Bodyweight exercises and calisthenics are similar, but they are not the same. Calisthenics is a little bit different and often, but not always, a better choice for more experienced athletes.
Bodyweight exercises exclusively use your body. Pushups, pullups, situps, and squats (without weights) are all bodyweight exercises. There are also even more difficult bodyweight exercises done by elite athletes.
Calisthenics is similar to bodyweight exercises but can include weights as well. For example, weighted pullups are a calisthenic exercise but not a bodyweight exercise. You can also do pushups with weighted plates on your back and many other weighted variations on bodyweight exercises.
Both calisthenics and bodyweight exercises can help you build a powerful physique. You do not have to lift weights. There are ways of making bodyweight exercises harder as your strength increases, so there is no limit on how strong you can get with this kind of training.
You can do impressive athletic stunts if you practice calisthenics
One of the best-known stunts is the “human flag,” where you hang horizontally on a pole and hold yourself up with your arms. It looks impossible and will impress anyone who has never seen it before. However, you will have to train for a long time before you can do something like the human flag, but you may be able to get there if you train hard. You do not have to stop at pushups—you can progress to more difficult, interesting, and impressive exercises.
You can also turn bodyweight exercises into calisthenic exercises as you get stronger. You can add weight to pushups, pullups, and countless other exercises to add difficulty.
You can raise the difficulty without using weights. Weighted pullups are hard, but one-armed pullups are even harder.
Many people like doing weighted exercises but this is not the only way to add difficulty. There are countless higher difficulty variations on common exercises. Superman pushups are almost impossible, but some elite athletes can manage to do them.
A street workout is not a distinct kind of workout that is separate from a calisthenic workout. It is a calisthenic workout performed outside. There are specific exercises that people are likely to do out on the street, but it still calisthenics.
What Are Some Good Bodyweight Training Exercises for Beginners?
Anything that builds up your strength is great. Before you can do any impressive athletic stunts, you need to be in great shape. Do pushups, situps, and pullups—these classic exercises are popular because they are effective.
Planks are another great exercise for beginners. Planks not only build up your muscle but your willpower as well. Once you can push yourself to plank for as long as your muscles will allow, you have what it takes to get in great shape.
Bodyweight squats sound too easy, but doing a lot of them with proper form in a short time is a challenge. They are great for your muscles. You can move beyond bodyweight squats and start doing squat jumps fairly early on.
Burpees, leg raises, and dips all work. Don’t neglect lighter exercises such as jumping jacks. Some relatively easy exercises can still strengthen your muscles.
What Are Some More Advanced Calisthenic Exercises?
If you stick with calisthenics for long enough, you can pull off some impressive feats. You can do things that many people would assume are impossible.
The one-armed handstand
Even being able to do a good handstand is a challenge, and you are quite an athlete if you can do it with one hand. The ultimate handstand is a one-armed handstand on a pole. It is dangerous, and it requires incredible shoulder strength and balance.
Two-finger pushups and one-finger pull ups
More people can do these than you would think. Bruce Lee often did this impressive exercise.
It sounds like you would break your fingers if you tried this, but many people can do it without injury. Amazingly, an Egyptian athlete was able to do 46 of these pushups in 49 seconds.
A one-finger pullup is even harder and is only for those who know what their fingers can handle. An even harder exercise is supporting yourself on only one or two fingers. Balancing all of your weight on one or two fingers is only for a few – you would injure yourself if you tried this.
Make sure to do harder and not merely more exercises.
If you want to train for strength, you need to do a relatively low number of difficult reps. This is true if you are training with weights, and if you are training with your body weight.
If you simply do more reps of the same exercise, this won’t build up your strength all that much. You will only continue to improve your endurance but not your strength. Make sure to make your bodyweight exercises harder if you want to keep getting stronger.
You can increase the speed to make exercises harder.
Doing 30 pushups fast is different from doing 30 pushups slow. Once your form is excellent, try to get your speed and acceleration up without compromising on form.
This is known as speed and acceleration training, and it can sometimes work as well as increasing the difficulty of each rep. The primary way to train is to make each rep more difficult, but this is not the only way. Experiment with doing all of your reps faster instead – you might get excellent results.
Top athletes do not have very heavy builds.
Top calisthenics athletes do not look like weightlifters. They are strong-looking but not huge.
They aim to be very strong for their body weight, not as strong as possible. Your ability to do calisthenic exercises depends on your strength to weight ratio, not your total strength.
While a calisthenics athlete’s physique can be even more impressive than a weightlifter’s physique, they do not look as strong. If you want to look like a bodybuilder, weights are the right way to go.
Always improve your form.
Doing fewer reps with better form is better than doing more reps with worse form. Don’t increase your number of reps while letting your form get worse – that is not progress!
You will get stronger if you insist on good form. Good form is just as crucial in calisthenics as in weight training.