Calisthenics Workout Routine

If you’ve been following a calisthenics workout routine but are frustrated with minimal muscle gains, you’re not alone. Many people struggle to build muscle with calisthenics due to a lack of understanding about the most effective strategies. This article will explore the reasons behind these struggles and provide you with practical tips to transform your calisthenics routine into a powerful muscle-building program. By focusing on proper exercise selection, volume, and rep ranges, we’ll show you how to overcome common barriers and start seeing significant improvements in your physique. This guide is perfect for anyone looking to maximize their muscle growth through bodyweight exercises.

Here’s what we will talk about:

· Wrong Exercises

o Muscle-up

o Handstand

o Push-ups Combos

· Workout Volume

· Rep Range

If you believe calisthenics is only useful for mastering impressive moves and boosting endurance, you're missing out on its full potential. Calisthenics can be as effective as weightlifting for building muscle, but certain factors must be addressed. Here are the three primary reasons you might struggle to build muscle with calisthenics.

Wrong Exercises

Firstly, selecting the right exercises tailored to your muscle-building goals is essential. While many strength-focused exercises contribute to muscle growth, not all are optimized for this purpose. Each exercise serves a specific focus or enhances different abilities, so it's crucial to align them with your objectives and perform them for the right reasons.

Muscle-up

Take the muscle-up, for example. While often revered in calisthenics circles, it may not be the optimal choice for muscle building. Here's why:

1. Difficulty Level: The muscle-up is exceptionally challenging for most individuals. If you can only manage 2 to 3 sloppy repetitions, it's unrealistic to expect significant muscle growth. Improving form and increasing rep count is necessary to derive muscle-building benefits.

2. Muscle Engagement: During a muscle-up, you alternate between a pull-up and a dip in each repetition. This switching of work between muscles isn't ideal for targeting specific muscle groups effectively. Performing standalone pull-ups or dips allows for maximal engagement of each muscle group without expending energy on the other.

3. Understimulated Muscles: The explosive nature of the muscle-up emphasizes the high pull-up required to clear the bar. As a result, you may reach muscle fatigue not because of maxed-out pull-ups or dips but due to the inability to transition over the bar. This can lead to fewer overall repetitions compared to focused pull-ups or dip sets, potentially limiting muscle development significantly.

Handstand

Another excellent example of poor exercise selection for muscle building is the handstand. While handstands are enjoyable and impressive, they aren't particularly effective for muscle growth. Although handstands require strength, free handstands primarily focus on coordination, balance, and mobility. Additionally, as a static exercise with relatively low intensity due to joint alignment, they fall short in muscle-building potential.

For those aiming to build muscle, simply holding a handstand isn't sufficient. Instead, opt for movements like handstand push-ups against a wall or pike push-ups, which are far better for developing substantial shoulder muscles with calisthenics. Free handstand push-ups, however, demand significant practice and coordination, and even seasoned athletes can't perform as many free reps as they can with supported reps against a wall. It's inefficient to end your set due to losing balance rather than muscle fatigue.

If you want to integrate handstand training while prioritizing muscle growth, consider dedicating 15 minutes to handstand practice right after your warm-up, followed by exercises focused on hypertrophy.

Push-ups Combos

Finally, fancy push-up combos are another suboptimal choice for muscle building. Although they look impressive, they won't significantly increase muscle mass. These combos typically emphasize explosive strength and the integration of various elements, which interrupts muscle tension in each rep and wastes energy by transitioning into awkward positions with no real benefit. While it's fine to try these combos for fun and motivation, don't rely on them as your primary muscle-building exercises.

Workout Volume

The second key point is about workout volume. When it comes to building muscle, more is not always better. Performing too many sets with excessive effort for a particular muscle or muscle group can be counterproductive, wasting your time and hindering your gains, especially if all that volume is concentrated in a single training session.

To optimize your workouts, reduce the total volume per muscle or muscle group and distribute it across multiple sessions each week. This approach minimizes junk volume and maximizes effective training. For overall weekly volume, we recommend beginners aim for 5 to 10 sets with moderate effort per muscle group, while advanced athletes should target 10 to 20 sets with moderate to high effort.

While there are valid high-volume training methods, these require reducing effort to avoid overtraining. An excellent example is calisthenics skill training, particularly skills that heavily emphasize technique, like the free handstand. This skill is best learned through frequent practice with low to moderate effort. Once you can hold a handstand against a wall for over 30 seconds and basic strength is no longer a limiting factor, you can practice the freestanding version almost daily. This results in high-frequency training and a significant number of sets each week.

Rep Range

The final point to consider is the rep range. You've likely heard that 8 to 12 reps are ideal for building muscle and that straying from this range makes your workout less effective. However, this is only partially true. Studies show that some individuals respond better to higher reps, while others benefit more from lower reps. So, while focusing on the 8-12 rep range is effective for most people, incorporating lower or higher rep ranges can also be beneficial and offer additional advantages.

What you should avoid is going too low or too high. If you can perform dozens of reps, the exercise is too easy. Conversely, if you struggle to complete just a few reps with proper form, it's too challenging.

Another crucial factor is the speed of your reps. The number of reps alone doesn't provide the full picture. For example, performing reps slowly results in fewer reps compared to someone who performs them quickly, even if both work for the same duration. Our experience suggests varying the rep speed to reap the benefits of both faster and slower execution.

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Source: Calisthenicmovement.