7 Easy Calisthenic Exercises for Beginners

If you’re into fitness, you might have come across calisthenic exercises. Not everyone is into doing calisthenics, but if you’re interested in trying it, you’ve come to the right place to learn more about it.

First, it’s important to know what calisthenics are. Calisthenics is a series of bodyweight exercises that are done to boost muscle growth and weight loss. Interestingly, this form of workout doesn’t require heavy machinery, such as barbell racks or smith machines.

The primary form of resistance in calisthenics is bodyweight. You’ll either need no equipment but only a bare minimum, such as a pull-up bar and dips tower (even the most basic ones are suitable).

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Calisthenic Exercises You Can Do As a Beginner

Here are seven calisthenic exercises you can do when you begin with this type of workout:

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1) Pull-ups

As mentioned above, you’ll need a basic equipment such as a pull-up bar for this exercise.

Pull-ups are an important body weight movement widely used by gym goers. This bodyweight movement focuses on your back muscles. It’s usually used to warm up lat muscles before beginning a heavy back session.

However, this is a major movement in calisthenics, and you’ll need to focus on intensity over volume - do more reps for each set (aim till failure).

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2) Jump Squats

Jump squats focus on your quads, hamstrings and glutes but primarily quads. However, if you’ve never done jump squats before, remember the following:

• push through with your heels
• land soft to protect your knees
• don’t let your knees cross your toes upon squatting
• use your hands as momentum to jump higher.

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3) Push-ups

Another bodyweight movement for calisthenic exercises is push-ups. This exercise works out your chest, triceps, biceps, shoulders and lats, based on your palm placement.

The following palm placements work various muscles:

• shoulder-width: chest muscles
• close-grip: tricep muscles
• shoulder-width with elevated legs: shoulder muscles
• reverse-grip: bicep muscles
• inwards: lat muscles (while engaging other muscles).

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4) Burpees

Undoubtedly, burpees are one of the best calisthenic exercises a beginner can focus on. They're a great bodyweight movement that double as an extremely effective cardio movement.

You can start by doing knee push-ups before moving to toe push-ups as your strength increases.

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5) Crunches

If you’re looking for good calisthenic exercise for your core muscles, crunches are the way to go. It’s a basic movement that strengthens abdominal muscles and improves core strength. You can add advanced variations as and when your strength improves.

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6) Dips

Another effective calisthenic exercise is dips. This is an exercise for beginners, which completely focuses on the triceps or chest, depending on your body’s position.

If you lean slightly forward, most of the pressure is borne by your chest muscles. Meanwhile, if you keep your body straight, the pressure is taken on by the tricep muscles.

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7) Chin-ups

If you want to focus only on your biceps, chin-ups are the way to go. You use your bicep muscles to pull up your body, and as it’s against gravity, the resistance is more.

This is one of the best calisthenic exercises you can do as a part of your resistance training as well.