Can you grow your muscles with calisthenics exercises?
Many fitness enthusiasts aim to build muscles to look and feel stronger and healthier which is why most of those who do calisthenics ask this question—and, the answer is a definite yes.
There are different ways to achieve bigger muscle size but doing calisthenics exercises is among the most popular and recommended.
Like most workout routines, calisthenics can also bring an increase in the size of the muscle cells. This growth is also called hypertrophy.
What causes muscle hypertrophy and how do you plan your hypertrophy training with calisthenics? Let’s go over some tips in this article.
What Causes Hypertrophy?
Although not exclusively, muscle growth often stems from stimulation, repair, and peripheral fatigue. Verywell Fit calls these three the components of muscle growth.
During the actual exercise, contraction of the muscle occurs stimulating nerve impulses. As the contraction carries on, this gradually results in inflammation and stress in the muscles which lead to growth in hormones responsible for muscle growth or hypertrophy.
Even the muscle fiber repair that happens after exercising can make way for more muscle growth as more muscle fibers are produced. And the reasoning behind peripheral fatigue revolves around the principle that the harder the muscles work, the more muscles are stimulated resulting in hypertrophy.
At the beginning of your exercise, you may have no noticeable physical changes but eventually, you will be gaining muscles and strength. As you carry on, you start showing more indications of hypertrophy.
For optimal hypertrophy through every form of exercise, it helps to ensure focus and proper execution with calisthenics exercises.
Benefits of Hypertrophy Training
The following are some of the benefits of hypertrophy training:
- better aesthetics
- more muscle strength
- enhanced anaerobic endurance
- encourages good nutrition
Most people want to increase the size of their muscles to look better, while there are also others who want to undergo hypertrophy training with calisthenics because they need bigger muscles for undertaking strenuous activities.
Hypertrophy training also helps you develop your breathing as you go through intense workout. Plus, it is always encouraged that those who are training their muscles for more buildup must do so with a balanced diet. In fact, it is part of the recommended training plan for hypertrophy training with calisthenics.
Tips for Hypertrophy Training
Without the robotic-style of weightlifting and the boring routines that usually happen in fitness gyms, calisthenics provide a plethora of challenging workout variations that involve muscle-growth-inducing training activities such as weightlifting and resistance training or calisthenics
Calisthenics, however, produces a different kind of result. Calisthenics helps in strengthening your fine motor skills on top of improving your balance and coordination as well as speed and reflex time.
However, when executing calisthenics movements, there has to be a strong connection between your mind and body.
Your mind and body must be working hard as a team to perform these calisthenics exercises as a holistic approach to strengthening both your mind and body.
Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- Warm up. Before doing any workout, make sure that you warm up first and stretch. Dynamic stretching for 5-10 minutes is highly recommended.
- Do not rush. You may begin with light weights first. You may just gradually increase the weight or resistance level.
- Observe proper breathing, posture, and controlled movement. Correct execution matters more than anything when you are doing hypertrophy training with calisthenics exercises.
- Aim for consistency. Too intense and too frequent workout routines may only strain your body and lead you to quit too early. Treat the journey as a marathon, not a sprint.
Depending on your specific goals for muscle growth, you can take a pick from the different workout routines that include the following starter exercises:
- Dips
- Crunches
- Pushups
- Pullups
- Lunges
- Jumping Rope
- Forearm Pushup or a Plank
- Jumping Jack
- Squats
- Burpees
Note, however, that hypertrophy training is not strength training. With hypertrophy training, you are building your muscles. With strength training, you are building strength. Muscle growth cannot be automatically equated with strength training.
The two training programs differ in training volume, intensity, and rest between sets. There are more sets and reps with hypertrophy training, but fewer reps in greater intensity when it comes to strength training.
Typically, those who want to do hypertrophy training must focus on moderate intensity exercises that have short rest intervals. But then again, those who want to do strength training may opt for high intensity exercises and longer rests in between.
Hypertrophy Training Planning
With Calisthenics, you will be using your own body weight as resistance. Your muscles may undergo constant tear and tension that requires the muscle to respond with strength and resistance. This is why it is important to improve the volume of your training over time so your muscles will be forced to adapt better, grow bigger, and get stronger.
Here’s how a typical muscle training exercise looks like with pushups and pullups.
- First Week: 5 sets of Push Ups (x10), and Pull-Ups (x5)
- Second week: 6 sets of Push Ups (x10), and Pull-Ups (x5)
- Third Week: 5 sets of Push Ups (x15), and Pull-Ups (x10)
- Fourth Week: 6 sets of Push Ups (x15), and Pull-Ups (x10)
- Fifth Week: 4 sets of Push Ups (x10), and Pull-Ups (x5)
According to the training schedule suggested by healthline, you can do lifting three days a week so you will have a day to recover in between sessions. Muscle recovery is vital for muscle growth.
You may also do lifting for just two days a week if you have just started out. Just make sure that you alternate upper-body lifting and lower-body lifting so you can work on different muscle areas and get enough time for rest and recovery in the process.
A great diet plan must include meat and vegetables so your body will have sufficient vitamins and minerals for muscle repair after your calisthenics workout. Stay away from eating too much starch and sugar.
With calisthenics, your body is your main equipment. It may become harder over time but the results will also get better.