You may have heard of calisthenics recently and assume it’s a new fitness craze. But it’s been around for a very long time and was first developed in Ancient Greece. Calisthenics has been making a comeback, and for a good reason! It has evolved since then to include different forms like street or urban calisthenics.
Calisthenics is a type of resistance training that works large muscle groups. It’s low impact, requires minimal equipment, and relies primarily on body weight. The exercises you can perform vary by intensity, depending on your fitness level. Newbies getting into calisthenics can benefit from a knowledgeable personal trainer.
Why Women Should Do Calisthenics
Apart from the convenience – you can do calisthenics anywhere and anytime – there are other reasons women should try calisthenics.
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It’s Low Impact
Since Calisthenics is relatively low impact, it’s gentle on your joints, making you less likely to get injured while working out. This makes it especially good for beginners who can start with easy exercises and then progress to more advanced ones as they improve their fitness.
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Builds Strength and Improves Endurance
Calisthenics will help you become stronger and build muscle. Even if you’re a beginner, you can start slow by doing eight to ten reps of each exercise.
As the exercises become easy and comfortable, you can increase the number of reps and shorten your rest time between sets, improving endurance.
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Improves Mobility
Calisthenics consists of natural movements like pushing, pulling, and squatting rhythmically. Given that many women lead more sedentary lifestyles by spending hours working in front of a computer screen, these natural moves are lost to us, and calisthenics is a great way to bring them back.
Doing these natural movements improves your mobility and flexibility, making it easier to move around in your everyday life with less body stiffness, aches, and pains.
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Aids Weight-Loss
Calisthenics is a fantastic workout if you want to lose a few pounds. Since it engages multiple muscles for each movement, you burn more calories. Also, muscles burn more calories than fat, so as your muscle mass increases, you use up more calories.
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Great for Overall Health
Apart from helping you lose and maintain a healthy weight, calisthenics has been linked to improving your overall health. When you do a calisthenics workout, you’re likely to sleep better, reducing your chances of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
How Does Calisthenics Compare to Other Workouts?
Calisthenics is great for weight loss, as it burns a lot of calories. Unlike other popular strength training exercises like weight lifting that typically focus on isolated movements, Calisthenics workouts incorporate compound movements that require more energy and allow you to exercise more muscles simultaneously. This also means you burn more calories.
Because of the compound, dynamic movements, calisthenics allows you to build overall strength instead of just building mass in the isolated muscle you are exercising when weight-lifting.
How to Create a Calisthenics Workout Plan for Women
Before diving into a workout, it’s helpful to create a workout plan. Having a plan means knowing what you’ll do and giving your workout and regime structure. When creating a plan, you must consider the following:
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Goals
You need to figure out why you want to work out and what you hope to achieve. Are you looking to lose weight? Do you want to develop your technique or become stronger? ‘
When thinking about your goals, also think about how much time you can dedicate to working out, as this will affect how long it will take to achieve your goals.
Also, remember that you have to exercise consistently to see results. So when planning, make sure you are realistic in planning your time.
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Equipment
A great thing about calisthenics is that you can do it almost anywhere. You can choose to work out at the gym, in a park, or at your convenience in your home.
While you don’t necessarily need calisthenics equipment, you can use some equipment to vary and elevate your workout. Popular equipment you can use includes resistance bands, gymnastics rings, and pull-up bars.
When you’re just starting, you can do exercises with no equipment, but adding equipment may become necessary as you advance. For example, you will need a pull-up bar to do various activities like pull-ups, chin-ups, and dips.
If you work out at home and want to purchase some equipment, it’s a good idea to spend some time researching. A good start is a pull-up bar, but take your time finding a home gym with pull up bar as there are a few options on the market.
Women’s Calisthenics Workout Plan for the Upper Body
Since calisthenics targets multiple muscles and joints, you don’t need to include lots of different exercises each time you work out. When working out your upper body, include the following exercises:
- Push-ups
- Planks
- Pull-ups
- dips
Each of these exercises has different variations so that you can incorporate different variations in each of your workout plans. For example, you can substitute a chin-up for a pull-up or do a side plank instead of a regular plank.
You can start with 8-10 reps and do two sets if you’re a beginner. As you progress, you must increase the number of reps and sets, so you can eventually do twenty reps and four to five sets when you’re stronger.
Women’s Calisthenics Workout Plan for the Lower Body
Like with upper body movements, you only need to do a few exercises to get a good lower body workout. Calisthenics is excellent for developing the muscles in the legs. Try the following routine to work out your lower body:
- Squats
- Lunges
- Jumping jacks
- Bridges
These exercises have different variations so that you can swap ordinary squats for jumping squats and lunges for courtesy lunges, for example.
You can, also, start by doing a few reps and sets, increase the number of reps and sets as you become more fit, and shorten the length of your rest time between sets.
References
- Webmd: Benefits of Calisthenics Exercise
- Healthline: 8 Calisthenics Exercises for Beginners
- Womenshealthmag: Calisthenics: Everything You Need to Know About the Beginner-Friendly Kit-Free Workout
- Evofitness: Calisthenics for Women: Here is Where You Should Start
- Insider: How to do calisthenics, a convenient and effective bodyweight workout
