Hypertrophy and calisthenics
- THE PRIO SYSTEM -
A workout program backed by science that will show you how to gain muscle and build strength with bodyweight strength training.
Kristoffer Lidengren
Copyright 2019 by Kristoffer Lidengren. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
Always consult a physician before engaging in a new exercise program. These recommendations are not medical guidelines. You must consult your physician prior to starting this program or if you have any medical condition or injury that contraindicates physical activity. All forms of exercise pose some inherent risks. The author advises all readers to take full responsibility for their safety and know their limits. The exercises in this book are not intended as a substitute for any exercise routine or treatment that may have been prescribed by your physician.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO...
Straight to the point, lets start with the end. The focus of this book is to build muscle and strength with calisthenics. This book will provide you with the Prio System, a straightforward do-it-now calisthenics workout program for you to start following from today and benefit from for years to come. In this book you will find enough background, explanations and principles for you to adapt the training program according to your goals and preconditions. The workout program has reached its goal if it helps you a) gain lean mass while b) learning new skills. If you cant wait to get going, jump straight ahead to chapter 3 to find the best bodyweight exercises for muscle and strength, chapter 4 for how to perform the exercises and chapter 5 for the Prio System workout program.
If youre reading this you might already know a lot about calisthenics and bodyweight training. You may want to improve strength and/or master new skills. You also want to build muscle in the process and youre struggling with the programming. What program layout will have you reach both goals: muscle size and calisthenics skills? There are bodybuilders very weak for their size and there are calisthenics zealots mysteriously small for their strength. So what is really the role of muscle tissue in strength and how do we make it grow?
Some other books will try to tell you that you dont need to progress or work towards tougher skills to build muscle with bodyweight training. Some will even say that its not only pointless but dangerous! They claim that you just have to use shorter rest intervals and other tricks instead of actually getting stronger. This is akin to someone telling you that you dont need to use bigger weights in the gym as you get stronger, you just need to swing the same light dumbbells in a slightly different manner. Cute, but not very convincing. You wouldnt believe that theres no need for more reps or bigger weights in the gym, so why would that be true for calisthenics? Theres no shortcut to building muscle mass and strength. You need to systematically work towards tougher skills in order to progress, and this book will show you how.
I originally created this program for myself and when I found that it worked very well for me and my training colleagues I decided to write a book about it. To my sincere excitement, writing this book improved the program even more. Ive been training from home for about 3 years with two kids around my ankles and Im making progress faster than ever, in both strength and muscle. Not having to go to the gym saves me money but most importantly, it saves me a lot of time.
Ive been doing different forms of strength training for over fifteen years now (kettlebells, calisthenics, martial arts and powerlifting on a national level) and Ive always been very much in charge of my own training. Ive dared to try new things and patiently stuck to ideas, my own or others, for long enough to have a chance to properly evaluate them. Through the years, Ive kept a little and discarded a lot, so Id like to think of this program as having been filtered through fifteen years of systematic evidence testing, call it trial and error.
As a physiotherapist I know that nothing gets done without motivation, and goal-setting is a necessary part of creating motivation. In this book I will assume that we all have the same goal: calisthenics AND hypertrophy, and the workout program is built around increasing muscle size and strength, both proportionately distributed.
I will leave enough up to you, to adapt to your preferences and conditions, so that you can use the program as a template. If you train at home you might want to rely on only the floor, your body weight and maybe a pull-up bar. If you prefer the gym you might want to incorporate weight belts and barbells. This program is designed to work well with both styles of training.
If youre ready to start learning the best program out there, one that will give you strength, muscle and skill acquisition without the need for anything but your body weight, then lets go!
Chapter 1.
COMBINING CALISTHENICS WITH TRAINING FOR MUSCLE SIZE
Calisthenics is a fantastic tool for building strength and muscle, there should be no doubt to that claim. Bodybuilders, wrestlers and powerlifters, many of the best in their respective sport have understood the benefits of keeping dips, pull-ups and push-ups as part of their strength routine. In some cases, like with old-time strongman and olympic weightlifter Paul Andersson, even the handstand push-up was an important part of his strength routine. He repped out handstand push-ups at 163 kg!
Every form of resistance training has the potential to build strength and muscle. Your body doesn't know whats making the muscles contract: gravity from your bodyweight, a barbell, dumbbells, a kettlebell, a cable-pulley... Regardless of the tool used, you need to learn how to train to get the most out of it. The oldest form of strength training and bodybuilding is the use of your own body. Did you know that the word calisthenics describes the oldest system for structuring bodyweight-based training? The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the following definition: Systematic rhythmic bodily exercises performed usually without apparatus. The word calisthenics actually comes from the two Greek words, kalos (beautiful) and sthenos (strength).
Predating calisthenics, before any training tools were invented, and before training as a systematic tool for manipulating the body was even thought of, the human body still built muscle to match what it was used for. Thats the point of muscle and strength: for us to create movement and to protect the integrity of our joints as we move.
Primitive societies living in mountainous areas might have found themselves having to go down the hill for water, and up again for berries. This activity of walking up and down hills surely built all the strength and size they needed in the muscles that they used. At some point humans drew the connection between certain activities and the development of muscle and strength. Exposure to certain activities forced the body to adapt to be able to carry out those activities better, faster, with greater ease and faster recovery .
We started comparing ourselves to others, competing in things like throwing spears and wrestling and saw how those stronger in basic bodyweight movements were often the better hunters or the winners in other sports. Round about now in society's development, when we could afford culture, is when we started purposefully and systematically performing certain movements for the sole purpose of developing strength.