Fitness mantra: Ditch casual training, opt calisthenics for a fitter body

It includes basic moves such as squats, push-ups, L-sit, lunges, dips, thrusts, jumping jacks and handstands that you’re probably already doing in your fitness routine. Actors such as Varun Dhawan, Vidyut Jammwal and Shahid Kapoor are a few who’ve opted for this workout. We list out a few pros and cons of calisthenics.

Exercises such as pull-ups and muscle-ups don’t require expensive equipment. For calisthenics, you just need a pull-up bar, kettlebell and barbell, which are cheap and can be used anywhere and anytime.

Calisthenics tackles the problem of burning excess fat from two directions. First, the strength training builds muscle mass and tone all over your body. Second, continuous calisthenics causes your heart rate to rise, one of the most effective ways possible to burn off fat.

Calisthenics gives you the option of being creative with your training workouts.

The exercises you do can be combined with various movements and personal challenges for example. If you’re in a park, there are lots of possibilities as long as you are motivated and engaged.

This ensures that your workouts are more fun.

If your single aim of working out is to increase your muscle size, then calisthenics is not the right choice. Calisthenics helps your muscles to grow, but only to a certain point.

The reason is that there are hardly any isolation exercises in these workouts, which target a specific muscle group such as bench press for chest. This can be a disadvantage and make workouts boring.

However, there are ways to vary calisthenics and make the exercise more difficult if you are creative.