ThenicsWorkout

If you've seen many advanced calisthenics skills being performed, you've probably noticed one thing the athletes had in common: being ripped. This trend is no mistake, being light and lean is almost required for more advanced skills like the iron cross or planche. For calisthenics, nutrition plays a key factor in ability. Your body weight plays a big factor in calisthenics. It's much more of a factor in calisthenics than in standard weightlifting because you are using your body as the weight, instead of an external load. The less you weigh, the less weight you have to move. If you want to weigh less, the easiest way to go about achieving that is to eat the right way. Making all calisthenics skills easier isn't the only benefit of eating well. By eating well and training hard, you'll build a solid, lean physique over time. Aside from getting shredded, eating healthy food makes you feel better. It really is surprising how much of a change it is in your life when you improve your diet.

Neither Too Much Nor Too Little

Eating too much or too little can cause issues when you're training calisthenics. Having a balanced diet that provides you with ample nutrition, without weighing you down with excess calories is key to continue making progress. Everyone has different caloric requirements and is affected by food differently. You have to find a style of eating that works for you. Overeating causes obvious problems when it comes to calisthenics. The excess weight that eating too many calories will cause weighs you down. Aside from making everything harder, overeating can also cause bloating, stomach discomfort, and lethargy. All of those symptoms can make it much harder to keep up the habit of training. On the other hand, undereating comes with another set of issues. If you don't eat enough, your body won't have the fuel it needs to repair and build new muscle. A lack of nutrition decreases your ability to recover, leading to overtraining and burnout over time.

Whole Foods, Full Stomach

Eating whole, unprocessed food sources is not only extremely nutritious, but it keeps you full for longer. Whole foods are foods that are left in their natural form, like a baked potato instead of tater tots, or chicken breast instead of chicken nuggets. The whole food blanket also includes fruits, vegetables, and beans. Because they aren't processed, whole foods still have all of their natural fibers and nutrients. All this extra fiber helps keep you full for longer, since it takes longer for your body to process. Whole foods also don't have the extra added fats, sugar, salt, and preservatives. Eating more whole foods will not only reduce your calorie intake, but make you healthier too.

Empty Calories, Empty Stomach

Eating foods that have a lot of added sugar or fat, but little nutritional value is not as filling as eating healthy whole foods. The sugar and simple carbs spike your blood sugar, only to leave you crashing and hungry again in a few hours. More nutritious foods with more fiber keep you feeling full for longer, and usually have fewer calories as well.

Sweet and Heavy Drinks

Drink with excess sugar and fat can add an incredible amount of calories to your daily intake. Because the calories are in a liquid form, they're processed quicker and don't leave you feeling full. For example, if you were to drink just four cans of coca-cola each day, that would be an extra 560 calories a day! Cream and sugar-filled coffee drinks are also very high in calories. Each 'iced caramel latte' comes out to about 250 calories, or more depending on what you've added. One of the easier changes you can make would be to replace sugary sodas with diet versions. You could also drink your coffee or tea without creamer or sweetener. And finally, of course, how could I get away with not mentioning number one: water. Ice cold water is always a great option whenever you're feeling thirsty.

The Count (of Calories)

Counting calories might sound like a chore, but it undeniably works. If you consistently track your weight and everything that you eat, you can reflect on how much and what you eat impacts what you weigh. By adjusting your diet over time, based upon how your weight changes, you can incrementally change your lifestyle, instead of a sudden drastic shift. This can also help those who are more sensitive to different foods to identify and eliminate foods that cause them issues. You can also work to manage your pre-workout meal and timing if intense exercise causes stomach discomfort.

Eighty-Twenty Rule

Despite what some people may lead you to believe, you don't have to entirely cut out 'unhealthy' foods. So long as the majority of your diet is healthy, occasionally eating sweet, sugar-laden treats are fine. The keyword here is occasionally. Eating something 'unhealthy' is fine two or three times a week, not two or three times a day. This also still doesn't mean we can binge eat three days a week, remember, it doesn't matter if you ate three hundred calories less five days of the week if you still eat an extra six or seven hundred on two.

Understanding Calisthenics Nutrition

Gymnastic rings are an awesome and versatile tool to get fit. They can be hung almost anywhere and can be used to get a great full-body workout. Today, we're going to run through a full-body rings workout that should take forty to fifty minutes to complete. There will be three options for each exercise in this workout. They range from easier progressions that anyone can do, up to harder progressions that will be challenging for most. Pick whichever progression you think you can complete the recommended number of reps for. If you find yourself needing to switch progressions partway through the exercise, go ahead. As long as you're working to near failure, you'll be fine. We're going to be using supersets to fit more work into less time. A superset refers to two exercises being alternated between, so that you can rest one muscle group while working another. Because of this, you can have shorter rest periods between alternating exercises. Traditionally, supersets are done with opposing muscle groups, like pushing and pulling. This is also how we'll be doing this workout today.

Full-body Rings Workout

The workout is going to start with a superset to work the upper body, followed by a superset to work the lower body, and finally a superset to work the core. We're going to do 4 sets for upper and lower body exercises, and 3 sets for the core. Superset A Pulling Exercise - 4x5-10

Incline Row

Horizontal Row

Ring Pull-up We're going to start with a pulling exercise. The three progressions for pulling are incline rows, horizontal rows, and pull-ups. Pick a progression that is challenging, but you can complete at least five reps of. Rest ninety seconds before moving to your pushing exercise. Pushing Exercise - 4x5-10

Incline Ring Push-up

Ring Push-up

Ring Dip Up next is our pushing exercise. We're going to alternate between our pulling and pushing exercises for four sets. The three progressions for pushing are incline ring push-ups, ring push-ups, and ring dips. Pick a progression that's hard, but you can manage at least five clean reps of. Rest ninety seconds before going back to your pulling exercise, of on to squatting if you've finished all 4 sets. Superset B Squatting Exercise - 4x10-20

Bodyweight Squat

Lunge

Shrimp Squat Next, we're doing squats. The options for this exercise are bodyweight squats, lunges, and intermediate shrimp squats (sometimes called skater squats or air lunges). Choose an appropriate progression that you can do ten plus reps of. Feel free to lightly hold on to a support for shrimp squats if you don't have the ankle flexibility. Rest ninety seconds after your set, then move on to the hinge exercise. Hinge Exercise - 4x10-20

Single-leg Deadlift

Glute Bridge Raise

Ring Hamstring Curl Alternating with our squat sets are our hinge exercise. Pick between single-leg deadlifts, glute bridge raises, and ring hamstring curls. Choose a variation you can perform at least ten reps of. Rest ninety more seconds before going back to squats or moving on to superset three. Superset C Core Exercise - 3x10-20

Lying Leg Raise

Hanging Knee Raise

Hanging Leg Raise Finally, we're going to be working our core. The three progressions for the abs are lying leg raises, hanging knee raises, and hanging leg raises. Pick whichever progression you can do ten or more reps of. Once you finish your set, rest ninety seconds and move on to the back exercise. Back Exercise - 3x10-20

Superman Raise

Swimmer Paired with our core exercise, we're going to be doing a lower back exercise. There are only two progression for this, superman raises and swimmers. Pick whichever progression you can comfortably complete the recommended reps of. Rest ninety seconds before returning to the core exercise, or finishing the workout if this is your third set! Workout Plan SupersetExerciseSet 1Set 2Set 3Set 4APullingAPushingBSquatBHingeCCoreCBack

Full-body Rings Workout

Pull-ups aren't easy. To lift your entire body weight with just your arms take a serious amount of strength. It can take a lot of dedicated effort to do your first pull-up, and even more to get stronger and do more pull-ups. Despite their difficulty, pull-ups are an important primary movement for calisthenics. This is because they are a compound movement that loads numerous large muscle groups at once, to train efficiently. If you're doing calisthenics training, you're going to be doing a lot of pull-ups. Here are a couple of ways to get a few more reps:

Build Stronger Abs

If you're still working on getting your first pull-up, or get up to a few in a row, you might want to work on your abs a bit more. You may not realize it, but you need decently strong abs to do pull-ups. Your abs kick in to keep your lower body under control, and your back from overly arching. Try adding this ab workout to your existing training to bring your abdominal strength up.

Grease the Groove

Another helpful method, if you can do more than a few pull-ups, is greasing the groove. To 'grease the groove', you're going to do many sets of pull-ups throughout the day, but you're only going to do a few reps per set. This will give your body practice doing reps of pull-ups, without tiring you out. Because you're going to be doing pull-ups throughout the day, you're going to need somewhere convenient to do them, like a doorway pull-up bar. Begin this routine by testing your max pull-ups, and recording what half of that max is. You should then do sets of that many pull-ups several times a day. If you start to feel fatigued from your grease the groove sets, you're doing too many pull-ups. Aim to accumulate reps without wearing yourself out.

Russian Fighter Program

The Russian fighter pull-up program will have you doing five sets of pull-ups, five days a week. On day one, you'll do your max reps, followed by a set of one less rep, then another set of one less rep than the last, and on, until you reach five sets. For example, if you could do five pull-ups in the first set, your first day would look like this: Set12345Reps54321 Each following day, you would add one rep to the set with the lowest number of reps. If multiple sets had the same number of reps, then you would add the rep to the earliest set. Days two through twelve would look like this: Set12345Day 254322Day 354332Day 454333Day 554433Day 6RestDay 7RestDay 854443Day 954444Day 1055444Day 1155544Day 1255554 You can continue progressing with this pattern as long as you can keep up.

Pull-up Ladders

Another simple pulling workout is the classic ladder workout. Start climbing the ladder by doing one pull-up in your first set. Then, do two pull-ups in your second set. Continue with three, four, five, and so on until you fail to match the number of reps. Proceed to climb back down the ladder, going down one rep each set until you reach one. If going up by single reps is too slow for you, there are a few ways to ramp this workout up. You could simply double the number of reps each set. Begin with two, then four, six, and so on. Another option is to limit your rest between sets to increase the intensity. Take as many deep breaths as you did reps between each set. If you did one rep, take one deep breath. Two reps, take two deep breaths.

Armstrong Pull-up Program

The Armstrong pull-up program is another intense five day program. This program has four different workouts for Monday through Thursday, and you repeat the most difficult of the four on Friday. This program also prescribes three max sets of push-ups each morning. The claim is that these three sets will reduce soreness, but feel free to skip them if you choose. Monday: On Monday, your workout is simply 5 max rep sets. Do each set to failure, and rest ninety seconds between each set. Don't worry about the numbers for this day, just make sure you go to failure. Tuesday: Next up: ladder sets. You're going to start your first set with one rep, your next set with two, then three, and so on. Once you reach a point that you can't do the prescribed number of reps, you reverse and go back down rep by rep. The rest prescription for this day is ten seconds per rep. Wednesday: Today you're going to do three sets of normal grip pull-ups, three sets of chin-ups, and three sets of wide grip pull-ups. You'll rest only sixty seconds between sets, so be careful to pick a number of reps that you know you can complete all nine sets of. Thursday: For the second to last day, you're going to do as many sets of pull-ups as you can, until you fail to do complete another full set. Do as many reps per set as you did for Wednesday. Rest sixty seconds between sets, again like you did Wednesday. If you can do more than nine sets on this day, do more reps per set next Wednesday. Friday: Finally, we're going to repeat whichever of the previous four days felt hardest. If you're not sure which day was the hardest, pick whichever you liked least. You could also replace this day with weighted pull-ups, or some other similar pulling variation as long as this day is hard.

Weighted Pull-ups

One of the best ways to unlock more pull-up reps, especially for those who are more intermediate or advanced, are weighted pull-ups. When you've been consistently training with added weight, bodyweight starts to feel much lighter. The lighter an exercise is compared to your max, the more reps you can do! Weighted training also offers the benefit of being very straightforward to program. Slowly and steadily increasing the weight is a simple and sustainable way to build incredible pull-up strength. When you eventually become strong enough, you can use power-lifting style percentage programming.

How to Do More Pull-ups

Gymnastic rings are, in my opinion, the most cost-effective piece of fitness equipment you can purchase. For the around cost of going to the movies for two, or half a tank of gas, you can get a piece of fitness equipment that allows you to train your whole body almost anywhere. A set of rings and straps weighs only a few pounds and fits easily into most bags. They can be hung them from pretty much anything strong enough to support your weight. Hang them from a doorway pull-up bar and work out indoors, or head to the park and hang them from a tree branch to get a work out in the sun. It's hard to beat the versatility and mobility of gymnastic rings, you can bring your gym anywhere with ease. With a pair of rings and somewhere high enough to hang them, anyone of any strength and skill level could get an effective full-body workout. There are dozens of variations of pull-ups, rows, dips, push-ups, leg raises and more. This versatility is why I use rings every time I work out, and so do many other calisthenics trainees.

What Gymnastic Rings Should I Buy?

There are a number of different kinds of gymnastic rings. You can choose between materials, strap length, ring thickness, and more. The kind of rings you need is going to depend upon your budget and mounting situation. Let's go through some of the different options available. Budget Gymnastic Rings If you're on more of a budget, you're going to be limited to shorter, unmarked straps. This shouldn't be too much of a problem for most people. As long as you have a mounting point available less than two meters from the ground, you won't have any issues. If your mounting point is higher than two meters, it will limit your ability to get the rings close to the ground.

Elite Gymnastic Rings  Plastic Rings The greatest 'bang-per-buck' option is usually going to be plastic rings. These textured plastic gymnastic rings are durable and weatherproof, able to withstand the harsh sun and rain. If you plan to leave your rings hanging outdoors, plastic rings are required. The main downside of plastic rings is how it feels. The textured plastic just doesn't feel quite as nice as wood does on the hands. Because plastic rings, unlike wood, don't absorb moisture, you're also more likely to need to use chalk to keep your grip during workouts. Wooden Rings You can also get wooden rings at a budget price point. Wooden gymnastic rings are what most people prefer, due to them feeling nicer on the hands and absorbing moisture to help you keep your grip. The smooth wooden rings are comfortable and grippy, and overall very pleasant to use. While you can leave them hanging indoors, wood gymnastic rings are more susceptible to the elements. They can be damaged by the sun and rain, so you have to take them down between sessions if you plan to use them outdoors. If you leave them up in the rain or get them soaking wet, the layers of wood can start to delaminate and fall apart.

Forcefree+ Wood Gymnastic Rings Nicer Gymnastic Ring Straps There are a few reasons to spend a bit more money on a set of gymnastic rings and straps. If you want to hang them from higher places, but still have the ability to hang them lower, longer straps will give you that option. Straps with markings make it possible to easily record and replicate the height your rings are set at. It may well be worth stepping up to slightly nicer straps if any of these things sound like they will benefit your training.

CFF Wood Olympic Rings - 18' Numbered Straps Marked Straps These straps come with extra length, at eighteen feet total, and have stitched markings every three inches to help measure your progress. The extra length will give you the flexibility to use higher hanging points, and still bring the rings low enough for push-ups and ring roll-outs. You can use the stitched markings to accurately record and replicate the height of your rings. This allows you to progressively overload exercises where ring height dictates the difficulty easily. There is a downside though, the markings won't line up if you use asymmetric mounting points like a sloping tree branch. Clip Style Straps Another style of strap uses two straps sewn together at regular spacing, and clips on the ends. Clip style ring straps can be quickly and accurately adjusted, because the clips can be easily moved between set loops. This also gives you the ability to easily and accurately track the height your rings are hung at to continue to progressively overload. A major downside of this style of strap is that it will not work if you do not have symmetric hanging points. This is because there are a limited number of places to clip, so they can't be adjusted as finely as a buckle style strap. If you plan on training outdoors under a tree, these straps might not be right for you.

Gonex Wooden Gymnastic Rings with Adjustable Number Straps

Alright, I Got Rings. Now What?

Good job, you're almost ready to start training. First, you'll need to find somewhere to hang your rings. There are many places you can hang them from, but it's important to make sure of a few things. Primarily, you need to be sure that whatever you're hanging the rings from can support you, and then some. Sudden shocks from dropping while on the rings can cause multiple times greater stress than just your bodyweight alone. Hanging Gymnastic Rings Indoors

Hanging gymnastic rings indoors is usually as simple as finding a sturdy mounting point. A structurally secure pipe or a sturdy rafter can serve as a very functional mounting point. One great aspect of hanging your rings from somewhere higher up is the ability to do hang without worrying about the ground. If you already have a doorway pull-up bar, that's also a fantastic option for hanging rings, if a bit cramped. If you're a bit more handy, you could make a dedicated ring hanger. This can be as simple as a two by four with some eye bolts in it. By having set mounting points, you can consistently space your rings for different exercises. This does come with the drawback of not having full freedom to adjust your ring width, so make sure you either measure, or give yourself enough mounting points.

Hanging Gymnastic Rings Outdoors

The most straightforward way to hang your rings outdoors is from a pull-up bar. Obviously, this option only works if you have a pull-up bar available to you. If that isn't an option for you, then it's time to get creative. Swing sets, monkey bars, park structures, metal beams, any structurally sound bar that you can get your rings over. And of course, you can hang your rings from a tree branch.

If you've been working harder than usual on pull-ups and your inner elbow is starting to hurt, you might be developing tennis or golfers elbow. As athletes that do a lot of pulling, getting elbow pain from pull-ups or chin-ups happens to many of us at one point or another. Thankfully, recovery from this issue is pretty simple. There are a number of factors that can cause tennis or golfers elbow, but the primary causes are intensity and volume. By repeatedly overloading your tendons, they are unable to recover and begin to break down. Letting your tendons recover is paramount to beating tennis or golfers elbow. The first thing you should do if you start to feel elbow pain is to rest. If you have any concerns about arm pain or arm pain that lasts longer than a couple of days, see a doctor. There are many causes for pain in the elbow, and going to a professional is your best bet for recovery. If you wait too long and the damage becomes serious enough, your arm will not heal without help from a medical professional over an extended period of time.

Why it Happens

www.scientificanimations.com / CC BY-SA Golfers or tennis elbow is primarily a repetitive strain injury. The forearm strain from pronated (hands facing away) pull-ups, and the strain from gripping onto the bar both contribute to this. Your tendons take much longer than your muscles to adapt to new stresses, they need to ease into new activities gently. Jumping into a new workout routine, or suddenly increasing the intensity of your pull-ups can be a trigger for elbow pain. Doing too much too quickly can start the downward spiral of tendon damage. Whenever you change your routine, you should plan to slowly increase the difficulty to avoid injury. To change your routine, try adjusting your workout by the smallest amount possible each time. If you are doing three sets of eight pull-ups and you want to add weight, you should add the smallest amount of weight you can each workout until. Working at a very low rep range puts a lot of stress on your tendons because the weight is so high. If you intend to train with sets of below three to four reps, you should spend at least a month at the three to four rep range to build strength in your tendons. A lack of grip strength is another factor for developing tennis or golfers elbow. This problem can be worsened when you add weight to your pull-ups, since that stresses your grip even more than standard pull-ups. If regular pull-ups are too easy, but weighted pull-ups are straining your grip, try doing a pull-up variation and working on your grip strength separately. L-Sit or wide pull-ups are great to increase the difficulty without adding weight.

How to Recover

Recovering from tennis or golfers elbow always centers on resting the strained tendons. You won't lose your hard-won gains from taking two weeks off. Don't do any pulling exercises for this period, and try to avoid doing any other strenuous work with your hands. Lifting, pulling, twisting and any other work that requires a strong grip can aggravate your symptoms and prolong recovery. If your arm is irritating you, you can try doing self-massage to help manage it. Self-massage might not help you heal faster, but it can help reduce pain from day to while you're recovering. You can use a ball or bottle to roll it out, or you can use your opposing hand to manipulate your arm. Stretching is also a good strategy to help relieve pain in the arm. While you're doing this, remember that these techniques should never hurt. There might be an uncomfortable 'electric' feeling as your tight muscles release, but if it begins to hurt stop doing it. Once you're sufficiently recovered you can help rebuild and avoid future injury by doing a couple of exercises. These are exercises serve to help isolate the small muscles in your forearms to help prepare them.

Weighted Forearm Supination and Pronation This is one of my favorite exercises to help build strength and resist injury. You can do this exercise with almost any object that is at least a couple inches long, and is weighted at the ends. You could use a hammer, hold a light dumbbell on the end, or even a water bottle. Simply hold the object with your palm down, and the weight towards your body. Rotate your wrist so that your hand is palm up, with the weight on the other side. Repeat this exercise for fifteen plus reps.

Weighted Wrist Curls Wrist curls are another useful exercise to strengthen your forearms and grip strength. You can do this exercise with your palm facing up or facing down, to target both sides of the forearm. Set up by laying your forearm on your leg, with your wrist hanging off the end of your knee holding a a light dumbbell . Curl the weights up with your wrist. Simple as that.

If you've ever spent weeks working hard, only to get weaker, you might have been overtraining. It's frustrating to find your strength steadily decreasing despite working harder, and besides frustrating, it can be extremely demoralizing. Overtraining, or more often overtaxing, is a phenomenon that occurs when you continually overload your body's ability to recover. This could be as a result of training too much, fueling too little, or a lack of proper recovery. If you're feeling run down and frustrated by a lack of progress, you should consider taking some of these tips to get back on track.

Poor Recovery

If you aren't able to properly recover between workouts, you won't be making progress as quickly as you could. Chronically under-recovering could mean that you might even be wearing your body down, and getting worse!

Getting stronger through training relies on a cycle of stress, fatigue, recovery, and supercompensation. Ideally, you want to train again once you've entered the supercompensation phase to continue the upward growth. If your ability to recover is too low for the amount of fatigue you're generating, or your frequency of training, you won't be able to recover fast enough. By never quite fully recovering, you'll never get the supercompensation phase and your overall fitness level will decrease. Lack of Rest Rest is vital to getting stronger and fitter. When you rest, your body recovers and grows, to better prepare you for training again. One of the most important aspects of rest is getting enough sleep. Without enough high-quality rest, your fatigue level will continue to slowly creep up. By letting your fatigue get too high, you won't be able to train with enough intensity to get stronger. If you become too fatigued, you'll start to wear down your body and risk injury. According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 65% of Americans get less than 8 hours of sleep most nights, and 40% sleep for 6 hours or less! When you're doing physical training, getting a minimum of 8 hours of sleep becomes even more important. Deep sleep is the time when your body is repairing most. This means that the quality, as well as the quantity of sleep that you get matters. Nutrition Even though it's not quite as true as it used to be, the saying "eat big to get big" still holds merit. As an athlete, it's incredibly important to eat enough to sustain your training. If you don't eat enough, your body won't have the fuel it needs to repair, rebuild, and get stronger. Another major risk of under-eating is depriving yourself of the required nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Under-eating for an extended period could lead to a serious deficiency, which can put a pause on your training until it's addressed.

Built-up Fatigue

Even if you're resting and eating enough, there's only so much work you can do and still recover. If you're pushing yourself too hard every workout, you're eventually going to start to enter the realm of overtraining. Balancing intensity and volume is key to managing long-term fatigue. Fatigue can accumulate slowly over long periods of time, without you even realizing it. Built-up fatigue can lower your performance, and make it hard to motivate yourself to train. Working Too Hard

You have to work hard to get better, but there is such a thing as working too hard. Over the course of a good training session, you create microscopic amounts of trauma in your muscles. If you push too hard, that microtrauma stops being training fatigue and becomes a minor injury. If you continue to let these minor injuries build up, they can become a major one. There are three major factors that, when they get too high, can lead to overtraining: intensity, set count, and training frequency. By training with one of these factors too high, you won't be able to recover in time for your next workout. If you train with too high of an intensity, you're going to create too much physical fatigue to recover from quickly. By going to failure on exercises that you can only do a few reps of, you're creating a significant amount of stress on your muscles. That level of stress can take significantly longer to recover from, and create significantly more soreness. Doing too many sets can also lead to significant muscle wear, and extended recovery times. Three to five sets per exercise tends to work well for most people. Keep track of your progress, and try changing up the number of sets if you aren't making progress. Training frequency refers to how often you train each muscle. Most people use training frequencies of two or three times a week. If you train too often, you'll have trouble recovering from workout to workout if you're using enough intensity. Stress You might think that stress is all in your head, but mental stress has a huge impact on your physical body. Having a number of external sources of stress can seriously slow down your ability to recover from training. An overload of stress creates too much of a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is commonly known as the 'stress hormone', and negatively impacts muscle growth and fat loss. By reducing muscle growth, excess cortisol can allow for your muscles to be continually broken down by training, leading to muscle loss. As a counterpart to that, cortisol also increases fat storage, which only adds insult to injury. Finding ways to control and reduce stress will help you improve your training. Yoga can function as a great counterpart to strength training, both helping to reduce stress and improve stability and flexibility. Another great choice for stress relief is meditation, which has tons of great side effects aside from reducing stress.

Overcoming Overtraining

Who doesn't want six-pack abs? Maybe not everyone, but if you're reading this article I think there's a decent chance. I'm sure you're aware, but the reality of achieving that body is a lot of hard work. That being said, you can most certainly get a six-pack doing a bodyweight abs workout. If you've ever spent much time in a commercial gym, you'll find that most people are still doing bodyweight (or bodyweight-like) exercises for their abs. Why? Because they work! Your abdominal muscles are designed to stabilize your core and keep the upper and lower halves of your body working in sync. It's for this reason that whole-body exercises like leg raises and planks work so well. In order to be time-efficient, we're going to do this workout as a circuit. We're going to do each exercise for thirty seconds, taking ten seconds between each to rest and get ready for the next exercise. After each round of the circuit, we're going to rest for ninety seconds to recover, before starting it over again.

The Workout

Here's what you're going to need for this bodyweight abs workout: Enough open space to lie down and stretch outYoga mat (or another soft place to lay)Timer (pre-configured timer linked below)

1 - Lying Leg Raise We're starting this workout off with thirty seconds of lying leg raises. You should focus on performing this exercise with constant control, using smooth and deliberate movements. If you swing your legs up and let them fall back down without control, you will not achieve proper tension through your abs with this exercise. Begin lying face-up on the ground, with your hands palm-down by your sides. Tuck your pelvis so that your lower back is flat on the floor before beginning to lift your legs. Slowly and smoothly bring them up to ninety degrees, before slowly and smoothly lowering them back down without touching the floor. Ensure that you keep tension through your core, and your lower back pressed flat against the floor the entire time. Maintain a steady tempo for all thirty seconds. If you happen to have something like a doorway pull-up bar and this exercise is too easy for you, feel free to replace it with hanging leg raises or toes-to-bars.

2 - Russian Twist After you're finished with the lying leg raises, we're going to rest for ten seconds before starting Russian twists. Despite the example, a weight is not necessary for this exercise, although you should feel free to add some if they're too easy otherwise. Start this exercise in a V-up position, sitting on your rear with your knees bent, and feet hovering a few inches from the ground. Clasp your hands together in front of your stomach, and rotate from your shoulders to move your clasped hands from side to side. Try to keep your head up and chest open, avoid moving your arms from the shoulder. Move quickly and controlled for thirty seconds.

3 - Hollow Hold Ten more seconds of rest and we're back with a hollow hold! This is another exercise that requires you to keep your pelvis tucked, with your lower back flat against the floor. If you start to let your lower back round, you'll begin to lose tension through abs. Your aim for this exercise should be to hold yourself in the shape of an open parenthesis. The most consistent way I've found to set up for this exercise is to lie flat on your back, with your hips and knees at ninety degrees. Reach your arms above your head, with your head and upper back lifted off the ground. From this position, enter the hollow hold by pushing your legs out straight, while keeping your feet a few inches off the ground and simultaneously reach your hands back above your head and tuck your chin, without letting your shoulder blades touch the ground. If you don't feel comfortable doing this exercise, or it's too hard, feel free to replace it with a plank. If you need to make this exercise a bit harder or easier, you can adjust how far from the ground your feet are. The closer to the ground you hold your feet, the harder the hollow hold is going to be and vice versa.

4 - Bicycle Crunch Finally, we're going to round out each circuit with thirty seconds of bicycle crunches. Once again, you need to keep your pelvis tucked for this exercise! Be mindful of your form, this exercise is easy to cheat. During the bicycle crunch, you need to keep your shoulder blades raised off the ground with your hands behind your head, elbows pointing out. Alternate bringing each of your knees up and rotating your torso to bring your opposite elbow towards it. There's a tendency for people to cheat this exercise by bringing the elbow forwards to meet the knee. This is not the correct form. You have to keep your elbow back and rotate from your midsection. Move as quickly as you can under control for thirty seconds. Bodyweight Workout (3-5 circuits) MovementDurationLeg Raise30sRest10sRussian Twist30sRest10sHollow Hold30sRest10s Bicycle Crunch 30sRest90s Interval Timer

I Did It! Now, Where Are My Abs?

When it comes to training calisthenics, you're going to need to do pull-ups eventually. One of the most convenient, affordable, and versatile tools to do that is the doorway pull-up bar. I started my calisthenics journey unable to do a single pull-up. Because I had a doorway pull-up bar always available, I could use Grease the Groove to build my strength. Within a few weeks of working towards my goal daily, I could do multiple pull-ups in a row! I discovered that making fitness a part of your lifestyle is a sure-fire way to accomplish your fitness objectives. Doorway pull-up bars are incredibly convenient. Want to be able to bang out a few pull-ups between episodes on Netflix? Here's your answer. They're more compact than a power tower or freestanding bar, very portable because of their small form factor, and can be used almost anywhere there's a door. There's no drilling into walls, installing hardware, or storing bulky free-standing equipment. All you have to do is grab and go. A doorway pull-up bar will allow you to continue to improve your calisthenics skills. With a bit of creativity, you can effectively train your whole body with just the floor and a pull-up bar. Since they also work excellently to hang rings from, a doorway pull-up bar will unlock enough exercises to keep you progressing for years.

Types of Doorway Pull-up Bars

There are two primary kinds of doorway pull-up bars: cantilever and telescopic. Depending upon the doorways where you'll be using them, one of these kinds of bars will be the right choice for you. Make sure you know what kind of doorway you'll be using, and how much clearance you have before buying. Nothing is more frustrating than having to return something because it doesn't fit. Measure twice, buy once! Cantilever Pull-up Bars Cantilever doorway pull-up bars are going to be the best option for most people. If your doorway has trim, and enough space for the bar to hook over it, this kind of bar will work. This kind of pull-up bar uses a lever action to clamp onto your door frame from both sides - without pulling the trim off. A standard cantilever doorway pullup bar will have a variety of hand positions. You can do wide and narrow grip chin-ups as well as wide, narrow and neutral grip pull-ups. This also gives you a place to do other hanging exercises, like hanging leg raises and L-sits, and potentially even levers. The multiple contact points that the bar makes with the doorway keep it well secured. This helps spread out the load, preventing damage to your walls and doorframe. Because of that, this kind of bar is a good fit for hanging rings.

Iron Gym Total Upper Body Workout Bar

IRON AGE Pull Up Bar If you need a cantilever bar that has a bit more built-in protection for your doorframe, or a bit more height for taller people, there's an option for you too. These bars are positioned a bit higher relative to your doorframe, giving you a bit more room to hang or hang rings from underneath. This bar, in particular, comes with a free set of suspension straps. Suspensions straps and rings give you the option to do exercises where you need a free-moving mounting point closer to the floor, like suspended pushups, rows, ab rollouts, and hamstring curls. Using just those straps and the bar, you could easily embark upon a full-body workout program. Telescopic Pull-up Bars Telescopic pull-up bars are the choice for people whose doorframes lack trim or room to hang a cantilever pull-up bar. These bars stay hanging by extending and wedging themselves in the doorframe. You'll want to make sure your doorway is built sturdily enough to support the pressure this kind of bar will place on it. The most standard type of telescopic pull-up bar will have a circular rubber pad on either end. These pads evenly distribute the load across their area, preventing any hard pieces from pressing into the soft doorframe. Because you can easily adjust the height of these bars, they're handy for doing rows and bodyweight bicep/tricep exercises. And since they are equally resistant to movement both pushing up and pulling down, they work as an anchor point for crunches, dragon flags, and nordic curls.

Garren Fitness Maximiza Pull Up Bar

AhfuLife Pull Up Bar for Doorways If you need a bar that's a bit more secure (for bulkier individuals, or hanging rings), or a bar that'll be gentler on your doorframe, there's another option. These bars have big square pads on either end and a design that grips the wall harder the more you pull on it. You'll still want to make sure your doorframe is sturdy enough because the ramping design of this bar will put serious pressure on it. Despite, or rather, because of that, this bar should be your option if you plan on hanging rings or doing more dynamic movements.

What You Should Take Away