Rationale Behind My Choice of Calisthenics Exercises

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I received the following question: “For calisthenics how did you determine the exercises to do to get in shape?”

Basically, it comes down to 2 things:

1) Do the most advanced stuff that you’re able to make progress on. It’s all about putting the goalpost just a little bit in front of you so your body can adapt and improve itself to reach the goal. Too easy and you’re already at the goalpost so your body has no need to adapt to anything. Too hard and you’re not going to be able to properly communicate to your body what it has to do make further progress. You always want to be attempting to do better on things that are right at the edge of your current capabilities.

2) I would recommend to focus on compound exercises that work lots of muscle groups at once. It’s just more efficient that way. If you work out with compound exercises like pullups/chinups, dips/pushups, and jump squats (holding additional weight if necessary so that you’re not able to do more than, say, 15 reps), then you can get a solid full-body workout in just 30 mins, whereas it’s going to take you a lot longer to achieve the same coverage if you’re working each muscle group in isolation (bicep curls, tricep kickbacks, chest fly, leg press, calf raises, etc.).

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