Calisthenics vs Weights: Which One Should You Do?

Calisthenics or weights?

That’s the question many people ask when they want to get fit, strong, and healthy. Both methods have their benefits and drawbacks, and the best choice depends on your personal goals, preferences, and lifestyle.

In this article, we’ll help you decide by comparing calisthenics and weights on four key factors:

• Effectiveness
• Convenience
• Versatility
• And fun.

We’ll also show you how to get started with either one, or even combine them for the best of both worlds. By the end of this article, you’ll know which one is right for you.

Let’s get started!

What is Calisthenics?

Calisthenics is a unique form of strength training that utilizes your bodyweight as resistance instead of external weights. It involves performing movements that engage multiple large muscle groups at once, such as push-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, and planks.

Unlike weightlifting, calisthenics does not require expensive equipment or gym memberships to practice. All you need is space, your body, and portable calisthenics equipments like parallettes, dip bars etc.

What is Weightlifting?

Weight training is a form of resistance training that uses external weights like barbells, dumbbells, and machines to overload the muscles. Exercises involve movements like lifting, pushing, and pulling the weights in various ways, such as squats, deadlifts, rows, and presses.

Weight training builds muscle and strength very effectively by allowing precise control over resistance and progressive overload. It also boosts metabolism, bone density, posture, confidence, and self-esteem.

Benefits of Calisthenics

Convenient and Cost-Effective

Calisthenics provides an ultra-convenient and budget-friendly way to get fit. No fancy gym membership or expensive equipment is required! Rely on your body weight and gravity to build strength. You can workout anytime, anywhere – at home, outdoors, while travelling, with friends or solo.

Without cumbersome equipment, your training is as portable as you are. Calisthenics saves you commute time, gym fees, and logistical hassle.

Enhances Mobility and Prevents Injuries

Calisthenics enhances your mobility by improving your range of motion, joint health, and body control. The exercises take your joints through full, functional patterns while strengthening supportive musculature.

This prevents the stiffness, tightness, and pain caused by sedentary lifestyles. Calisthenics also makes you more aware of your body’s positioning in space. You learn to stabilize properly during compound movements. This type of neuromuscular conditioning reduces injury risk both in training and daily living. Calisthenics keeps your body nimble and resilient.

Improve Athleticism And Body Awareness

Calisthenics develops athleticism and body awareness through functional exercises that build strength and endurance transferable to sports. Movements like pull-ups and squats performed in multiple planes enhance mobility, flexibility, balance and coordination, preventing injuries and allowing efficient mechanics.

Calisthenics also improves proprioception and intermuscular coordination for powerful, resilient movements. The creative exercise variations continually challenge muscles and mind for well-rounded physical and mental adaptability. For any sport, calisthenics provides a strong foundation of functional fitness.

Develops Full-Body Strength and Endurance

With compounded, multi-joint movements, calisthenics provides an excellent full-body workout that builds overall strength and endurance. Exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, and squats challenge your core stability while conditioning larger muscle groups.

This leads to greater posture, balance, coordination, and stamina. Compound calisthenics movements also fire up your metabolism and cardiovascular fitness. As your abilities improve, so will your muscle definition, fat burn, and energy levels.

Safe and Low-Impact Training

By utilizing your bodyweight as resistance, calisthenics offers safe, low-impact training that is easy on your joints. The exercises promote natural movement patterns and appropriate joint alignment without excessive external loading.

This avoids injury compared to heavy weightlifting or running. Calisthenics provides an excellent strength stimulus without compromising your connective tissues or skeletal health. You can build muscle safely at any age while minimizing wear and tear.

Endless Variations for Engagement

One beauty of calisthenics is the endless exercise variations that prevent boredom and plateau. There are so many ways to modify movements to increase or decrease difficulty. You can constantly challenge your skills, strength, and coordination in new ways.

Whether adjusting the leverage, range of motion, or base of support, small tweaks keep calisthenics engaging. There is always another progression that will test both your body and mind. Calisthenics workouts never get stale!

Benefits of Weight Training

Maximizes Muscle Growth

Weightlifting rapidly builds muscle mass and strength by allowing precise manipulation of training factors like load, volume, intensity, and rest periods. The external resistance enables measurable tracking of progress and strength gains critical for muscular growth. Weightlifting is optimal for maximizing hypertrophy goals.

Targets Muscle Imbalances

The multitude of weightlifting exercises and equipment allows the isolation of specific underdeveloped muscles or muscle groups. Weak points can be brought up to par for balanced overall physique development.

Boosts Fat Loss

The heavy compound lifts and high intensity of weightlifting workouts significantly increase metabolism and fat burning during and after training sessions. Weightlifting also improves overall body composition by adding calorie-burning lean muscle mass.

Simple Progressive Overloading

Weightlifting allows straightforward strength progression by incrementally increasing external resistance over time. Even small strength gains can accumulate by consistently applying the overload principle.

Stronger Bones

Weightlifting resistance training applies forces to the body that increase bone mineral density, especially in the spine. This strengthens overall skeletal structure and posture while helping prevent osteoporosis.

Psychological Benefits

Achieving new personal records and noticeable physique improvements from weightlifting can greatly boost confidence, self-esteem, body image, and overall mental well-being.

Precise Control Over Training

Weightlifting enables accurate adjustment and tracking of training variables like resistance, volume, and intensity for targeted muscular and strength development. Progress can be precisely measured and monitored.

Drawbacks of Calisthenics

Difficult For Overweight People

Calisthenics can be difficult for obese people as they have to move more bodyweight, may lack mobility for certain exercises, and face higher joint stress. This can be frustrating and discouraging. However, calisthenics can also benefit them by burning more calories than weightlifting, improving overall fitness and self-esteem, requiring no equipment, and being modifiable through easier progressions.

Difficult Strength Progression

Advancing calisthenics exercises requires mastery of technique, balance, and body control. While great for building a foundation, calisthenics may not optimally develop maximum muscular size and strength due to limitations of bodyweight resistance. It also may not work all muscles equally.

Insufficient Leg Stimulus

Calisthenics may not provide enough resistance to fully strengthen legs compared to heavy squats and deadlifts. High-rep bodyweight leg exercises may neglect power and explosiveness. Additional loading or modalities may be needed for lower body development.

Drawbacks of Weight Training

Equipment and Gym Limitations

Weightlifting requires access to barbells, weights, and other specialized gym equipment. This can limit training based on availability, cost, and location of facilities. Weightlifting may be inconvenient for those without gym access or who travel frequently.

Higher Injury Risk

Poor form, excessive loading, or improper technique during weightlifting can increase the risk of both acute and overuse injuries. This includes sprains, strains, fractures, tendinitis, arthritis, etc. Weightlifting must be progressed cautiously to avoid joint or connective tissue damage.

Can Reduce Mobility

The heavy loading and limited range of some weightlifting exercises may neglect flexibility, mobility, and joint health. Over time, this can reduce the range of motion and cause stiffness, tightness, or pain. Additional mobility work is required to counterbalance weightlifting.

Potential Psychological Stress

Weightlifting can be intimidating or cause anxiety related to body image, especially in group gym environments. The pressures of adding weight, tracking progress, and comparing yourself to others can negatively impact some people’s psychology and self-worth.

“Comparison is the most poisonous element in the human heart because it destroys ingenuity and it robs peace and joy.” -Euginia Herlihy

Choosing Between Calisthenics and Weightlifting

For Beginners

Both calisthenics and weightlifting can be great for beginners, but calisthenics may be more accessible and unintimidating to start with its bodyweight. Weightlifting provides more structured progression models but requires learning proper technique. Overall, beginners can benefit from either modality depending on available resources.

For Intermediate and Advanced

For intermediate/advanced trainees, calisthenics provides endless challenges through technique and skills acquisition but lacks heavier resistance. Weightlifting enables progressive loading but requires more recovery. Overall, more advanced trainees may need both modalities to meet strength and technique goals.

For Older vs Younger

For older trainees, calisthenics may be gentler on joints but not as intense for strength/power, whereas weightlifting can be riskier but dramatically improves these qualities. For younger athletes, calisthenics builds a great movement foundation before weights.

For Men vs Women

Calisthenics can be empowering and non-intimidating for women, whereas men may gravitate towards weights for muscle growth. But both modalities can benefit either gender depending on preferences.

The Best Choice Depends On You

Overall, choosing between calisthenics and weights requires assessing individual factors like needs, goals, abilities, resources, and preferences to determine the optimal training fit.

Which is better for building muscle and losing fat?

Both calisthenics and weightlifting can support muscle growth and fat loss goals, but they have different strengths and limitations. Calisthenics provides an excellent calorie burn through total body movements, but bodyweight resistance may not maximally stimulate hypertrophy compared to progressive weightlifting overload. 

Focusing on progressive overload principles, nutrition, and maximizing effort and consistency will build muscle and lose fat regardless of training style. However, combining both modalities can provide total body strength, enhanced mobility, and sufficient metabolic conditioning for reaching your physique goals. Adjusting your calisthenics and weightlifting volume based on priorities and lifestyle can optimize muscle building and fat burning.

Can you build muscle with only calisthenics?

Yes, it is possible to build muscle using calisthenics alone by applying key hypertrophy principles like progressive overload, volume, intensity, and nutrition. The key is using compound bodyweight exercises that target multiple large muscle groups, progressively increasing exercise difficulty, training with moderate reps of 6-12 per set, training each muscle at least twice weekly, taking 60-90 second rests between sets, and eating enough protein and calories to support growth. 

Implementing workout variations, resistance bands/weights, and skills training can also help continually challenge muscles in new ways. While genetic potential limits maximum gains, calisthenics can effectively build muscle by forcing progressive adaptation through strategic programming and diet. With dedication and proper application of training principles, impressive physique development is achievable with calisthenics.

How to get started with calisthenics

To begin calisthenics, first identify your goals and interests within the various disciplines like statics, dynamics, skills, or hand balancing to stay motivated. Then, find or create a suitable beginner program that applies sound training principles like progressive overload. 

Don’t skip mastering basic bodyweight movements first like push-ups, pull-ups, and squats, which provide the foundation before advancing. Use variations to adjust difficulty and continually challenge your muscles in new ways. 

Remain patient in your journey, as some skills can take months or years to master for example handstand pushup. Training consistently, tracking progress, avoiding comparison, and celebrating achievements will facilitate success. With the right mindset and dedication to daily practice, a life-long calisthenics journey can begin.

How to get started with WeightLifting?

To get started with weightlifting safely and effectively, consider hiring a trainer initially to learn proper form and technique. Always warm up thoroughly before lifting to prepare your body and reduce injury risks. 

Master the correct set-up, grip, lifting, lowering and dropping of the barbell for each core exercise while maintaining proper breathing and bracing. Keep the reps low (1-5) and sets moderate (3-5) with 2-5 minutes rest between sets to maximize intensity and avoid overtraining. 

Start with 2-3 sessions per week and balance weightlifting with other modalities like cardio or yoga. As you get stronger, progressively increase the difficulty by adding weight, changing tempo, or incorporating new accessories. 

Listen to your body and adjust training as needed based on energy, motivation, soreness, or fatigue. With proper guidance, preparation, and programming, weightlifting can be an extremely rewarding pursuit for beginners.

Can I do both weightlifting and calisthenics?

Doing both weightlifting and calisthenics can develop a strong, muscular, and functional physique. Weightlifting builds muscle mass and strength efficiently through progressive overloading, while calisthenics improves mobility, flexibility, balance, and coordination. 

You can alternate between them on different days, combine them in circuits or supersets on the same day, or use weights for main lifts and calisthenics for accessories.

To get optimal results:’

With a thoughtful combination that plays to the unique strengths of each modality and allows for sufficient recovery, weightlifting and calisthenics can complement each other and take your fitness to new levels.

Conclusion

In conclusion, calisthenics and weightlifting offer different yet equally effective approaches to improving fitness and physique. Calisthenics builds comprehensive strength with bodyweight but can lack heavy resistance. Weightlifting enables maximal muscular gains through progressive loading but requires equipment and carries a higher injury risk. 

There is no universally “best” modality – the optimal training system depends on your specific goals, lifestyle, abilities, and personal preferences. Both styles can complement each other. The key is choosing the method that most engages and motivates you consistently. 

With an open mindset and sound programming, you can discover the right training formula to take your body to new levels.

References

https://www.britannica.com/sports/weightlifting

Why is calisthenics so effective for fat loss?

https://generationiron.com/calisthenics-body-awareness/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/calisthenics