- What's up ThenX athletes, I'm Shawne Lozano.
And today I'm going to show you how I started calisthenics.
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Don't you hear people say that
they're too big for calisthenics,
or calisthenics is only for small and light people.
I currently weigh about 270 pounds
and working towards a body transformation
to both lose fat and build muscle.
So for the most part, I've been very active in my youth
playing soccer as a child, playing football in high school
where I started weightlifting for the first time.
But after sustaining a few injuries in college
when I was playing football, I kind of fell off a bit.
I stopped working out for the most part and, you know
over time, put on some weight and it wasn't
until I joined ThenX that I started calisthenics.
And when I started, I was only able to do about
like 10 push-ups, and hang on the bar for like 10 seconds.
I can now do handstands, pull-ups,
and even more advanced moves like muscle up and back levers.
When I started calisthenics
there were five main exercises that I trained
and that's what I'm a be showing you today.
So in order to properly follow along, download the ThenX app
in the App store or Google play store
open up to the YouTube workout section
find this video and you're ready to get started.
So the first exercise we're gonna start
with today was actually one of the hardest ones
for me to do. And that's gonna be pull-ups.
I'm gonna go for five and show you what it looks like.
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All right, so let's pull-up.
So the way I started these, I could barely hang in the bar.
So instead I went to the low bar
I started working on Australian pull-ups first
having my feet on the ground was allowing me to
do the same movement, just reducing the weight
making it a lot easier for me to handle.
So I'm gonna go for five, and show you what that looks like.
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After building up my strength with this,
then I moved to the high bar,
and started working on jump negative pull-ups.
And I did these, until I was able to reduce the amount
of the jump and then more pulling
and eventually able to just pull myself up.
So I'm gonna go for five to show you what it looks like.
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- All right, that's jump negative pull-ups.
I did all these progressions to learn how to pull-up.
And I still use them to build my strength
and increase my reps.
Now moving onto the second fundamental exercise I focused on
was push-ups.
Like I said before, I was only able to do like 10.
Now I've increased my reps a lot more.
So I'm gonna go for a quick 20.
Then after I'm gonna show you the progressions
I used to work my way up. Let's go for it.
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There it goes, it was a quick 20.
So to build my strength up to being able to do these 20
I would first do the 10 pushups that I was able to do clean
and then move up to incline push-ups,
max out on those, to help build my strength
and keep my endurance going,
and really build that time under tension.
Let's go for 10.
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All right, that was 10. Now, if you can't do push-ups
this is a great exercise to start with.
The higher the elevation, the easier it is.
So you really wanna start up and then work your way down
to eventually being on the floor.
Moving on to the next fundamental exercise,
and the first skill I ever learned, handstands.
I'm a go for a ten second hold.
Just to show you how it looks like.
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That was the handstand hold.
And one of my favorite exercises, and I actually
learned this following all the steps
on the handstand technique guide on the ThenX app.
All the progressions in the handstand technique guide
were necessary, but there are two
that were the most beneficial to me.
The first progression that really helped me
was doing a pike hold.
This exercise allowed me to build my strength up
in my shoulders and in my arms that I'd be able to
hold my body weight over my head.
I'm gonna go for it.
Let me show you what it looks like.
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All Right, that was the pike hold.
It's really important to try to get as much weight
as you can onto your shoulders.
Cause that's what's gonna help you build your strength up
to start putting more weights by going elevated
to getting comfortable with more weight onto your arms
and eventually moving on to the second progression
that really helped me.
Which is doing handstands against the wall
with your body facing the wall.
Let me show you what it looks.
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That was handstand against the wall.
You'll notice that in that position, I already
start to get my feet coming off the wall.
And that's when I learned to use my fingers
to help push my body back into alignment and keep my balance
which was the key to eventually being able
to do it, off the wall.
The next fundamental exercise I started working on was dips.
This exercise really helped me build my upper body strength,
and it helped a lot into my handstands, and other exercises
Let's go for five.
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This exercise, I wasn't able to do at first,
but the progression I used that really
helped me get there was jump dip negatives.
Let me show you what those like.
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At first, I was dropping super fast.
Eventually I built my strength up to try
to go as slow as possible,
which eventually got me my first dip.
At first, those were even difficult for me.
So I would move down a progression
and start doing bench dips to help build my strength
and continue to work on my pushing strength
with the low impact exercise.
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Let me show you what those look like.
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It's a super good exercise to start with.
It really helps you build the upper body strength
to moving on to harder progressions like the jumping dip.
Now, let's move on to the fifth and final exercise
that I used to build my strength
when I first started calisthenics.
And that's the L-sit.
You may have already seen me learn the L-sit
in a video called how to L-sit on the floor.
If you wanna learn how to L-sit it step-by-step
definitely watch that video
but I'm gonna show you two of my favorite progressions.
But first let's do an L-sit.
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This exercise is not only great
for building your core strength
but also helping you balance on the dip bars.
And the balance also translated
to helping me doing handstands stands on the dip bars.
One of the first progressions that helped me
build the strength for the L-sit was an L-sit tuck
Let me show you what it looks like.
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This exercise is great. It's a great exercise to start with
because it's not only easier, you're also still engaging
your core, like the L-sit, but with less weight extended.
And the second progression I still use is the L-sit kicks.
I'm gonna go for five to show you how it looks like
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This progression starts actually in the tuck L-sit,
and then you kick out into an L-sit, eventually slowing
down that kick until you're holding an L-sit.
So those are the five main fundamental exercises I used,
when I first started calisthenics.
If you want these five exercises,
and even more progressions definitely download the ThenX app
in the App store or Google play store
become a member to get full access
to all our workout programs, technique guides,
and daily workouts that are gonna get you shredded,
and join the millions of other ThenX athletes
around the world, changing your lives today.
And if you enjoyed this workout, definitely smash
that like button and share this video
with a friend that thinks they're too big
to start calisthenics. And comment down below,
and let us know what you wanna see in the next video.
If you comment within the first 30 minutes of any upload
you always have a chance to win some free ThenX gear.
And if you wanna see more of my personal content
follow me on IG @ShawneLozano, where you can see some
of my progress and some of the skills that I'm working on.
And don't forget to come back every Sunday
for the ThenX video at 8:00 p.m. USA Eastern time.
We'll see you next Sunday.
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