Calisthenics and weight lifting

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Does calisthenics make you more cut than lifting and does lifting make your muscles bigger than when you do calisthenics? Just wondering.

Calisthenics are pull-ups, push-ups, sit ups, planks, dips, muscle ups, and other exercises that don't include weights.

You can lift for definition rather than adding mass. Lighter weights, more reps. It's also good cardio and an effective way to lose weight. Do them in a circuit without much down time between exercises.

People get buffed and ripped with calisthenics.
However, I do notice that a lot of people who are in shape combine the two, so it's not an either or. For example, they would add weights or chains while they do pullups or dips.

How buff are we talking? I don't know if any super duper heavy body builder got that way from calisthenics alone. I can think of some people are are ripped who do primarily calisthenics.

I do calisthenics with good results. I started doing a lot of push ups several months ago, and i see a big difference in my arms and shoulders. I'm gradually progressing to a planche pushup. I've started doing inverted rows, and I feel it in my back a lot.

Frank Medrano
Calisthenic Movement

I can't for the life of me understand why people are hell-bent on avoiding weights. You want to get strong, your bodyweight alone won't cut it. Same for gaining muscle mass.

If you're a beginner and you want to get strong and build muscle, have a look at the Wendler 5/3/1 routine, specifically the Boring But Big template.

The best thing would be to combine both. Weighted chin-ups are (in my opinion) far superior to pulldowns, for instance. On the other hand, some bodyweight exercises (eg. dips or pull-ups with a grip that's too wide) can seriously f*ck up your shoulders.

The advantage of calisthenics is that most are compound exercises. They work multiple muscles groups and since you are pushing your own body they are more easily to balance than weights. There is much less risk of injury for example when doing a push-up compared to a dead lift. Doing weight exercises without proper form may do more harm than good.

The advantage with weight lifting is though that you can put much more strain onto your individual muscles. Calisthenics is mostly focussed on the core, while with weights you can focus on a single specialized muscle group. Because of this you can more intensely train this muscle group and train away any disbalances. Lifting heavy weights ( 6 - 8 reps a set ) will net you quicker muscle gain than callisthenics, while callisthenics will net you more core exercise and endurance. Callisthenics requires much more dedication than lifting weights to build serious muscle, but if you have the dedication it's a steady and safe way to build muscle, tone and endurance.

The best of both worlds is of course do both. Use callisthenics mainly for endurance, toning and core muscles while using heavy weights to train a selection of individual muscle groups that require more attention.

I don't care about being toned or gaining muscle mass, I only train for strength. One of the few bodyweight exercises that's useful for strength are dips, and only weighted. It's a good triceps exercise for switching things up, but the JM press is far superior. Also, when talking about core exercises, nothing can replace deadlifting. No exercise works more muscle groups.

Furthermore, it's not necessarily true that bodyweight exercises are safer. For example, push-ups force you to follow a fixed trajectory, which contorts your joints and muscles in an unnatural way. It's the same reason why people with a clue avoid the smith machine. I messed up my shoulder doing endless push-ups for karate years ago, but I never had a problem benching with a barbell. It may be harder to balance, but that's a good thing; it works your stabilizer muscles.

The correlation between strength and muscle mass is almost linear, except for the fact that the nervous system also plays a role. Glycogen levels, blood flow and so on can make a muscle appear larger, but at the end of the day actual muscle mass is a sure indicator of strength.



Dips and pull-ups with a very wide grip (arms all the way out to the side, the way posers do it) will put a lot more strain on your shoulder joints than any barbell exercise. Moreover, Smith machines should only be used for coat racks.

[quote="Kurgan"]
The correlation between strength and muscle mass is almost linear, except for the fact that the nervous system also plays a role.[quote]

That's a huge caveat after 'except'. I have well over a 100 lbs. of muscle mass on Richard "The Ant" Hawthorne, yet he deadlifts more than me. Of course, body mechanics play a huge role as well.

I used to work with Richard. I'm glad to see he's done well for himself.

I , so far, have not had any issues with push ups. I guess I'll report back in a few years lol
The only issue i've had is a cyst on my left wrist.
I do up to 170/day, and I'm female. Most of the time my legs or elevated, or I am otherwise doing some variation of a regular pushup.

170 push-ups is extremely good. I could only do 125 at most back when I still did them, though I was thin as a rail back then. Now I can do maybe 50, I don't know. I'm not about to find out.

The big elephant in the room nobody talks about when it comes to deadlifting, is that leverage is more important than actual muscle strength. Moreover, the exercise itself only meassures how much you can lift from just below your knees to just above your knees.

Kirk Kaworski has more muscle than Phil Heath, which he built by powerlifting, not bodybuilding.

That's true for the all of the three big lifts, for benching much more so than for deadlifting. All Gene Rychlak has to do to get a rep is unrack the weight and suck his gut in. His ROM is about two inches.



Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman and other (former) Olympians have more muscle mass than the top powerlifters (save Karychev and a couple of others) yet they're not as strong. People on Halotestin have reported increases of 60+ lbs. on their main lifts without noticeable muscle gain. More muscle mass equals more strength, but more strength doesn't necessarily equal more muscle mass.

Derek Poundstone is a good 30-40 kgs heavier than Jay Cutler, and isn't much taller--and I have yet to see a bodybuilders who comes even close to Arild Haugen at the age of 22. While he has a little more bodyfat, it's still low enough for him to have visible abs. Strongmen and powerlifters have larger waists (as a result of larger core musculature), giving them an inferior V shape. Furthermore, they won't have the dry, paper-thin skin look due to the fact that most of them do not use Winstrol. In terms of 1RM lifts, IFBB bodybuilders are just as strong as most strongmen out there (Kim Kold can bench press the same as Mariuz Pudzianowski did in his prime, at an age of almost 50).

I said that strength and mass were ALMOST correlated; some of it still depends on the nervous system. The reason why you won't see much muscle gain on Halotestin, is because of the very short half-life. For the very same reason, strength built on Halotestin will also fade away very quickly once you stop taking it. With more glucogen in his muscles, Richard Hawthorne would have a BMI on par with a classic bodybuilder.

The stuff you said about leverage is true. No base lift is as dependent on this as the first inches of the deadlift, though. When it comes to bench pressing, shoulder width is more important than arm length.

Poundstone is 15 kgs heavier than Cutler, and he's a good 10 cm taller. He undoubtedly has more bodyfat than Cutler though, and whether he has more muscle mass is up in the air. Regardless of individuals, my point was that people with less muscle mass can be significantly stronger than people with much more muscle mass. Rick Weil benched 556 lbs. raw at a bodyweight of 181, while not even arching his back. That's just pure power with relatively little muscle mass.

Also, the first couple of inches play a far bigger part on the bench than on the deadlift when it comes to leverage. You can completely eliminate the hardest part of the bench just by having a big gut and Tyrannosaurus arms.

Derek Poundstone is 155 kgs at 183 cm. Jay Cutler off-season (significantly higher bodyfat percentage than Derek Poundstone) is 140 kgs at 177 cm. Rick Weil had massive front delts, triceps, and pecs, and being 181 lbs makes him almost as heavy as Franco Columbu, only benchpressing slightly more weight.

The nervous system plays a part as well, but that's inherently genetic and has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not you train for "hypertrophy" or "strength", Arild Haugen again being a great example of this.

In the bench press, the last inches are the hardest, not the first ones. When it comes to deadlifting, the first two inches is all about leverage; some people cannot lift 100 lbs with a straight back, but can still lift 500 lbs if they round their backs.