What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. So, someone do calisthenics exercises, because
let's face it, we're forced to. We either don't have access to a gym or our home gym
environment just isn't really the best. Well, I don't care if you have access to an entire gym,
the 10 exercises that I'm going to show you here today are ones that everyone should do.
Let's start breaking them down one by one. So it should come as no surprise that any list
of must do calisthenics exercises is going to start up here at the bar and of course, with
the classic pullup. Because this king of all upper body bodyweight exercises is there for a reason,
because it works. And again, to underscore the point of this video, even if you had access to a
full gym and can use a barbell for deadlifts or rows or could use even a lat pulldown machine,
you're still going to want to do pullups. Because the unique benefits of commanding your body in
space in a vertical pulling environment is going to make this one worthy of being
included in any back workout that you do. We're not done just yet, because when it comes
to training your biceps, being up at the bar here is one of the best places to be
yet again. You see what you do the chinup by just simply changing the grip here to
an underhand position. You're going to work the biceps very effectively. Now one thing you want
to do is make sure you're not pulling straight up and down with your body close to the bar.
Introducing some of that distance away from the bar is what's going to create the almost curling
effect of your body up to the bar. Remember, a barbell curl curls the bar up to you, a chinup
curls your body up to the bar. And speaking of the barbell curl, yes, you're still going to be
doing those, but not at the exclusion of doing the chinup. Remember, guys, the calisthenics exercises
that I'm covering here today are non-negotiable, regardless of what access to a gym you have.
And since we're on a roll now with the basics, let's keep it going now down here on the floor
with a pushup. You see, I talked about before finding the appropriate pushup for you, because if
you're doing just a lot of reps of a basic pushup, then no, this exercise isn't one of my favorite.
But if you're finding the variation that challenges you, then this exercise becomes one
that must be included in your pushup workouts. And the benefits here are many. Not only is it
a closed chain pushing exercise that's unlike the bench press and dumbbell bench press, but it also
provides you with that safe opportunity to push yourself to your all-out max. To go to failure
without having to find, let's say, a safe resting spot for the dumbbells or a barbell resting spot
that preferably isn't on your chest. When we can take our exercises to failure guys,
we can push ourselves to that next level to force new muscle growth. The pushup
s going to do that again in that close chain environment, and it makes it an irreplaceable
part of any successful workout program. And that brings us to exercise number four,
which is a little bit more creative but no less critical and we're talking about the Slick Floor
Bridge Curl because what we're doing is we're giving ourselves an opportunity to train the
posterior chain in a way that we actually don't really get a chance to do with some of the other
gym-based exercises. I mean, think about it, the barbell hip thrust is good at training
hip extension, but it has no dynamic action at the knee, no flexion. At same time, we have Alliance
Hamstring Curl, which I'm not a fan of because of what it can do to the low back. But regardless,
it's got active knee flexion, but with no hip extension. What we get here is the opportunity
to combine hip extension and knee flexion so that the hamstrings and glutes can work together
in the way that they actually prefer. That makes this an exercise that isn't just a gimmick, but
one that's actually irreplaceable when it comes to getting the most effective training and complete
program for hitting your posterior chain. The next one is not one you're going to find at
the top of the best muscle building calisthenics exercises, but it's no less important, and it's
another one that's going to hit that posterior chain. We're talking about the Reverse Hyper,
and this would be categorized, yes, as more of a corrective exercise. But when you look
at it as capacity to actually unlock some bigger totals on your bigger list, then you realize how
irreplaceable it really is. So regardless of the fact that it's just a body weight calisthenics
exercise, it still needs to be in every single person's program. It's strengthening the glutes
and the low back. And again, like the hamstrings and glutes on a Slick Floor Bridge Curl,
getting them to work together. If you can increase the strength of your hip extenders,
you're going to have an easier time driving the bar off your chest at the bottom of a bench press
and performing a properly executed deadlift. The fact is, this is simple to do and can be done
anywhere. You can do it on a bench, on a box or even your couch. Just make sure you do it.
For those that love action movies more than love stories,
well, you're not going to like this next exercise because there's not a lot of action. But there's
definitely a lot of love when it comes to this exercise from me because of all the things that
it can do for you. We're talking about the Dead Arm Hang. If you'll hang with me for a minute,
I'll explain why. You see this exercise is one that allows us to test a lot of things, like I
said. Number one, your mental toughness. Can you hang from the bar, especially as that
pain starts to set into your forearms and hands that's building our grip strength in the process?
But we not only get the benefits there, we get the opportunity to work on shoulder stability.
The ability to maintain that packed shoulder position throughout the hang is one that's going
to serve us well when we go into other exercises that apply attraction stress
like a barbell row or even a deadlift. Once again, it's one of those exercises that's
hard to overlook because of how multifaceted it is. And even if you have access to, let's say,
dumbbells for carries, you're still going to want to work the Dead Arm Hang into your routine.
Hanging Ab Raises are still going to be one of the best ways to train your abs,
and it doesn't have to necessarily be with a straight leg. Look, I understand that any
hanging exercise for abs is going to be one of the more difficult exercises for your abs because
you have to lift the weight of your legs. But as with everything else, guys, with the difficulty
comes the reward. I've actually made a whole video dedicated to the importance of hanging ab
exercises when it comes to creating the best looking and most well-developed abs,
you just have to make sure you pick one. Whether it's the legs straight or the knees bent, somehow
some way you need to still incorporate these into your routine, regardless of what fancy ab exercise
machine you might have access to, or however many ab exercises you're doing down on the floor.
And now Story Time with Jeff Cavalier. All right, so this next one will benefit from a bit of a back
story. My shoulders have always been one of my more muscular or better defined muscle groups.
However, I can tell you that back in the day I was doing this next exercise the Handstand Pushup
every single time I train them until I hurt my labrums. At that point, I kind of shied away
from this to my detriment. You see, this is one of the best exercises you can do for a lot of
reasons. As a matter of fact, it's one of the best ways to actually overcome a labrum issue because
of the beneficial compressive stresses that we get by doing some variation of a handstand press.
And while some will claim that you should put plates under your hands to do this exercise for
increase range of motion, that's actually not the real driver of the benefits here. Again,
it's the compressive stress in the close chain environment that's leading to the coordinated
development of the delts, with the all-important, often neglected scapular stabilizer muscles that
makes this thing as good as it is. Now, it doesn't have to start this way,
you can always do a pike pushup, getting the same close chain benefits that you
would in the pushup and again working your shoulders more favorably here. However,
I'm imploring you to add a few repetitions, at least, of these the next time you train because
of the unique benefits they provide. That now concludes Story Time with Jeff Cavaliere.
So, for exercise nine we re back at the bar again, but this time not a pullup bar, this is
the Inverted Row. And we talk about the difference between horizontal pulling exercises and vertical
pulling exercises and how they work different muscles more favorably. The lats and teres being
a little bit more worked with the vertical pulling exercises and the round boys and mid
scapula muscles in the overall thickness in the back being a little bit more effectively targeted
with the horizontal pulling exercises. So the Inverted Row gives us that option. And
even if we had access to a Barbell Row, you still want to do this because it's an important element
here that is oftentimes missing from the row. You see if you can attack the bar on a pulling
exercise with your sternum, you can get into more effective scapular retraction, and sometimes we
just let the bar take us for the ride on a regular row. This is a great bodyweight compliment,
but just an all-around good complementary exercise and effectively designed pulling workout. This
is why you're not going to want to skip. Now regardless of whether you had access to
a decline bench and either a barbell or a full rack of dumbbells. I'm still going to want you
to do a Dip. Because not only is this one of the better upper body by the weight pushing exercises,
but it's fully capable of helping you to drive lower chest development and also
triceps and shoulder development too, because it's simply a body weight beast when it comes
to pushing exercises. Now, it doesn't mean that it doesn't come with some necessary precautions.
You want to make sure that you're limiting the depth of the exercise to prevent
that over rounding of the shoulder in the bottom position. We also want to make sure
that we're keeping our shoulders down and back, as I pointed out in many videos. The fact is,
guys, if performed properly, the Bodyweight Dip is one of the better exercises for building your
upper body, and therefore it's going to need a place in your workout program regardless
if you're doing so with weights or not. Now, if gym and equipment access is just simply
not an option for you right now and you're looking for the best bodyweight exercises
for building muscle across your whole body, I put together a list of those as well. Guys,
you're going to want to watch that video if you're looking for a complete program that requires no
equipment at all. We have our Athlean-Xero program available at athleanx.com. If you found the video
helpful make sure you leave your comments and thumbs up below. Tell me what you want me to
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