Calisthenics are effective exercises for anyone wanting to improve their heart health, build stamina or improve muscular endurance. Depending on how you perform these exercises, they can help you burn calories, build muscle and improve speed and quickness. By modifying these calisthenics, even beginners can do them, performing them in more traditional fashion once they build strength.
Step 1
Write a list of goals for getting in shape. Goals may include improving heart health, increasing cardiorespiratory stamina, improving muscular endurance, burning calories or building muscle.
Step 2
Write a list of exercises you will include in your workouts. Divide them into upper-body, lower-body and core categories. Divide them into weight loss, muscle-building, cardio stamina and muscular endurance categories. You can use an exercise for more than one goal. Examples of calisthenics include jumping jacks, butt kicks, skipping rope, burpees, situps, crunches, pushups, chair dips, pullups, chinups, box jumps, squats, lunges and calf raises.
Step 3
Meet with a personal trainer or perform online research to learn the correct techniques for each exercise you plan to do to maximize the benefit and reduce your risk of injury.
Step 4
Create a beginner workout that helps you improve your cardio stamina and muscular endurance. Work at a pace that lets you continue without fatiguing to failure; your goal is to work longer, not at maximum intensity, to build stamina and endurance. Perform two or three pushups if that is all you can do at the start of your program to get in shape. Do pushups on your knees to build arm strength before moving to full pushups. Attempt chinups and pullups, even if you can't do one. Trying them creates isometric muscle contractions that help build muscle.
Step 5
Alternate upper-body, lower-body and core exercises during workouts to prevent muscle fatigue. For example, perform a set of pushups, move to lunges, then move to crunches.
Step 6
Write down the results of your workout after you do exercises to track the number of repetitions or minutes you do each exercise. Use this information to track your results and create subsequent workouts.
Step 7
Vary your workouts. Your muscles adapt to stimulus over time, and you will receive less benefit from workouts if you do the same exercises in the same order each time. Change not only the order in which you do exercises, but also the exercises you do. For example, use three upper-body, three lower-body and three core exercises one week, then nine new exercises after one or two weeks, depending on how often you work out. Go back and forth among exercises; you don't need to eliminate any permanently from your routine.
Step 8
Perform bodyweight exercises, such as pushups, chinups and dips slowly to build muscle, using muscular effort on the way up and down each time. Perform the exercises quicker and with less effort to raise your heart rate for cardio workouts. The American Council on Exercise recommends exercising this way at 40 to 70 percent of your maximum intensity.
Things You'll Need
- Two chairs
- Bench
- Box
- Jump rope
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