Learn calisthenics

Master calisthenics from the ground up

Introduction

Starting calisthenics can be hard, especially if you have not done sports before. I know, I have been there. It took me time to figure out which exercises to do, how progressions work, and how to deal with injuries.

My calisthenics course is completely free. You can access it across three major platforms.

Instagram - all lessons are organized by topic. Each topic is saved as a Highlight on my profile.

YouTube - the full course is structured into playlists, grouped by skill level and movement category.

TikTok - videos are organized into playlists, so you can quickly find specific exercises or progressions.

The main issue with this approach is that social platforms are limited when it comes to organizing content. It can be hard to know where to start or what to watch next. That is why I created this page.

Just read it from top to bottom and don't skip videos, they are part of the course.

This is not a complete course, and the page will be updated as I add new content.

Calisthenics foundation

When you take a sport like bodybuilding, your main focus is building bigger muscles. Other things like flexibility or advanced movement skills are not a priority. The goal is clear and focused, which makes training more straightforward.

Calisthenics is different. To learn new skills and make progress, you need to develop several attributes:

Strength

- to produce enough force against resistance.

Mobility

- to have enough range of motion.

Body control

- to control your body in space.

There are other attributes like

endurance

and

power

and more, but these are the most important. In addition, we all start calisthenics at different levels.

There is

universal training program that works optimally for everyone. You need to build your own.

Don't worry, this is where I come in. I will explain how to do it.

Programming

Every good calisthenics program includes the following components:

Attribute training

- time spent developing strength, endurance, power, and other physical qualities.

Skill training

- time spent practicing specific movements such as planche, front lever, or even push ups.

Mobility training

- not just stretching, but also strengthening new ranges of motion.

Injury prevention

- includes accessory work like face pulls for the rotator cuff, as well as proper warm up and volume management.

Recovery

- everything outside of training, such as sleep, deloads, walking, or yoga.

Nutrition

- not the most important, but still worth including.

Rehab

- time spent recovering from injuries.

You do not need to understand all of this before you start. Just be aware of these components, especially injury prevention.

The most important goal of any program is to keep your body healthy. No exceptions.

It does not matter which sport you do, bodybuilding, strongman, or calisthenics. Your program should never compromise this goal.

At elite levels, there are times when performance comes at the cost of health. But as a beginner, you should always prioritize health above everything else.

This is why your program must be balanced. You cannot skip leg training just because it might make your planche harder. As long as you include all basic movement patterns, you will avoid issues like muscle imbalances.

Two pillars of training

There are two pillars of training:

Goals

– a list of specific things you want to achieve. You can’t have a program without goals.

Program

– an organised schedule for achieving those goals.

This image is a graphical representation of the two pillars of training: the program (structured schedule) and defined goals.

When it comes to calisthenics, goals are usually bodyweight skills like pushups, pull-ups, the planche, and so on.

That’s why you would use skills as a baseline to structure your program around.

The good thing about skills is that each one has a clear progression path (or multiple paths). It is up to you to choose which one to take.

It is very important that, no matter which exercises you choose, each one contributes to your goal.

For example, I wanted to learn the handstand. While I can hold it for 20 seconds, it is not good enough, it is not straight. That’s because of my anterior pelvic tilt. In practice, this means that if I want to master the handstand, I have to fix my posture, which means I need to include corrective posture exercises in the program.

Sometimes your chosen exercises and skills will contribute to other skills. For example, strengthening the forearms. Strong forearms improve your grip, which is essential for any pulling exercise, but also for pushing, especially when using parallettes. Plus, strong forearms help prevent tendon injuries, which are very common in calisthenics.

So, it makes sense to include direct forearm work. The benefits are too great to ignore.

Your first skills

I believe you should start with these ten skills.

exercise

is simply performing a movement, while a

skill

is about refining and mastering how that movement is performed.

For example, running can be exercise, but at a high level, such as with Usain Bolt, it becomes a skill.

Often, developing a skill requires multiple exercises.

I chose these skills because they cover all basic movement patterns and build the foundation needed for more advanced movements.

Pushups - build horizontal pushing strength.

Dips

- build vertical pushing strength and scapular depression.

Handstand

- develop body control and balance.

Pull ups

- build vertical pulling strength.

Body rows

- build horizontal pulling strength and scapular retraction.

L-sit

- build compression strength.

Dragon flags

- develop strong and well-rounded core strength.

Pistol squats

- build leg strength.

Two additional skills are worth including to maintain structural balance:

Hinge

- hip hinge movements such as deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts, or glute bridges.

Back bridge

- complements the L sit and helps maintain a healthy, strong spine.

Let me be very clear: you do not need to perform these exact exercises. These are skills for you to unlock and master it, and once you have done that, you simply move on to the next progression of each skill.

Example 1:

John cannot perform a pistol squat yet, so he uses Bulgarian split squats instead. This is an easier progression that builds single leg strength.

Example 2:

Nick can do 30 push ups in a row, so he no longer trains them. Instead, he uses harder variations like pseudo pushups.

Example 3:

Sally cannot do a back bridge and is not interested in learning it. Instead, she uses cobra holds in her warm up to keep her posterior chain balanced with her anterior chain.

I know this can be hard to understand at first, and that is completely fine. When I started, my program looked very different from what I do now. Programming is a skill, and you will get better at it the more you do it.

Progressions

progression

is a list of exercises ordered from easiest to hardest to unlock a skill. However, sometimes people also refer to the exercises within a progression as "progressions." I will use the terms interchangeably as well.

Once you’ve answered what exercises to do, the next question is

"How much?"

Unfortunately, there is no good answer to this.

It really depends on your goals, the exercises themselves, how much time you have, and many other factors. However, personally, I use a very simple rule.

Find 2 to 6 progressions of the skill you want to do where you can perform

2 sets of 4 to 8 repetitions

, or between

10 to 30 second holds

once or twice a week. Once you reach the upper limit, increase the difficulty or change the progression and repeat this cycle indefinitely.

Please make sure that the two sets are challenging enough,

about 90% intensity

. In practice, this means one rep short of failure.

I have been using this method with great success since I started. Although I had to refine the number of sets and other details, the core idea is still there and it works.

At this stage, we have only talked about

macro progressions

, in other words, the exercises you do to unlock skills. However, equally important part, which people often overlook, is

micro progressions

. These are small adjustments or increments you make in every session within the exercise itself.

In order to progress effectively, you have to make sure that you either increase the repetition count or hold time, perform the exercise slower, or adjust your feet elevation or another parameter.

If you can't increase any micro progression for more than two sessions in a row, it is an indication of insufficient rest or accumulating fatigue (potential overtraining).

Each progression is wrapped within another progression, like a Matryoshka doll. Let's start from the innermost layer.

Layer 1: Technique

Technique

tells you how effectively you perform a single repetition. It has many components:

FBT (Full Body Tension)

- how well you maintain full-body muscle engagement and tension throughout the movement.

Positioning

- the placement of your joints and limbs during the movement.

Alignment

- how well your body is stacked and balanced (e.g. straight line, no twisting or collapsing).

Stability

-your ability to hold positions steady without shaking or collapsing, even without visual feedback, for example, performing a handstand with your eyes closed eyes.

Control

- your ability to move smoothly between positions without losing form.

Breathing

- proper breathing can make or break the exercise.

MMC (Mind-Muscle Connection)

- your focus can make a big difference while performing the exercise.

Speed Intent

- how fast you try to perform the movement, even if the actual speed is slow. This is critical for power.

Tempo

– how fast you move through each phase of the repetition, especially controlling the eccentric part. Adjusting tempo directly affects

TUT (Time Under Tension)

, which is the total time your muscles are working during a set.

ROM (Range of Motion)

– how much of the movement you complete, ideally using a full and controlled range

Once you can perform slow and controlled repetition with proper

Technique

, then increase the count.

Layer 2: Repetition count

An extra

repetition

is the next progression. As mentioned before, you don’t need to exceed 8 reps in most cases, and sometimes even fewer. However, this applies mainly to strength training.

If you are training for endurance, increase repetitions as much as you can. If you are training for power, reduce repetitions and avoid going beyond 4.

Layer 3: Set count

Once you reach 8 repetitions in the first set, the next progression is to reach the same quality count in the second or third set. Usually, this does not take much time, you can often achieve it within the same session or the next one.

How many sets you do depends on how many exercises you have and how many times per week you train.

You can either have 6 exercises and do two sets each, or have 3 exercises and do 3 to 4 sets each.

The general rule is 10–16 total sets per week per skill.

Layer 4: Exercise difficulty

Once you can perform 8 repetitions across all sets, the next step is to increase the exercise difficulty. This depends on the exercise itself.

For example, with pushups, you can increase feet elevation. For wide pushups, you can increase the distance between your arms. For handstands, you can close your eyes or perform them on an uneven surface.

No matter which progression you choose, make sure you can perform at least 4 repetitions. It does not have to be perfect, your

Technique

will improve over time.

Just avoid doing only 1 or 2 reps, as it won’t provide an optimal stimulus for strength gains.

Layer 5: Skill progression

When you increase the difficulty of an exercise enough, you eventually move to the next exercise. For example, going from knee pushups to standard pushups.

In most cases, you will be at a different level for each exercise within a progression. How many of these exercises you include per session depends on your training split:

PPL (Push Pull Legs)

split — you may have 3 to 6 exercises.

Full Body

split — 1 or at most 2 exercises.

Bro

split — where you train a single skill once per week, you may have 6–8 exercises.

All of these splits are fine. Just make sure the total set volume per skill does not exceed 16 sets per week for strength work.

Workout examples

Let's go through few workout examples to get a better idea. This was my first pushup workout, which I followed for almost 6 months before changing it.

I had 8 pushup variations, performed for 3 x 8 sets each, once per week.

The main problem here was the volume. 8 exercises times 3 sets times 8 repetitions equals

192

pushups, which is far too much. Although I made good initial gains, I started to feel increasing fatigue, and my deload weeks became more frequent.

This was the next iteration of my pushup workout. I still had 8 exercises per session, performed once a week, but reduced the set count to 2 and the repetitions to 6.

This gave me a total of

pushups per week, a

50%

reduction in volume. And guess what?

I didn’t notice any drop in performance, the only difference was that my recovery improved considerably.

Always remove junk volume from your program. It not only wastes time but also slows down your progression.

Final example is my workout to unlock

HSPU (Handstand Pushup)

, 8 exercises for 2 sets.

This covers only the strength component of the

HSPU

. I also work on shoulder conditioning, flexibility, and handstand drills throughout the week using the

GTG (Greasing The Groove)

method.

With this, I have covered only a single aspect of programming, which is strength development. As mentioned earlier, there are 7 components of an effective training program, and I will cover them in the future.

For now, I hope this helps you start building your own program and begin training calisthenics.

Now, let's start looking at specific skills.

Introduction to pushups

When I used to go to the gym, my favourite exercise was the bench press. It was

THE

exercise for me. At that time, I saw people including pushups in their training, but I never took them seriously. They felt too easy, more like accessory work.

If you think the same, then

STOP!

It’s a mistake. Pushups are not the bench press, in fact, when done properly, they can be much harder.

That’s because pushups are a full body movement, while the bench press mainly targets the upper body.

Did you know that calisthenics, like any discipline, has its own jargon, and in that jargon, common exercise names are often abbreviated. So,

push-up

is often referred to as

Plank

To start performing pushups, you first need to get into position. The starting position of a pushup has its own name, in fact, it can be treated as an exercise on its own. You guessed it right, I am talking about the

plank

The plank is not only the starting progression for pushups, but also for many core movements such as dragon flags, hollow body holds, and leg raises.

If the universe starts with a Big Bang, then calisthenics starts with a

plank

The most common mistake people make when performing the plank is turning it into an endurance exercise. Don’t hold it for minutes. In fact, I rarely hold it for more than 30 seconds. It’s better to increase resistance, use weights on your back, or even better, elastic bands.

In addition, based on elbow position, there are two versions of the plank:

Low plank

- performed with elbows on the floor. This is the standard version, but you don’t get as much out of it. Use it if you have limitations such as wrist or elbow pain.

High plank

- performed with straight arms. This is the starting position for many pushing movements. It also helps condition connective tissue and build straight-arm strength. It is the variation you should do it.

Personally, I can’t imagine a beginner calisthenics program without the plank.

Knee pushups

If you can't perform at least 4 normal pushups, you should start with an easier variation such as

knee pushups

The interesting thing about pushups is that no matter which variation you choose, the

technique

does not change. In fact, it is almost the same as in a

plank

A common mistake in calisthenics is choosing an exercise where you can barely perform one or two reps with poor technique. With this approach, you are more likely to injure yourself.

This is how your first pushup workout could look. Start with a few variations of knee pushups, then include incline pushups. Add some planks or negatives, and you will build enough strength to perform a normal pushup.

This is just an example of a workout if you are doing a

PPL

Bro

split. If you are doing a

Full Body

split, choose one or two exercises from the list.

Pushup technique

Congrats, you have unlocked your first pushup. But what’s next? The first step is to make sure you are doing it correctly.

Remember,

Technique

is the first progression, and

FBT (Full Body Tension)

, which I go through in this video, is part of that technique.

If you have watched the previous videos on plank and knee pushups, you will notice a pattern:

Fingers spread apart

Scapula depressed and protracted

Shoulders externally rotated

Core braced

Feet in dorsiflexion

All of these adjustments are there to create

FBT

and perform the exercise as efficiently as possible.

For hypertrophy, in other words, building a bigger chest, this technique is not the most optimal.

You would use a slightly more relaxed setup, allow a deeper stretch at the bottom, don't lock elbows and perform more repetitions.

However, if your goal is to build strength, then being efficient in the exercise is important due to better force transfer.

Think of your body as a set of lanes. The more aligned and open they are, the more force can pass through.

Remember when I said that each joint position can impact the efficiency of the exercise. This impact is not only felt through larger joints like the hips or spine, but also through smaller joints, especially those in contact with the floor.

That’s because these points are where force is transferred. If the connection with the floor is weak, everything above it becomes less efficient.

Yes, I am talking about the hands and feet.

Alternatively, if you have wrist pain, you can do pushups using parallettes. They not only reduce pressure on the wrist joint but also increase the range of motion, making the exercise slightly harder.

But just like pushups on the floor, there is a right and wrong way to perform them. Make sure you grip the bars properly, otherwise, you may develop wrist or forearm pain over time.

Similarly, your feet plays very important role while doing pushups. Make sure that they are flexed. This will activate your shin muscles and will create tension in you your legs.

These hand and feet cues apply not just to pushups, but also to planks, handstands, and many other exercises that require similar position.

Pushup tempo

You go through four phases of a pushup during a single repetition.

Eccentric

– the time spent lowering yourself down.

Bottom

– time spent at the bottom with your elbows bent.

Concentric

– the time spent pushing yourself up.

Plank

– the time spent at the top position before going down.

How long you spend in each phase depends on the attribute you are training.

For strength, you want to perform the exercise slowly and with control, especially during the eccentric phase.

For power, you want the concentric phase to be as fast as possible.

For endurance, you want a steady, consistent tempo that allows you to sustain more repetitions without breaking form.

Choose tempo wisely! 🙂

The four phases mentioned are the most common and apply not only to pushups but to many other exercises. However, some exercises have their own number of phases. For example, take this pushup challenge:

First, you move your right hand to the top of your left

Then you tap your shoulder

Then you touch the same hand again

Then you return to the starting position

Then you repeat with the other hand, and so on

It almost looks like a dance and can take around 20 seconds. Yet, it can still be considered a single repetition of the exercise.

Pushup attributes

I have been posting content on social media for a long time now, and I often receive comments, some of them quite critical of my choice of exercises.

Pushups for folks who, maybe, wanna snap their wrists

First see your food is on point, then add cardio, then add strength training. Doing pushups on an overweight body is useless

Kids dont do this. You just risk injury. Do normal pushups or bench with progressive overload. This shit is dangerus and have 0 benefits

Most of these criticisms come down to a single misunderstanding: each exercise, regardless of its risk of injury, is used to train specific attributes.

If you want to develop power, you would do explosive pushups. Similarly, if you want to develop stability, you would do pushups on an unstable surface. It’s as simple as that.

Pushup attribute: Strength

Strength

refer to your ability to produce force against resistance.

Strength is typically trained in lower rep ranges (3–6) using a slow and controlled tempo. However, the most important factor in developing strength is resistance. You won’t build strength by doing hundreds of pushups, you’ll build endurance, improve your cardiovascular system, and burn calories. But it won’t help you progress to harder variations.

One of the most effective ways to build pushup strength is by using elastic bands, as shown in the video.

When training a specific attribute, you want to minimise interference. For example, when training for strength, you want to remove instability, when training for stability, you do the opposite.

That’s why you can’t train pushups optimally for strength if you’re worried about plates sliding off your back.

One interesting thing about strength is that it helps improve endurance, while the opposite effect is limited. That’s why, if you want to increase your pushup repetitions, you should also include resisted pushups in your program.

Pushups workout

Based on this programming methodology, you shouldn’t be doing more than 6 to 8 reps. Once you reach that range, it’s better to move to a harder variation. But

"How do you choose the right one?"

The answer depends on your goals. Ask yourself:

"What exercise do you want to unlock?"

For example, if your goal is a muscleup, then doing only strict, slow pullups might not be the best progression. That’s because the muscleup requires explosiveness, and explosive movements develop different adaptations compared to controlled ones.

However, as a beginner, keep it simple and cover the basics:

One exercise to build strength

One for explosiveness

One for stability

One unilateral variation

This will build enough general strength. Once you reach an intermediate level, you can start focusing more on specific skills.

These rules are general and apply to all skills, not just pushups.

Example of pushup workout:

Normal pushups with resistance for building raw strength.

Clap pushups for explosive power.

Ring pushups for stability.

Pseudo pushups for skill work to unlock tucked planche.

Archers pushups on rings for strength.

Finger planks to condition fingers connective tissue.

One arm pushups makes sure each side is equally strong.

Russian pushups progression to unlock russian dips.

8 exercises is borderline too much, but if you keep it to 2 sets with low rep ranges, it can work.

Beyond normal pushups

Congratulations, player! Mastering normal pushups is like completing the introductory quest in an RPG. You understand the basics and have gained some experience. Now it’s time to explore the open world.

As in any RPG, there are many paths you can take:

Go for narrow pushups, which lead to diamond, then tiger, then Russian pushups

Move your hands apart, which leads to wide, then archer, then one-arm pushups

Increase feet elevation, which leads to pike pushups and eventually handstand pushups

Increase range of motion by going deeper into deficit pushups, which eventually lead to pelican pushups

Work on explosiveness by doing jump pushups, which lead to clap and eventually superman pushups

Change leg position with scorpion or spiderman pushups, which improve coordination and control, both important for smooth transitions

No matter how many variations you include, always keep a standard resisted push-up in your program. As mentioned earlier, it is one of the most efficient ways to build pushing strength.

Wide & Narrow pushups

After mastering normal pushups, the next progressions are usually

narrow (close-grip)

and

wide

pushups.

Narrow pushups feel harder because they shift more of the work onto the triceps and reduce how much the chest helps. Since the triceps are a smaller muscle group than the chest, they fatigue faster.

Wide pushups can also feel harder, but for a different reason. The wider hand position puts your shoulders and chest in a less efficient position, which reduces your mechanical advantage and makes the movement feel more demanding.

Both of these progressions lead naturally to more advanced variations like

diamond

pushups and

archer

pushups.

Unilateral pushups

First of all,

"Why would you want to do unilateral exercises?"

Well, because in almost every person there is a dominant side. This can be due to muscle imbalances, injury, or simply natural tendency, like being left- or right-handed.

What happens is that when you do bilateral exercises, that dominant side often performs more of the work, making the weaker side even weaker over time.

That's why unilateral exercises are useful. They make sure each side works independently, helping both sides become more balanced and reducing imbalances.

Make sure that for each skill you include at least one unilateral exercise in your program.

OAPU (One Arm Pushup Ups)

The first unilateral exercise for push-ups is the archer push-up, which eventually leads to the OAPU. However, going straight from archers to OAPU is too big of a jump for most people.

But if you add an intermediate progression, the

supported

OAPU, you can bridge that gap effectively. Just make sure to gradually increase the elevation of your support, as this increases the difficulty.

The interesting thing about calisthenics is that the harder the exercise, the smaller the scale of progression becomes. Even small changes can make a big difference.

"Don't believe me?"

Have a look at the OAPU. In the easiest version, you have:

The foot of the support leg flat on the ground

The working leg placed out to the side (around 45 degrees)

The hand slightly rotated inward (around 30 degrees)

The chest rotated upward

If you can do around 20 solid pushups, you may be able to perform this version of an OAPU. However, if you make even a small change, like putting your support foot into dorsiflexion, you will immediately feel that it becomes harder.

The strictest version of the OAPU is significantly more difficult than the initial version.

Pushup attribute: Stability

Stability

refer to your ability to hold positions steady without shaking or collapsing.

There are multiple reasons why you shouldn't skip stability training:

If your body isn't stable, some of the force you produce "leaks," which makes the exercise less efficient.

Harder progressions require more stability. For example, ring work, even if you can do pushups with 100kg added resistance, you will still wobble on rings if you haven't trained stability.

It activates smaller supporting muscles (stabilizers), which help your larger muscles work more effectively and produce more force.

Lastly, and most importantly, it helps condition your joints, especially the shoulders. A common cause of joint issues is poor stability, so training it helps reduce that risk.

A common misconception: stability work is only dangerous if you progress too quickly. It's no different from trying to lift 200kg when your max bench is 100kg. Just apply progressive overload.

Ring pushups

Once I have mastered ring pushups, the next progression I tried was ring pushups on the floor. However, I landed on my face straight away 😂😭. The jump in difficulty was too big.

So initially, I tried to apply standard progressions, like knee ring push-ups on the floor or one hand assisted variations. But I didn’t make any progress.

That’s because changes in leverage have limited impact on stability. They work well for strength development, but not as much for stability.

So instead, I focused on directly increasing instability. One simple way to do that is by reducing surface contact area.

It only took me a few days to achieve my first floor ring pushup, while with the previous approach I struggled for months.

There are many lessons to learn from this.