You are on the path of improving yourself, but the gym feels daunting. We can have other options which we can even do at home without buying equipments. Calisthenics is a great gateway to enter working out and changing our lifestyle. Let’s see if it can be a gret fit for you or maybe explore other options!

Core Movements

In the gym, there are a lot of gym splits to have mixtures of muscle groups. Similarly, calisthenics have three groups that are focused.

Sample Workout

Here’s a sample workout that you can follow:

Split 1:

1. Negative Chin Ups: 3 sets to near failure
2. Inverted Rows: 5 sets to near failure
3. Floor Hyper Extensions: 3 sets to near failure
4. Lying Leg Raises: 3 sets to near failure

Split 2:

1. Incline Push Ups: 3 sets to near failure
2. Air Squats: 3 sets to near failure
3. Single Leg Glute Raises: 3 sets to near failure
4. Plank: 3 sets to near failure

You can use the splits to your desire, timing, or goals. Some of the things you can do are:

1. Split 1, Split 2, Rest: A balanced routine that you can hit equally and rest the next day to have the energy to complete the routine again.
2. Split 1, Split 2 three times a week: A routine that focuses on muscle failure and minimal rest. Although not recommended for beginners, it is effective in reaching muscle failure often.
3. Split 1, Rest, Split 2, Rest: A routine that is more relaxed and easier for a beginner. It helps you regain the energy to do the next split tomorrow. It can help with maximum-effort exercises.

Alternative workout at home

Maybe calisthenics isn’t for you. You can explore another exercise circuit, HIIT. High Intensive Interval Training (HIIT), can be done at home and is easy to do. The lack of needed equipment and space makes it easy for entry to this. The following are the strong points of HIIT:

1. Time efficient
2. Improved cardiovascular health and fitness
3. Improved metabolism
4. Improved mental clarity

Although it lacks the strength training element, you can use the circuit elements to improve your routines. 

Check out: Is HIIT the best choice for you?

Calorie Burning

Sticking at home, or maybe avoiding the gym membership price, what are the best calorie burners? Let’s go to this step by step!

1. Abs are made in the kitchen

Although our intuition and thoughts are to say,” I need to workout harder or more often” which can be true. But we need to look at other areas as well which comes to the main focus, our consumption of food. More often than not, food products can be deceptive in their calorie and nutrients as looking at the serving size feels like a good indicator of how many calories are there. Small foods can be dense in calories, and bigger foods can be lacking in calories. It all depends on how we are educated and how we know critical information. We should be looking at what we eat and how many calories we are consuming. An easy way to get into this is by calorie counting and promotion of better habits.

2. HIIT

HIIT, as mentioned before, is an intensive workout for a prolonged duration. It promotes an effect named “Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption” which helps to burn calorie for few hours after the exercise.

3. Cardio

The exercises that burn the most calorie are all cardiovascular. Running, jogging, even walking all burn more calorie over time than weight training or calisthenics. 

Progressive Overload

Other than your health goals, there are also individuals to have a better-looking body or a better lift. To achieve such, the main concept that we need to discuss is progressive overload. To achieve, better results, it is important to follow this concept which allows for growth toward your goal. We can achieve this by:

• Increase repetition, i.e., muscle failure
• Moving to challenging exercise variation or increasing weights
• Adding more frequent workouts, or more sessions

But why should I follow progressive overload? 

• Promotion of stimulus for muscle growth
• Better gains and potential

Guidelines

Deciding to follow this workout or in general, there are guidelines you do need to follow to ensure optimal growth and safety.

1. Full range of motion
2. Controlled negative phase
3. Minimal momentum
4. Smooth movement
5. Rest and nutrition 
6. Avoid straining existing injuries

Calisthenics is an excellent way to start out with fitness, offering a versatile, equipment-free method of building strength and improving overall health. Whether you enjoy calisthenics, HIIT, or a combination of both, the key to making ongoing progress is consistency, nutrition, and the application of progressive overload. By sticking to formatted routines, keeping the focus on full-body exercises, and paying attention to recovery, you can make progress and inch closer to your goal continually. No matter where you start, the most important move is to start and be committed to the process