Calisthenics

In the not so distant past, we humans of the third sphere, thought erroneously that dope buffness and freaky android super strength were merely for those who would meld with mechanism. That the 'trick' to looking and feeling like the human we wanted to be were to found in the clutches of semi-robotic exercise cages... that exercise looked like this:

Sophistry and conjecture.

We are the descendants of the most powerful organic system this planetary system has ever imagined into existence. Our inheritance is is this:

Herc's obliques spill over his illiac crest.

For the more slight of frame:

I ask you reader: tell me if either of these men look like the man in the machine. Further I ask: to what ideal do you aspire? I am fairly certain most men's ideal looks something like this:

Not Arnold.

Lean, mobile with well developed muscles of the abdomen, arms and shoulder girdle.

There is no coincidence that both of these men are upside down.

I will say now that one does not require machines, barbells, dumbbells, elastic bands or any kind of equipment whatsoever to become the beneficiary of their inheritance. All it takes are some very simple precepts.

Work all three body segments: upper, abdomen and lower.

This does not need to be complicated, for example one may choose to start with very basic exercises such as push ups and squats. It bears to keep in mind that push ups require holding a plank position and is a beginner level ab exercise. That you do the exercises is more important than choosing your program parameters perfectly.

Do only what you can do. Don't injure yourself.

A very important point here is to stay tight while doing high strength-skill exercises. If one is just starting, push ups may meet this criteria. Keep the armpits tight, clench the abs and glutes, try to make a fist even if one is performing an open hand variation and pull the kneecaps up. If you'd like to learn more about the skill of getting tight, read Pavel Tsatsouline's masterwork 'The Naked Warrior', the man is a genius.

Use high volumes of work. 

Exercise stress activates the the production of mRNA strands, the more strands present at any given time - the more structural adaptation there is to the imposed stress. There are two primary ways to produce high levels of epigenetic adaptation to exercise: impose high levels of acute stress as in, do few sets to circa-failure. Conversely one may do many sets without going to failure and increasing the time between sets.

If one chooses the first method, one is limited in the amount of volume they can perform by metabolic fatigue. Thus limiting their total production of messenger RNA.

If one performs a much higher volume of work by doing less repetitions per set, the trainee may perform double or more total mRNA encoding reps. This follows how humans tend operate naturally, if one were to climb a mountain or thresh grain by hand they would be very wise to pace themselves as the volume of work required is high and the prevention of metabolic and nervous fatigue is crucial to the successful completion of their task.

Gymnasts train for many hours per day, if they exhausted themselves too quickly they would be unable to perform all of the training required of their sport, they also posses some of the most developed male and female physiques on the planet.

A good method is to do one set of push ups and squats every hour for ten hours. Of course as one becomes more advanced they may choose to do an ab exercise as well.

Practice a wide variety of skills to prevent stagnation and increase strength-skill.

Muscular tension causes the activation of genes that result in adaptation to said tension, over time those levels of tension will cease to cause adaptation. This means that new and more intense stimulus must be introduced constantly to keep the body adapting. This is taken to non-functional extremes by some popular workout programs, a good reference to keep in mind is to practice exercises that are the same but different.

An example: if one were to follow the above push ups and squats program - one may choose to do normal push ups for one set an hour later do Russian push ups and the next do close grip push ups and so on. The exercise is the same but different. The varying levels of tension on different body structures will stimulate the expansion of neural nets and keep ones strength progressing.

Further by practicing a variety of skills, one works into more challenging exercises that are much more visually impressive and fun to perform. This tends to keep athletes interested in training.

Lose fat. You will automatically increase your power to weight ratio.

Body fat, while being unsightly is also a detriment to calisthenics performance as the increased resistance of non-functional bodymass impedes the performance of more complex and challenging exercises. This is why gymnasts, martial artists and rock climbers all try to stay as lean as possible. Increased work volume with no corresponding increase in caloric intake will serve reduce fat mass by itself.

The metabolic secretions produced by working muscle serve to increase human growth hormone levels - this hormone is correlated with decreased levels of body fat. Both the production of hGH and the concomitant decrease in body fat result in a favourable modification in the amount of circulating leptin, high levels of this hormone are correlated with overfeeding and poor nutrient partitioning causing more instances of over-eating and an increased propensity for excess calories to be stored as bodyfat as opposed to muscle mass.

This article is meant to be an introduction to the world of calisthenic training, it is by no means exhaustive of the topic. If one would like to learn more about exercises and their progressions, check this link out.