The Progressive Calisthenics Program for Everyone

It is increasingly understood that strength training and muscle building are among the most important things we can do for our health, particularly as we age. But embarking on a strength training program can be very intimidating and frightening. Do I need an expensive gym membership? Must I lift weights or use machines that I don’t understand? How will I know what exercises to do and how often to do them? Do I have to hire a trainer?

Did you know that you can build just as much strength and muscle using your own body weight and very little to no equipment at all? Progressive body-weight calisthenics uses basic exercises and variations in hand or foot position, posture, and body angle to systematically increase or decrease the difficulty of a movement. This makes it suitable for anyone, no matter their age or experience level. Can’t do a push-up? No problem, this book tells you where to start and shows you how to get strong enough to do twenty! But do I have to do handstands and hang upside down from a bar? No, you can build as much strength and muscle as you want using systematic progressions of three simple body-weight calisthenics exercises: the Push-Up, the Pull-Up and the Squat. And you can do the exercises just about anywhere and just about any time!

This book outlines three phases of training, where you begin by selecting the exercise variations that are suitable to your level. Then you work on form and familiarity until you are comfortable performing each of the three exercises with good form. At this point you begin your systematic training with a maximum of three workouts a week lasting no more than 30 minutes per workout. As your strength increases you will be able to do more with each workout until you are ready to “graduate” from those exercises and move to the next most difficult variation in each of the three movement categories. Then the process starts over until you once again move to the next level. And there is no limit to how far you can go!

Before you know it, that push-up you struggled to complete at the beginning will become easy and you very well might be doing things you never thought you’d be able to do.

So, let’s get started!