progression exercise would then be replaced with a harder progression exercise on a complete side note I would

also recommend that beginners record the sets once starting a new skill or exercise when I first started calics I remember doing exercise completely wrong for a couple of months before someone finally pointed out to me by watching your recordings you can identify areas for Improvement and make adjustments early on in your training rather than waiting until later on when bad habits are more difficult to break now as you progress in your Cass journey and begin to focus on skill training having a solid foundation of strength and control and basic movements is crucial while there's no

set number of reps that will automatically qualify you for skill training it's important to have a certain level of SHP to properly perform the movements as a general guideline a good goal to have before starting skill training need to be able to comfortably perform at least 20 push-ups 12 pull-ups and 15 dips this will ensure you perform skill safely and with proper form and we also set you up for success as you progress to more advanced moves in the future I will be releasing more in depth guides about skill training a of skill tutorials so

stay tuned and that about SS it all um I've tried my best to include everything I've learned throughout my years of training cisic along things I wish I knew when I first started as a beginner and once again thank you so much for the massive amount of support you guys have been giving me and the journey ahead will be a long one but please stay consistent and patient with yourself and it it will only be a matter of time before everything falls into place peace [Music]