Warning: calisthenics content online is (mostly) unrealistic
Long time no post but a recent conversation with a potential new client about calisthenics spurred me into action…
I love practising and teaching calisthenics; it’s easily the most fun and rewarding form of training I’ve done, but it is incredibly hard and unlike most types of training, the bar to entry is very high and like most social content, a lot of it is unrealistic.
When I first learnt about calisthenics and started researching it (watching countless professionally produced YouTube videos), it looked pretty straightforward; I’d been to the gym for 10+ years, done lots of types of training (could do lots of pull-ups) and thought I had a decent amount of strength and experience.
I was in for a shock.
I found the calisthenics exercises described as ‘beginner’ exercises online and covered very briefly in slick videos were insanely hard and to begin with, basically impossible to achieve. It took me a month of training to be able to hang from gymnastic rings and lift my feet off the ground and rotate backwards - the beginning of the most basic calisthenics exercise - ‘skin the cat’.
Calisthenics/gymnastics exercises look incredibly impressive and make for good content, but the reality is that it takes a huge amount of strength, mobility and training just to achieve fundamental exercises. I’ve practised calisthenics for 5+ years and I’m only just able to perform some of the exercises that are graded ‘A’ in the Gymnastics Code of Points.
Creating a more realistic way to train.
Having been demoralised by how unrealistic most calisthenics training is, I decided to teach it differently and create my own levels - based on training clients who are normal people and who can achieve great results using the same techniques and principles, but without the impressive, but unrealistic videos.
Exercises to achieve: Beginner level
My version of ‘beginner’ calisthenics exercises to achieve:
Chin ups (very hard to perform properly)
Ring tuck hold (hanging upside down from gymnastic rings)
Ring pushups.
I’ll follow up with a basic guide to each of the above exercises shortly…