Calisthenics Solid Stone
Program for building muscle, strength and losing weight without equipment. At home or outside, everywhere.
Calisthenics is a program built on exercises with your own weight, which you can do anytime and anywhere. Only thing you will need is rings or a pull up bar. Nothing complicated or expensive. Rings or a pull up bar cost a maximum of $40 and you can find a place for them easily. Ceiling, wall, doors. It takes a lot of effort to control your own body, but the reward is a strong, beautiful and healthy body.
In the first chapter, I will explain the basic principles for muscle growth, strength and weight loss. All information is from current knowledge in science and research. In the next chapters I will show you the individual exercises, their progression and regression (easier and more difficult variants). We will discuss the philosophy of the program, how it works and what to do if it does not work, what to change and what to do to make sure that the program works for you. Instead of fish straight on a plate, I'll teach you how to fish. In the end the principles are simple, but it is up to you to achieve the results. This program serves as a guide and motivation.
It is important to choose the right goals. In most cases the goal will be to lose weight. It is not a bad goal at all. But is the number on the scales really that important? What if I lose 5 pounds but the lost weight would be just my muscle? Be careful with weight loss as a goal. It is not always the right goal or the way to the dream body. What do I advise my clients? Focus on gaining strength and muscle. Instead of the number on the scales, we focus on the number on the barbell. How fast and how far we can run. If we can make a pull-up and a handstand. If we can control our body and have enough strength for everyday life. And most importantly, a strong, agile and healthy body always looks beautiful. It is an important side effect of strength training and exercise.
How long is this program? As long as it takes! Miracles do not happen in a day, in a week or sometimes even in a month. It takes months to build a beautiful and healthy body, and the principles in this program will help you to achieve this and, most importantly, maintain it for the rest of your life. How you look and feel is just a reflection of what you are currently doing! It is important to choose your goals correctly and especially after achieving them not to throw away everything you learn here. Health, strength and weight loss are associated with a change in lifestyle, habits and mindset. Change is not easy, it is difficult, and it will not be overnight. But it's not about changing everything right now. It takes a lot of effort to get the train rolling, but when you get it moving, nothing will stop it. Progress not perfection.
Chapter 1. Basic principles
How to lose weight
For most people, weight loss is the number one goal and often their only goal. This is not a good goal in itself. The problem is that people want to lose weight just to look better. For their image, not for healthy reasons like diabetes, blood pressure, strength, mobility, speed, getting rid of pain, etc.. Lots of times people lose weight fast with drastic diets and with lots of cardio. Problem is that their bodies are exhausted and after the diet without changing their habits and lifestyle, they will get their weight back. Healthy body and mind should be the focus and losing weight will be the byproduct.
So how do you lose a 0,45kg ( 1lbs) of fat? The secret of weight loss is the caloric balance. If you eat more than your body needs, you gain weight. If you eat less you lose weight. It's that simple. For weight loss caloric deficit and a caloric surplus for weight gain. Foods contain three basic macronutrients, protein, fat and carbohydrates. Proteins and carbohydrates contain 4kcal per 1g and fat 9kcal per 1g. Here you can see how much you need according to your age, gender, height and activity during the day to cover the work of muscles, organs, brain, thermoregulation and the function of the whole body in general. 3500kcal is needed to burn 0.45g ( 1lbs) of body fat. As an example, let's say you need 2000kcal per day to maintain your weight. If you eat only 1500kcal all week, you will lose 0.45g ( 1 lbs) of fat. Thats a 500kcal caloric deficit per day. After 7 days (7x500=3500kcal). The rate of weight loss depends on the size of the caloric deficit, but starvation is not a good idea. The best weight loss plan is the one you can follow and stick to.
Do you have to eat healthy? You don't have to, losing weight is just a caloric balance, but eating healthy pays off and losing weight is much easier. Unprocessed and basic foods need more energy to break down, digest and have more nutrients. When you eat 100kcal of ice cream, a maximum of 5-10kcal is used to process it so that the body can absorb nutrients and energy from it. If you have 100kcal of steak, then 20-35% of the energy will be used for digestion. Ice cream 90kcal, steak 65kcal. This is called the thermic effect of food (TEF).
Protein 20-30%
Fats 0-3%
Carbohydrates 5-10%
You don't need a special diet to lose weight. You just need to know what a caloric deficit is, calculate how much energy you burn per day and how much energy you consume (eat and drink). There are apps for that. I use MyFitnessPal.
Your caloric need will fluctuate depending on how active you are, how much you walk, exercise, run and work. Do you have to be in a caloric deficit every day? You don't have to. You can eat less during the workdays and on the weekend when you go to a restaurant with friends you can have more food or a drink. The average for the whole week is important. How you break it down depends on you and your preferences. But the principle remains the same. It is a good idea to slowly form a habit of what you eat. Breakfast for example. I buy everything in advance and eat mostly the same breakfast every day. Something simple that doesn't take much time and I don't have to think about it. Eggs, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, oats, fruits, vegetables, ham, cheese, pastries. If you have a good breakfast in the morning, then you will not be so hungry during the day and there is less chance that you will overeat. When breakfast is automated, do the same with lunch and dinner. It doesn't matter how many meals you have per day or when you eat, the amount of kcal is the most important thing in the end. To suppress hunger and to feel full for longer, it is a good idea to eat foods high in fiber (fruits and vegetables) and protein (meat, cheese, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, lentils, beans, tofu). To maximize muscle growth, you should take 1.6-2.4g of protein per 1 kg of body weight or 0.731.10 g/lb. Exercise and a high-protein diet are the best strategies for maintaining muscle (but also muscle growth) and losing fat.
Progressive overload
Through exercise, we create stress, to which the body adapts by building muscle (hypertrophy) or increase in strength, depending on the type of stress (type of training) we put our body through. Body will adapt only if the stress is sufficient. In addition, with increasing strength and muscle mass, it is necessary to increase stress to induce adaptations. That's where the progressive overload comes in. If you keep doing the same thing, with the same weight and repetition, your body has no need to change, it will stay the same. You need to increase the stress, lift more, run faster, do more, force the body to respond to the stress. Get better every day.
Specificity
Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands ( SAID principle). It means that when the body is placed under some form of stress, it starts to make adaptations that will allow the body to get better at withstanding that specific form of stress in the future. You lift heavy, you get stronger. You do sprints, you get faster. You run long distances? You get better at running long distances. It is easy as that.
