I started calisthenics as a newborn baby

As I mentioned in my first post, I had some issues with my muscles as a newborn. As a result, I did assisted sitting pullups, leg exercises and I was being rolled on the floor as a newborn – doctor’s orders.

From then on, I was always able to do pushups, pullups, climb the rope without my legs, etc. I was already strong in my upper body without doing anything. But I had absolutely no flexibility. I’ll write more about my flexibility journey in a later post.

As a kid I participated in absolutely no sports or after-school activities other than playing and running on the playground. I always walked everywhere, never really sat on my ass, as I was a very active kid. TV could hardly ever engage me, because I was always on my way to do something more interesting. I never really liked activities that required me sitting down, unless it was a good book.

You should have seen me when I was reading Winnetou as a kid. My Mother would tell me to go have a shower, brush my teeth, go to bed, come to eat, etc. My answer was: I’m going… Two hours later I was still reading and doing absolutely nothing. And then I would realize that the day ended and would quickly do all the things my Mother told me in about 5 minutes. Then I would wake up, and start reading again, until I had to go to sleep. What can I say? I truly loved Winnetou 🙂

I continued calisthenics, but now I was actually training

As an adult, I started calisthenics when I was about 20 years old. I was still at university, but I would find a couple of days throughout the week to squeeze in some sets and reps.

Pavel Tsatsouline’s book: The Naked Warrior was a good start. I found some nice exercises in there that pretty quickly made me strong enough to do pistol squats and one-arm pushups.

That was so cool. As a girl, I was able to do these skills like second nature. I truly enjoyed it, and kept building my basic muscle mass with calisthenics exercises.

Then I tried kettlebell

I also experimented with some basic kettlebell exercises for a couple of years, but I was never fond of the idea of weight lifting. I tried the swing, the snatch, the military press, the halo and the Turkish get-up (TGU).

But the only exercises I actually enjoyed were the halo and the TGU. I did these exercises to improve my shoulder mobility. I extremely needed them. I still do. That’s the reason I still include these two kettlebell exercises in my training routine. They are quite superior moves when it comes to rehab and mobility.

Then I did the “Convict Conditioning”

My husband and I would follow one of the workouts from the book Convict Conditioning from Paul “Coach” Wade, and as the years went by, we slowly but surely progressed to higher and higher levels.

After a couple of years, I was able to do one-arm one-leg pushups, I did the bridge from a standing position, and I would also start my handstand journey as well.

I think the most important thing in calisthenics is to have a solid base. It’s very beneficial on the long run to have those tiny little muscles, tendons and ligaments developed, strong and ready, otherwise I would have never had the slightest chance to pull off moves later on like the back lever or the free-standing handstand pushup.

I didn’t want to get big, but brutally strong yet small

I’m a girl with no curves. As a result, I never ever wanted to be like Dorian Yates in his prime. I already have a boyish figure, which means that if I train for gains, I’ll look like a well-trained young man. No thank you.

If I were a guy, I would do a lot of pushups and bodyweight squats in high reps and sets. That’s what my husband has been doing and he is definitely growing. I keep refashioning his long-sleeved tops for myself, because he keeps growing out of his clothes. More fabric for me – I love sewing with my sewing machine.

However I do the exact opposite. I choose an exercise that I can do only 3-5 times (on a good day), and I try to do 1-3 repetitions for 2-3 sets. That’s it. I use extremely hard exercises and do them in small sets and reps, while my husband is doing easy exercises but in high sets and reps. He’s growing and getting stronger, and I stay the same weight and still get stronger.

There is a book on this method called C-Mass from Paul “Coach” Wade. It literally teaches the reader on how to become a gorilla (mostly for men) and how to stay skinny but strong (mostly for the ladies). It’s an easy read and a really good choice if you know absolutely nothing about the mechanics of muscle and strength building.

Then I started streetworkout

Streetworkout is basically calisthenics in public on a playground that is for adults. We call them streetworkout parks. You can do pullups, dips, hanging leg raises, muscle-ups, roll-overs, back levers, front levers, human flags and of course the planche. Plus free-style (monkey-like swings on the bar) if you’re into this stuff.

After I finished university, I was craving for a reason to leave home, walk somewhere, get really tired, and get back home. Because I only did home office jobs, I was at home all day and my only reason to get out of the apartment was to get groceries and maybe sometimes run some errands.

That was definitely not enough for me, as I’m literally like a kid: I have to go out for a walk, go to a playground, tire myself out so that at the end of the day I can have a good night’s rest.

I told my husband that if he doesn’t want me to go crazy due to the lack of sleep, we better get out and start moving. I didn’t even need to persuade him, he was in. Mostly because he was also working from home and he also liked being outside in the sun. Now we had a reason to leave home about 3-5 days a week.

We literally train under a bridge

We like to go to Margaret Island in Budapest to have a good streetworkout session, as here the sun is giving us a nice tan, and the Danube river reduces a bit the summer heat.

Also, we can meet other people, mostly tourists (this is a beautiful tourist attraction in Budapest) and have a little chit-chat while training.

I usually do some tricks in the beginning of my workout (pull-up roll-overs, handstand pushups on low parallettes, straddle back levers, wannabe human flags), then I do a ladder workout with my husband.

Currently we’re doing 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of pullups, dips, pistol squats, skin-the-cats and hanging leg raises. It’s a tiring workout but it is very effective in getting up the volume.

Today I did my streetworkout session at a local outdoor pool, and I cannot be happier. It’s so nice when after a hard workout you can just get in the pool to literally cool down. This is our constant program for this summer at the weekends.

So far, that’s it

I will write more detailed blog posts about the different exercises I learnt from all the books I’ve read so far, and give you, my Dear Imaginary Readers proper explanations on the hows and whys.