Today I’m gonna show you five things to know before starting Calisthenics. So if you’re starting calisthenics, you’re gonna be making major gains and excelling through calisthenics.

1. Basics

The first thing that I wanna share with you guys is basics, sticking to the basics, and incorporating high repetitions into those basics which means that you would have mastered that basic. For example, if you can do 100 pushups in a row, you’re pretty solid in your pushing game. If you can do 100 pull-ups in a row, you’re super-solid in your pulling game.

Pulling is not just engaging your muscles and getting you stronger to be able to do this motion. But the actual practice of pulling is gonna get you a whole lot better at using those muscles in combination which is gonna advance your pulling technique and will help you in harder exercises.

2. Perfect Form

Perfect form in every single thing that you do. You’re not trying to just get through the exercise if you’re just trying to get through the exercise you’re never gonna excel.

You need to be consciously putting in effort towards trying to do it as perfect as possible.

The key to this is quality over quantity.

You’re way better off doing five perfect pull-ups than doing even 15 really shitty pull-ups. You need to start clean form from the very beginning and that’s gonna make a huge difference.

You’re also gonna feel way stronger when you’re putting in quality repetitions.

3. Grip Strenght

In most exercises, your grip is the first point of contact to every single exercise.

Having a really strong grip automatically increases your endurance, the number of repetitions that you can achieve, and your overall strength.

Personally, I remember when I first started calisthenics just hanging on to the bar was really difficult. My arms were like burning from that and when I was just learning how to hang with one arm. It was very painful to hang with one arm. I learned the perfect grip and now hanging out with one arm is like a joke.

So imagine the amount of strength and control you’re gonna achieve from barely being able to hang on with two arms to comfortably being hanging on with one arm. That type of strength is gonna transfer over into everything, into your handstands, hanging position, and lifting position.

Your overall endurance, repetitions, and performance is gonna increase by just simply increasing that grip strength.

4. Negatives

Negatives, doing the negative of any exercise will eventually give you the positive of that exercise. Doing a lot of negative muscle-ups will eventually result in you in a muscle-up.

Personally, when I first started doing front lever negatives I would start from the top and I would come down really fast but eventually, I was able to come down slower. And if you keep that form while you’re coming down, eventually, you’ll be able to come down as slow and controlled and be able to stop flat into that front lever position.

That’s why incorporating negative exercises, especially from the very beginning is gonna excel you quickly.

5. Consistency / Goal

Without a goal, no matter how big or small, it’s gonna be hard to calculate and motivate your progress.

If you’re not constantly trying to improve on what you’re working on then chances are you’re gonna have little to no progress.

But the very act of having a goal is half of it, you need to create milestones for yourself to make sure and ensure you’re moving in a forward, upward projected.

We, as human beings, like to be constantly rewarded and that motivates us to go further so having a really far goal is fine but you need smaller consistent goals to keep you going, to keep you progressing. And you need to be consistently challenging yourself in order to reach those goals.

The way that I stay progressing is to choose something that currently challenges me and consistently work at it and set a goal for myself by the end of the week that I must achieve within that.