Ashley Kalym - Complete Calisthenics: The Ultimate Guide To Bodyweight Exercise

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The journey I have taken on the way to writing this book has been a long and varied one. I started my bodyweight exercise journey when I was very young. With the persuasion of my parents I was enrolled in junior rugby, and started to get a taste of physical training at a young age. Being too young to work with weights we trained with push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, lunges, and lots of running around to get our bodies into shape. This was not just a product of the fact that we were too young; the club I played for really didnt have the money or the facilities to let us train with weights, so for a long time I knew of no other method of training. After several years of this, I soon became old enough to start training using weights and weighted exercise. I then did the traditional thing of bicep curling, chest exercises, doing lat pull downs instead of pull-ups, and using the leg extension machine instead of actually squatting. I gained some muscle during this period, but one thing was missing from my physical development, and that was real strength. Even after doing weights for a number of years, I wasnt actually strong, and the lesson that really brought that home was to come in a few years time.

After leaving university I had a few jobs, and then decided that the time was right to try and enter the Royal Marine Commandos. It was a massively daunting task, and as soon as I got the paperwork and the brochure home I was somewhat surprised to find that training in the military was all about using the bodyweight to build a strong, fatigue resistant physique. So, whilst in training I found myself doing the same exercises that I had done when I had been much younger, namely push-ups, pull-ups, running, and other simple bodyweight movements. I entered the military in early 2009 and found that my physical preparation with bodyweight exercise had been well worth it. After about eight months I decided that the military life and lots of time away from home wasnt for me, so I decided to come back to civilian life. I had learnt so much whilst I was in training, mostly about myself and where my limits lay, and I was also hugely impressed with how fit and strong I had gotten simply by performing simple bodyweight exercise. It was in one of those moments where I decided that I wanted to see how strong I could get using bodyweight training, so I started to research anything I could get my hands on about that form of exercise.

After a number of weeks I eventually stumbled onto a website where the owner presented short tutorials on some of the more basic gymnastic elements, like the back lever, muscle-up, and so on. I gave them a go, and utterly failed. Undeterred, I decided that the best place to try and learn how to increase my strength was an adults gymnastic class. So, I booked myself onto one, went along, and was again absolutely humbled. Here were children not more than ten or eleven years old performing bodyweight strength movements that I could not even fathom. Even the simplest core exercise that they were working with (the half lever, or L sit) absolutely crushed my core, and I remember going away with basically all of my preconceived notions of strength and bodyweight training in pieces. From that moment, I decided to pursue calisthenics training as far as it could possibly take me. I did not have the time to be a gymnast, as other commitments meant that I did not have forty hours a week to train. However, I did have a desire to get strong; really strong, and I knew that the secret lay in progressive bodyweight exercise.

The next few years were a huge learning experience, and they were also some of the most exciting training times that I have ever been through. Almost every week I was learning something knew, coming across a new piece of information, a new technique or method of building strength, and my limits were pushed again and again. Slowly, I started to begin to create my own methods of progression, and taking what was good from other programs and developing a solid program of my own.

Then, I started to look for a book out there that compiled all of the knowledge that I had gained, showing how to progress from a complete beginner to someone who had almost inhuman strength. I looked and looked but couldnt find anything. Sure, there were some books on bodyweight training, but these were mostly simple affairs, only concerned with teaching the reader how to perform the most rudimentary exercises such as the push-up and sit-up. Others were a little more comprehensive but missed out lower body training completely. Therefore, I set out to write a book to help anyone, male or female, beginner or advanced, how to build strength, athleticism, power, and an incredible physique using just your bodyweight. COMPLETE CALISTHENICS is that book. Every method to achieving awesome bodyweight strength is presented, from an explanation of what calisthenics is, to its benefits and drawbacks, to the equipment you will need, and even a section on the correct nutrition. In the exercise sections you will learn how to perform movements like the humble push-up, all the way through triceps dips, handstands, muscle-ups, front levers, one-arm pull-ups, human flags, and single leg squats. Each exercise is demonstrated with a number of clear, instructive photographs, enabling you to see exactly what your body should be doing at each stage. To finish off, there is an extensive section at the end of the book describing various training programs, whether you are a total beginner or have been training for years. And so, this is where we find ourselves. This book will give you the tools and motivation you need to take your physical training to the next level. In short, COMPLETE CALISTHENICS is the ultimate guide on how to develop the ultimate bodyweight strength.

To start, it is worth taking a look at exactly what calisthenics is, and what it isnt, so that we know why certain exercises are included or excluded.

The history of calisthenics is a long one, and the word comes from the ancient Greek kallos, which means beauty, and sthenos, which means strength. It can be thought of as the art of using your own body weight and qualities of inertia as a means to develop your physique. For a bit more of a detailed explanation, from Wikipedia, the definition of calisthenics is as follows: