My transformation/progress (30/M/170cm/69kg) from calisthenics (x-post from /r/fitness/)

[riverrose]

@nangua321 A rest day for me was doing the circuit twice. But i didn't take a single day off from all exercise for more than a year.

 

[baristaben]

@riverrose

Bodyweight progressions, although if I am at the gym and am using a barbell... I do 8-12 reps.

At what point did you add free weights to your routine?

 

[riverrose]

@baristaben Since the start as I did lifting before calisthenics but I'm terribly inconsistent with weight training. I might have done it once a week or fortnight at my most consistent. (With rare occurrences of twice a week)

 

[meredithhww]

@riverrose Impressive.

By squats, do you mean "air squats"?

 

[riverrose]

@meredithhww Bodyweight. Initially parallel but when that became to easy I switched to atg.

 

[meredithhww]

@riverrose So you didn't do any barbell squats at all?

 

[riverrose]

@meredithhww I do still do barbell squats but no where near as frequently as I do bodyweight. I didn't like the longer recovery times that came with heavier lifting but once my conditioning caught up and recovery time got better I stayed doing it more frequently again.

 

[meredithhww]

@riverrose Ah right. Cheers.

 

[dawn16]

@riverrose Toleration of repetitiveness in diet allows for good consistency and planning of future meals, during dieting. I, too, when dieting, eat a very consistent set of food items, such as pasta / sauce, chicken, beef, cantaloupe, spinach salad and bananas. Skim milk is good, too, and I change it up on occasion.

I'm hoping for a back like yours shows at 16 weeks. I'd be happy with an end result of what you show at 4 weeks.

 

[riverrose]

@dawn16 Mind you I had a terrible muscle imbalance at first because I was doing far more pull exercises than push. I didn't know the dangers of it and actually had to spend time strengthening my rotator cuff because of it.

 

[dawn16]

@riverrose Ah, I see. Thanks for the warning. I'm older, mid 40s: I'm taking it slow and varying the exercises substantially to hit the major muscle groups evenly.

 

[riverrose]

@dawn16 That's good. It's not a race so take your time and your body will thank you with better results later!

 

[jonnyy]

@riverrose So... no specific core exercises??

 

[riverrose]

@jonnyy You're always working out your core if you're strict with your form no matter what you're doing in calisthenics. There's nothing stopping you from supplementing these exercises with things like leg raises or planks for example.

 

[jonnyy]

@riverrose I know, just curious what you had done. Some nice abdominal V in your progress pics, interesting to see that you got it just from diet and general stabilization in other moves done with good form.

 

[riverrose]

@jonnyy Don't get me wrong. I would still give myself daily goals on top of this routine and consider splitting muscle groups over several days to make sure I'm allowing adequate recovery time. I'd modify my program on a weekly basis depending on my performance and goals.

 

[dawn16]

@riverrose Sad to see so many new lifters buying into OP's bullshit. It's not medically possible to gain that much mass naturally without putting on massive amounts of fat. The most efficient lifter with the best genes can only put on around 25 pounds of muscle in 1 year at most, that's a scientific fact. Not to mention his routine isn't even the most efficient way to gain.

 

[riverrose]

@dawn16 Please re-read again and you'd see that my weight actually changed very little. (69kg at the start... 64kg at the lowest and back up to 69kg) My weight stayed similar however my muscles got much more pronounced once I was strong enough to perform rep ranges that promote hypertrophy on a regular basis.

I'm not bullshitting you but there is really nothing that can be said or done to change your opinion at all.

 

[firegunner]

@riverrose I know this is so old you probably won't see it but how did you come up with your ratios for not getting unbalanced? I saw in a comment you replied that you came to 1:2:3 pullush:legs but I'm just wondering what your source was on this as my own "quick Google search" hasn't turned up much.

Also when you progressed reps did you maintain this ratio, or did you just add one rep to every exercise, or did you progress each exercise independently of the others?

Thanks. And seriously good work.

 

[riverrose]

@firegunner IIRC I think it was a pull up tutorial that said on average you should be able to do twice as many push ups than pull ups (strict). This seemed to rain true for myself and since doing twice as many push ups for my pull ups I have not experienced any joint injuries due to strength imbalance. (I only do minimal rotator cuff exercises now as opposed to frequent training in order to prevent injury when I first started)

I maintained the ratio by adjusting reps of all exercises described based on my weakest. (which was more often than not my pull ups) Even though I may have far more push ups I purposely limited them based on my max pull up reps which in turn meant that I was never training beyond the capabilities of my "weakest link" which also meant the conserved energy and reduced muscle strain allowed me to train more consistently.

Thanks for your question and compliment!