I'm a physical therapist and online trainer helping you to improve mobility and skills through workouts and education so you can move better and continue to do the things you love! My bi-weekly newsletter gives you updates and behind the scenes on life and business, more information on popular posts, and making sure you don't miss content you may have found helpful like blogs, YouTube videos, and more! Doing all of this while changing the Paradigm of Perfection, cause no one is perfect and that in itself is perfect.
Calisthenics Q&A
Training edition
Here's this week's round up of your questions! If you want to submit your question, you can do so here:
What's the best calisthenics equipment to get to start?Shoutout to @eni.coach.za.preduzetnice for asking this question and the next one! Don't forget if you have a question, use the button at the top or bottom of the email to ask! I'd say you don't need as much as you'd think! You can do a lot with a pull up bar, bands, and rings or parallel bars. If you're really going minimal, you could probably get away with bands and rings as long as you have a good place to anchor the rings! If you want specific brands, I personally like a wall mounted pull up bar so it's a bit more sturdy and you can do dips, where as a door pull up bar is great to start, but you'd need something else like rings to train dips. I have this one from Titan Fitness. I literally looked at the one that was farthest from the wall that I could find, but that does come at a cost of the weight limit. Rogue Fitness has a similar one that's a tad closer (by a few inches) and has a 50lb higher weight limit last time I checked. For bands, I personally like Rubberbanditz and Movement Made. The quality of these bands are both the best I've found with the technique used to manufacture them. The difference between the two brands is that the Movement Made bands don't have any dyes, which significantly reduces the impact on the environment. If you want to get something from Rubberbanditz, code LAURA10 will give you a 10% discount and if you want to get something from Movement Made, code paradigmofperfection will give you 15% off. For rings, I again, like Movement Made, granted, they're not traditional rings, they had sustainability in mind when being designed and are great for traveling. The original rings I got from Titan Fitness broke pretty quickly and were a PAIN to adjust! The Movement Made bands have a super easy strap to adjust the height of the rings. For parallel bars, I personally have the B bars from Baseblocks. If you use that link, it should give you 10% off! *If you use any of my codes or the BaseBlocks link, I do make a small commission Which of your programs do you recommend to begin calisthenics?Depending on where you're starting there are 3 main options for you!
I'm struggling with pull ups, V sits, straddles, and handstands...basically all calisthenics. Any advice?Build an general base of strength while you focus on 1-2 goals at a time. I personally like 1 upper body goal and 1 lower body goal at a time. Spend a few months focusing on those goals and once you reach those goals or make a significant amount of progress, reduce the volume of that skill/goal to 1-2x/week for maintenance and focus on the next 1-2 goals! If you want a particular program, the pull up program or handstand programs in the app may be a good start for your goals! Training for a flag - what skills/movement should I master before?To be honest, a flag is a tough skill! You're pulling with the top arm and pushing with the bottom arm, so it's a combo of a one arm hang and a handstand. There's also the body awareness component so handstand training would likely be helpful (although not completely needed). Definitely being able to do a one arm hang for grip and shoulder strength and dragon flags for core strength would be helpful. Plus some of these progressions in this post here are a great place to start! What's the best way to work on a strict muscle up?I'm a little biased, but I kinda think the muscle up programs I have in the app are a great place to start! Granted you do need a solid amount of pulling and pushing strength for that (so 10+ dips and 10+ pull ups). Where is the bar meant to touch on your hands to do a proper muscle up?The technique for the strict muscle up is called a false grip. So the bar or ring is held in the wrist crease and not the palm. I talk about it more in depth in the youtube video linked below! But basically, it helps so you don't have to shift your grip to be able to push in the dip.
That's it for this week! If you have any questions to clarify my answers or found it super helpful, go ahead and hit that reply button! Don't forget you can ask your questions below to be featured in an upcoming email!
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Paradigm of Perfection
I'm a physical therapist and online trainer helping you to improve mobility and skills through workouts and education so you can move better and continue to do the things you love! My bi-weekly newsletter gives you updates and behind the scenes on life and business, more information on popular posts, and making sure you don't miss content you may have found helpful like blogs, YouTube videos, and more! Doing all of this while changing the Paradigm of Perfection, cause no one is perfect and that in itself is perfect.
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