How to begin learning Callisthenics skills? e.g. Frogstand, One Arm Push Up, Front Tucked Lever

carina2111

New member
Hey Reddit,

I am currently confused and a bit curious on how I could get started with learning Callisthenics skills? I see people telling me to start practising Frogstand upon many other moves, but they don't tell me how.

I know how to try and Frogstand, but I don't know how to get good at it. (e.g. How do I build up to it? How many sets of reps for how many seconds do I try to do it for? How often do I train this move, 3-5 times a week? How long do I train it for during one workout? Do I train multiple Callisthenics skills in one session?)

Thanks for reading, I hope you can guide me into this wonderful world of fitness.

Edit: Thank you all for the help, all the comments are super helpful.
 
@carina2111 I've learned through the recommended resources on the right side of the sub and a few youtube channels. In particular, I really recommend Domink Sky, FitnessFAQ and CalisthenicsMovement. All 3 of those channels have TONS of content and are all presented in different styles.
 
@nate71 My favorite fitness youtubers are exactly the ones you just mentioned and Tom Merrick, when I'm searching for "forearms exercises" or "quadriceps exercises" I usually look for 1 video of each of these youtubers so I can choose what's best for me based on these experts opinions.
 
@carina2111 Frogstand (crow pose) is easy to start to try and there's no "getting good at it" practice other than doing it, but you need to take some precautions when you do the movement and ease into it when you're starting.

So start to get into the pose, but keep one leg sort of back / or keep your balance back, so you can balance with one of your big toes. Practice lightly tapping forward into the balance, and use that leg/toe to fall back on if you start to lose your balance. The most important thing with this when starting to learn imo is learning to fall. You don't want to injure yourself, and falling forward is the best way to injure yourself. Ideally, when you feel yourself starting to lose balance, bring one leg back, which should bring your balance falling back, but use your fingers to lever yourself back if you need it. If you find yourself unable to do any of this and you feel you're going forward, falling straight down is the next best option, drop your legs off your arms straight down into a kneeling position (have a mat or towel under there so you don't hurt your knees if this becomes a common occurrence).

The big thing with this pose is that you shouldn't do any fast movements. Tapping forward from a toe balanced position to the full arm balance needs to be gentle, and don't worry if you tend to fall back into the toe balance. As you learn to balance like that, you'll get more comfortable. Like most Yoga poses, to get better, you just do it for as long as you can hold it, comes out of it, wait a bit, and do it again. I tend to just repeat it once if I'm doing it daily with other exercises (but I hold it around 30 seconds), but if I'm doing a yoga day, I'll do it 3 times. This is a move you can practice as often as you want. Every day won't hurt you because it's a balance exercise (though it may be tough at first if you don't have the shoulder strength for maintaining the pose, there's still no motion involved so go at it every day if you want). This is one of those poses that once you learn how to do, you'll likely retain the ability to do it (I just started working out recently after a 4 year or so hiatus after having my daughter, and this pose is something I've easily incorporated back into my exercise even with all that extra weight).

One arm pushup is likely the same as any other pushup if you can't do one: find a type of pushup that's as close as possible to what you're trying to do and get good at that, then start doing negatives of the difficult one. Sometimes you don't even need to do negatives if you get good enough at the close one. For one hand pushups, get good at pushups of good form with a close hand grip. Then look online for the form for a one hand pushup (definitely start with wide feet), and see if you can do one. If you can't, do the negative routine. Get into the top position and lower yourself as slowly as you can, making sure you gracefully fall if you can't maintain it. Don't push yourself up, but get back into the top position and lower yourself as slow as you can. Do sets of negatives like you would sets of pushups. Negatives work for so, so many bodyweight exercises. I can't recommend them enough for people struggling with pullups, particularly one arm pullups.

I can't really recommend anything for a front tuck lever, but looking at it, it seems like it's another thing you just start getting into that position and holding it for as long as you can. Not sure how the mechanics play out, but negatives might help (as in, get into the tucked position however you can and slowly go down, eventually you'll be able to pull yourself up into the tucked position). I'd guess getting good at pullups help. I used to practice front levers like this, so I'm guessing it's similar.

With respect to your question about doing a bunch of these at once, look at what major muscle groups are being used and what the range of motion is. Crow / frog can be done every day. Some days, particularly after shoulder exercises, you won't be able to hold it as long, but there's no motion involved and it's just balance. Pushups exercise the chest, shoulder and tricep, so be cognizant of what else you're doing on different days. Levers are pretty much core and back muscles (someone correct me on that one if I'm wrong, as there may be chest utilization too), so again, be cognizant of what you're doing on different days. The biggest thing to worry about is rest, so practice one arm pushups on chest / tricep days but not the day after. You can do levers on back days, but don't do them the day after a back day.
 
@dawn16 Thank you so much! This information is really helpful and I appreciate you and everyone commenting to help me out.

I will apply all of these strategies and keep it in mind, I can’t thank you enough!
 
@carina2111 Just to add on to one arm press ups (as it's the only one I can do!)

You can practice with a normal strance and deliberately try to push with only one hand, using the second for balance only.
Then you can start lifting the second hand off the floor half way (I like to tap the other shoulder with it, kind of like a plank variation).
Then lift the hand earlier and earlier.

There's a lot of core strength required to stay straight when on three points of contact. Don't underestimate it.

And go wide legs. Like really wide. Might even want the leg on the "no hand" side to be almost horizontal and the other leg only a little out to help balance
 
@carina2111 I cant give you too much help, since I have only been doing calisthenics for 9 months. Personally, i skipped the Frogstand and went straight to backlever, witch was a mistake... but in general when i train for skills i like to do it throughout the day (if my body can handle it). I also include 4-5 sets of a skill that i am working on before I start my main routine.

I don't do too many skill sessions because I am still kinda a beginner/intermediate, but i like to do one skill pr workout, so that the entire workout is built around the way that skill stresses my body. for example when i train front lever, i do front lever rows in the beginning as well as weighted pullups before i move on to other things such as pike pushups etc.

one last thing is to make sure that you do bent arm work together with straight arm work, that really helps

hope this helps in one way or another.
 
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