The Top 4 Best Health Benefits From Calisthenics Exercise
Calisthenics training is one of the best activities to improve and maintain a healthy, strong body. For example, calisthenics provides many health benefits, such as burning lots of fat, making you stronger and improving the mobility in your joints. The wide range of exercises in training calisthenics can target different muscle groups and individualize your workout to suit your health requirements.
How Calisthenics Helps Burn Calories
Calisthenics requires lots of movement and mobility, and multiple muscle groups will be targeted when training. This is called a compound exercise. Compound exercises require significantly more energy than isolation exercises, which will burn a lot more calories. The average person will burn 300-400 calories during a light-effort calisthenic workout, while a higher-intensity workout will burn 550-700 calories per session.
There are three main reasons calisthenics burn so many calories:
- Using multiple muscle groups in each exercise (compound exercises)
- The intensity of the workout
- Training methods
Even basic calisthenics exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, or sit-ups are compound exercises. The whole human body is involved in the exercise instead of isolating the strain to a single muscle group. For example, a simple burpee will engage almost every muscle group in your body. As a result, more muscles will require energy to contract and relax to perform the exercise, which will use more calories to burn.
Calisthenics Is An Intense Workout
Calisthenics uses your body mass as a resistance; constantly using your weight against you. For example, if a 70kg person was hanging on a bar for 10 seconds:
The person’s upper back, shoulders, core, forearms, and wrist flexors collectively pull 70 kg for 10 seconds! Over time, your muscles undergo hypertrophy, making them heavier; therefore, your muscles will carry a more substantial weight the more you train.
Moreover, calisthenics exercises are anaerobic. Anaerobic exercises require little to no oxygen over a short period. It is greatly rewarding as anaerobic training develops strength, cardiovascular endurance, speed, and power. Athletes and climbers take longer to recover from anaerobic training due to lactic acid build-up, a by-product of anaerobic exercise. Lactic acid is the ‘burning’ sensation you feel when training.
Training Methods In Calisthenics To Burn Calories
Lastly, calisthenic training is such a unique training type. Unlike weight training, calisthenics won’t have a fixed amount of repetitions and sets. Due to calisthenics using body weight, athletes will tailor their workout to themselves. For example, a 50kg man doing twenty pull-ups will require similar energy as an 80kg man doing seven pull-ups. As you can see, workout intensity will change depending on circumstance, so you can’t have a fixed number of repetitions where ‘one shoe fits all.’ Therefore you workout:
- until failure.
- fitting in as many exercises in a set time.
- to a certain BPM.
While it can be more complex to compare and keep track of results, this training form will see results much faster, and you’ll grow to learn your body capabilities more and more. Once you understand your body and its ability, you can tailor your workouts specifically and personally to you. However, remember that your body’s ability will vary as you become heavier/ lighter. Don’t be disheartened if you can’t perform as well as you used to because this may result from increased muscle mass. For example, a decrease in your dead hang time could result from hypertrophy in the upper back.
How Calisthenics Makes You Stronger
Calisthenics will improve strength, especially functional strength. Functional strength refers to exercises that will make day-to-day activities easier. Individuals who perform calisthenics can do more with their human bodies as workouts often mirror similar movements. For example, someone who trains in calisthenics will find it much easier to lift themselves out of a swimming pool onto the floor surface. This is because the movement requires the same muscle group as it does to perform a tricep dip – which is a frequently used exercise in calisthenics.
As well as functional strength, calisthenics gives you a greater mass-to-strength ratio, which measures strength per unit of mass. This is because it burns lots of fat while developing a vast amount of muscle, unlike other training methods – for example, weight training, where it causes hypertrophy but burns little fat.
Explosive strength is another component of strength that will be improved when working with calisthenics. Explosiveness is the ability to exert high pressure over a short stretch of time. For example, pull-ups require you to lift yourself in seconds. When you perform this motion, your muscles instantly contract to pull you up. Calisthenics training aims to put significant muscle tension on your body over a short period – making you more explosive. Over time, your muscles will undergo hypertrophy enabling your muscles to withstand greater tension. As a result of the higher power, you can do the pull-up, in this example, much quicker.
How Calisthenics Improves Mental Wellbeing
While calisthenics has substantial physical benefits, it also positively impacts your mental health. A health benefit most athletes and climbers won’t acknowledge when training in calisthenics.
Exercise promotes mental health. While this isn’t calisthenics specific, all activities that make the heart race will have a positive impact on your well-being. Exercise helps to reduce stress by releasing endorphins which ‘make you feel good.’ You produce endorphins in the spinal cord and they release in the brain’s neurotransmitter. As well as making you ‘feel good,’ these hormones also help manage when you ‘feel bad.’ This will handle the state of a troubled mind, which could be anxiety, depression, racing thoughts, or self-doubt. The hormones are released naturally and in a healthy dosage, increasing your mood gradually instead of causing huge spikes and troughs.
Endorphin release is also triggered when you achieve a goal or target you have been working towards. For example, if you want to muscle up, there will be repeated failure until you do your first muscle-up. However, once you achieve your goal, a sense of pride, accomplishment, and excitement rushes through your body and creates a coat of self-confidence. This tends to be the case with calisthenics, as many activities are target based.
The Community In Calisthenics
There is a great community In calistheincs; it’s known to be friendly, supportive, and sociable. Calisthenics is a niche training method; thus, finding someone who shares the interest is pleasantly surprising. Often, it leads to conversations and introductions to other calisthenics athletes willing to help and guide you through exercises and learn from you. There are several reasons the calisthenic community is so friendly. For example:
- you often have to share bars, mats, or other equipment, which sparks conversation.
- calisthenic workouts have stylish points on how effortless you can make a workout look. As a result, advice, help, or physical support is shared to improve technique or ‘style.’
- There are gyms dedicated to calisthenics training which establishes a common interest.
These attributes have built a very positive calisthenics community and will continue growing. It can be an excellent area to make new friends or even be in a room with like-minded people. Fundamental human nature wants to be surrounded by like-minded groups; the community will excite your brain and release endorphins and natural dopamine.
Calisthenics Has Lower Risk Of Injury Than Weight lifting
The risk of injury via calisthenics training is significantly lower than weight training. It uses body weight, putting less stress on joints than artificial weights such as dumbbells. Moreover, calisthenics use compound exercises that focus stress throughout different muscle groups.
- A calisthenics performing a tricep dip: spreading his body weight (let’s say 60kg) through his triceps, deltoids, upper back, and forearm
- A weight trainer performing a tricep curl: lifting a 25kg dumbbell using his tricep exclusively.
If both individuals have warmed up, are aware of their abilities, and have the correct form, they will both be safe. However, there is a much higher risk for the weight trainer if he hasn’t done the above; he is applying high tension to a local area, this strain could sprain or pull the muscle. The risk is much lower with calisthenics because you are using body weight, and because you have been carrying yourself your whole life, your muscles can withstand the tension of your weight.
Lastly, the movement associated with calisthenic training offers flexibility and improved mobility. As a result, training is easier on your joints because it strengthens the tiny muscle fibers around them, making joints stable and smooth. This reduces the risk of arthritis and similar disease and makes day-to-day activities significantly easier.
Is Calisthenics The Best Activity To Improve Health?
Calisthenics offers a vast range of health benefits that help improve mobility and strength. However, cardiovascular endurance exercises remain the most activity that is most beneficial for health. Weekly cardiovascular exercise reduces the risk of death by 30% and provides a 23% lower risk of death from all types of cancer. Cardiovascular workouts involve activities such as running, cycling, or swimming.
On the other hand, calisthenics will result in significantly more strength and power which can be applied more frequently day-to-day. Calisthenics is much more enjoyable than cardio; I find swinging on a bar, jumping, and performing tricks more engaging and progressive because you learn to do more complex body-demanding skills. This keeps athletes motivated long-term as they are having fun while working out!
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