Before/After Pic
Before: 80kgs/17.5% Body Fat
After: 73kgs/14.2% Body Fat
I would like to share with all of you, but mostly with the people who are just starting out or the ones indecisive on how to start with the bodyweight fitness journey, some tips and lessons that have helped me with my progress and love with the calisthenic movement.
Most of the progress starts by just showing up, I see a multitude of questions in the daily questions thread about what is the best way to start doing pullups/squats/rows, given that I have X restrictions or afraid of doing it incorrectly. My advice is, just do it stop overthinking on what is the optimal way of training and go ahead and start moving your body around, you will eventually get a hold of the movement and will find a way to do it better over time. Also, I love seeing people on their first day of working out at the park/gyms doing their exercises incorrectly, because that means they care, they want to do something for their health, eventually with time and enough will, they start noticing better pattern movements. Nobody ever had idea on their first day of training on what "range of motion" or "time under tension" meant, this is knowledge you get over time. Trust me, you are not getting injured by doing wall push ups and learning the movement pattern.
Before my bodyweight journey I was an avid gym goer, but didn't care too much on rest times, nor I tracked what I ate. The results? I felt fatigued and didn't see any physical progress. When I started the RR i noticed the "huge" gaps of rest time between sets, my first thought was "oh well i can cut that in half", but noticed how my performance decreased when I cut rest times for less than the specified 1'30", so I sticked to these rest times and this was a pivotal moment for my training, I suddenly progressed way faster than any other time doing strength training. Heck I even bought a watch just to track this golden minute and a half. And for the eating part? I payed a MyFitnessPal subscription for 3 months to understand my TDEE, after reading the wiki on r/Fitness I set myself a specific diet with good protein distribution within my macros and eventually didn't have to track it daily since I got a hold of what I was eating throughout the day, I attribute most (at least 50%) of the progress to this.
Another frequent question I see on this sub is people wanting to get creative and start mixing, removing and adding exercises within the RR, this is a huge mistake (in my opinion and experience) since you don't let your body create an organic adaptation to the movements and patterns of the RR exercises, in all of this period I have sticked to the exercises mentioned in the routine making progress, when I started I could barely do 1 chinup, now I do 3x10 weighted (10lbs) pullups. So yes, consistency is king.
(Outside the recommended routine) I religiously did 3 times a week (sometimes just 2) my RR, but around it? I switched up almost every week, why? because I tried doing things that I enjoyed doing, for example, some weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays I went out and ran 5k, sometimes 7k and sometimes I just walked 4k, whichever I was feeling like doing. Some weekends I went mountain biking for almost 30k, on another week I had intense padel games with my neighbours at night. I even went on doing Crossfit for a couple of days with a friend of mine just to learn something new (I didn't like it, but I did learn a lot from it). So my advice is keep moving, even in the in-between-days. Of course it is vital to have complete rest days (1 or 2 are enough) I just took them whenever my body asked me to.
Honestly, I wouldn't have been able to progress that much if it hadn't been for my brother insisting me to do mobility exercises, I started by doing follow-alongs on YouTube by Tom Merrick, this were very basic movements and I couldn't do most of them without trembling, I never did Yoga or anything before as I felt intimidated by all of this complex moving patterns, the videos helped me out as a beginner (I couldn't touch my shins when doing pikes, now I'm 2 cm away from my toes). It also helped me understand my body, I finally got what the rotator cuff was and how medular it is for most of the upper body bodyweight training exercises. The cool thing about it? This just took me 20 minutes of my day, so I did them at least 4 days a week. On monday I'll be doing some Yoga for the first day in my life, wish me luck.
Before: 80kgs/17.5% Body Fat
After: 73kgs/14.2% Body Fat
I would like to share with all of you, but mostly with the people who are just starting out or the ones indecisive on how to start with the bodyweight fitness journey, some tips and lessons that have helped me with my progress and love with the calisthenic movement.
1. Just do it
Most of the progress starts by just showing up, I see a multitude of questions in the daily questions thread about what is the best way to start doing pullups/squats/rows, given that I have X restrictions or afraid of doing it incorrectly. My advice is, just do it stop overthinking on what is the optimal way of training and go ahead and start moving your body around, you will eventually get a hold of the movement and will find a way to do it better over time. Also, I love seeing people on their first day of working out at the park/gyms doing their exercises incorrectly, because that means they care, they want to do something for their health, eventually with time and enough will, they start noticing better pattern movements. Nobody ever had idea on their first day of training on what "range of motion" or "time under tension" meant, this is knowledge you get over time. Trust me, you are not getting injured by doing wall push ups and learning the movement pattern.
2. Rest and Eating
Before my bodyweight journey I was an avid gym goer, but didn't care too much on rest times, nor I tracked what I ate. The results? I felt fatigued and didn't see any physical progress. When I started the RR i noticed the "huge" gaps of rest time between sets, my first thought was "oh well i can cut that in half", but noticed how my performance decreased when I cut rest times for less than the specified 1'30", so I sticked to these rest times and this was a pivotal moment for my training, I suddenly progressed way faster than any other time doing strength training. Heck I even bought a watch just to track this golden minute and a half. And for the eating part? I payed a MyFitnessPal subscription for 3 months to understand my TDEE, after reading the wiki on r/Fitness I set myself a specific diet with good protein distribution within my macros and eventually didn't have to track it daily since I got a hold of what I was eating throughout the day, I attribute most (at least 50%) of the progress to this.
3. Stick to the progressions
Another frequent question I see on this sub is people wanting to get creative and start mixing, removing and adding exercises within the RR, this is a huge mistake (in my opinion and experience) since you don't let your body create an organic adaptation to the movements and patterns of the RR exercises, in all of this period I have sticked to the exercises mentioned in the routine making progress, when I started I could barely do 1 chinup, now I do 3x10 weighted (10lbs) pullups. So yes, consistency is king.
4. Don't stick to a routine
(Outside the recommended routine) I religiously did 3 times a week (sometimes just 2) my RR, but around it? I switched up almost every week, why? because I tried doing things that I enjoyed doing, for example, some weeks on Tuesdays and Thursdays I went out and ran 5k, sometimes 7k and sometimes I just walked 4k, whichever I was feeling like doing. Some weekends I went mountain biking for almost 30k, on another week I had intense padel games with my neighbours at night. I even went on doing Crossfit for a couple of days with a friend of mine just to learn something new (I didn't like it, but I did learn a lot from it). So my advice is keep moving, even in the in-between-days. Of course it is vital to have complete rest days (1 or 2 are enough) I just took them whenever my body asked me to.
5. Believe the "Mobility & Flexibility" hype
Honestly, I wouldn't have been able to progress that much if it hadn't been for my brother insisting me to do mobility exercises, I started by doing follow-alongs on YouTube by Tom Merrick, this were very basic movements and I couldn't do most of them without trembling, I never did Yoga or anything before as I felt intimidated by all of this complex moving patterns, the videos helped me out as a beginner (I couldn't touch my shins when doing pikes, now I'm 2 cm away from my toes). It also helped me understand my body, I finally got what the rotator cuff was and how medular it is for most of the upper body bodyweight training exercises. The cool thing about it? This just took me 20 minutes of my day, so I did them at least 4 days a week. On monday I'll be doing some Yoga for the first day in my life, wish me luck.