Cardiovascular and Calisthenics

 Heart and lungs or musculature. Which is more important? training both are equally important in my opinion. Cardio trains the heart and lungs to deliver oxygen to the body and brain more efficiently. Calisthenics train the body through functional strength to operate more efficiently. 

Both exercise systems release endorphins. These are quite simply the feel good chemicals that can flood your brain. The training as well as the results bring positive feelings. 

There are nearly as many cardiovascular events you can undertake as there are muscular events. Training is often limited by your imagination. Some routines are an hour or more long while others are unbelievably short but promise massive changes.

You have limited time and almost no equipment. What are you supposed to do? You need something, a routine, that will hit your entire body as well as work your heart and lungs. What do you do? 

First, check with your doctor to make sure your body can handle what I’m suggesting. Always, doctor first. 

With that done you will do three exercises to hit your cardio and muscular systems. That’s it, three things. 

First, you will do a half mile to a mile of jogging/fast walking. Ideally this will take you to a park. If not, it should bring you back home to a pull-up bar. 

Once at the bar you are going to do a full body exercise. These are called Body Builders. You will do a Burpee, but with a pull-up or chin-up. These will work your full body including your abs to a degree. 

There are a large number of videos out there on how to do Burpees. Still, I can detail the exercises in them here.

1. squat down and put your hands on the ground or mat.
2. Kick your feet back so you are in a plank position. 
3. Do a push-up.
4. Quickly bring your feet back to your hands.
5. Jump up.
6. Grab a monkey bar or your pull-up bar and do either a chin-up or a pull-up. 
7. Repeat for as many repetitions as you can.
8. Do whatever abdominal exercise you prefer to failure

If you are just starting a physical routine expect to do three, four, or five of these. If you have been exercising and are trying this as a change you will likely do several more. 

How often are you to do this? Ideally, six days a week is your goal. If that is not possible due to your schedule or physical state do it three times a week. 

Stay with it. I do this as a daily morning routine. It’s the first thing I do when getting out of bed. There is a park and playground near my house so I jog and walk there and back. Using playground equipment saves me money on equipment and gym memberships. 

This is a simplistic, not easy, routine. It should not take that long. Depending upon how far you walk/jog and how many Body Builders you do your routine should not take more than 40 minutes. As your health improves and you get stronger you will do more repetitions. This, of course, will take longer. 

Do this for one month. One month will give you time to see changes in your routine and body. This will also make a habit out of the exercise time block. One month to feel and be healthier, four weeks. You can do that. 

Train hard and train safe.

Calisthenics for Strength

 

 With spring just around the corner I felt this reader had an excellent question for fitness training. One reader asked how to transition from calisthenics to weightlifting. Let’s consider a few things before jumping into that.

Exercise, be it body weight or external weights as resistance, is an excellent ectivity for your body. It improves flexibility, muscle tone, cardiovascular health, morale and mental outlook among many other benefits. Exercise is also the most under prescribed anti-depressant.

Calisthenics is an exercise protocol of using one’s own weight as the resistance for the exercises. This has many benefits. One being that you can take your routine almost anywhere to complete it. I used a local playground as the tools needed for my calisthenics routine for years. Pull-ups, dips, squats, jumping and more were all done using the equipment at the playground. It is also near a running track so I also added cardio. 

I was able to maintain my weight at 220 to 230 pounds during these years. I train to be larger than average. Your goals may differ. Still, if there is a park or playground with monkey bars you have all you need. 

Think about how the military trains its personnel. Everyone begins calisthenics in boot camp. While on active duty many units do daily physical training or PT. This PT is mainly body weight based or employs equipment that all participants have. 

Consider weight lifting for a moment. In this one uses weights external ti the body to increase load and tension on the muscles. One can work every part of their body with weights. The difference in outcomes for lifting comes down to your goals and the necessary training methods. 

Calisthenics will certainly improve your fitness levels as well as strength and stamina. Using your body and simple equipment you can hone your body into an exercise machine. When in the military I’d do sets of pushups yo surpass 100, sit-ups and crunches, squats and lunges for legs, and then running for overall cardio. Calisthenics were more than adequate for fitness. 

Weightlifting can take you past the point at which calisthenics stops. You can continue to overload your muscles with greater amounts of weight as your strength grows. 

Now, transitioning between the two. All it takes is a gym membership or some equipment at home to make the switch. How to start is a point to understand.

When I switched I focused on the core lifts which are called compound exercises. A compound exercise uses multiple joints and multiple muscles to perform. These include benchpress, squat, deadlift, bent or seated row, lat pull down or pull-ups, upright row, and shoulder press. There are more, but this should make it clear. 

By building a routine around compound movements you can efficiently work your entire body in a shorter period of time. For instance, a basic full body routine would include squats, bench press, bent row, and either upright row or shoulder press. These exercises done properly will work your entire body including your core. 

This type of routine is typically started at three sets of 10 repetitions each set. A set is the number of repetitions completed. Three sets is conventionally considered enough to fully work the targeted muscle group.

After achieving some level of experience with weights there are intensity techniques you can add to make the workout more effective. You can add sets or change the repetition numbers to achieve different goals. 

Optimally, you can combine the two training styles and tailor your routine to include both calisthenics and weights. Many consider this optimal. At my gym it is a regular thing for somebody to do pull-ups and pushups as part of their lifting routine. Another excellent body weight exercise seen is dips. This is considered the squat for the upper body. Years ago, I would benchpress, isolate my triceps, and then do dips. The results were outstanding. My physical power and stamina were beyond my contemporaries. 

As to which exercise style is better comes down to your goals and how you best like to train. I am not going to tell you that weights are better as I’ve used both techniques. Each method fills and filled a specific need at that time.

Selecting the load you use is entirely based on you. Use a weight that makes you do just less than the number of repetitions you are aiming for. Keep at it until you can perform the number of repetitions you have selected. That is, try to pick a weight that will allow you to get close to three sets of 10 reps. When you can complete 10 reps across all sets then increase the weight by 10%. 

A balanced routine is one that will work your body completely and keep push muscles worked as equally well as pull muscles. Such a program or routine will ideally include the following five areas: 

Aerobic Futness

Strength Training

Core Exercises

Balance Training

Flexibility and Stretching

Schedule your workouts so that you have enough time to fully recover before lifting again. Not recovering between sessions can lead to a condition called over training. This is when you are breaking muscle tissue faster than your body can recover and rebuild. Signs of this include:

Increased Muscle Pain

Injuries

Getting Weaker not Stronger

If you find your fitness levels decreasing improve your diet with more protein and carbohydrates or increase the off days between exercising. 

Warming up your muscles is always advised. Take some time to get the blood pumping prior to undertaking the full workload. By doing a target exercise with light weights you increase joint lunrication. This, of course, protects your joints from excess wear and tear. This will also get blood moving through the target muscles. It primes them for the heavy excertion you are planning.

Use proper equipment for your safety and health. Form is the actual movement you perform the exercise in. Many lifts seem simple, almost elementary. There are, however, details that you must be aware of. Going through the proper form for all of the exercises you may use woul be chapters in a book. Thankfully, there are a plethora of quick videos and articles available for free that will give you all the details you need. I have also detailed the squat in the piece linked here (https://famfitfun.blogspot.com/2020/07/squats-and-knees-training-legs-is.html?m=1).

Before you begin any new routine endure that you are capable of withstanding the stresses involved. Talk to your doctor about what you’re planning. It is better to know where your overall health line is than to push your luck.