Bodybuilding or Calisthenics?
Everyone on the self-improvement journey might have come across this hurdle of doing bodybuilding or calisthenics? Maybe second thoughts on what they are doing? Which is better? Which should you do and does it matter which you do? I will answer that in my perspective.
I have been working out for well over a year now consistently. I have done both weights and calisthenics. Firstly let’s understand the purpose of both.
Bodybuilding
Calisthenics
Bodybuilding is done in the general sense to gain more muscle, look bulkier or shredded. It’s only concerned with mass. I assume most of you would know about it.
Calisthenics is done mostly for mobility and strength. It’s great for becoming stronger, fit and having a toned look to the body.
My experience with each:
Body Building:
- Easier and more enjoyable workouts – Since you are focusing on a single muscle group, there is not much cardio-vascular stress. So the workouts are pure grunt. You get more tired and your workouts will feel good. Especially if you follow a split routine, your muscles will be well rested each session.
- Quick muscle growth – If you are a beginner, you will see changes very quickly, targeting single muscle groups and working out hard will bring a lot of definition, very quickly. The equipment and workouts are simply very efficient for muscle growth. But, they may not necessarily translate to strength.
- Easier workout progression – Since you are using external weights, like dumbbells, plates etc. Progressing is easy because you either increase the weights or reps. It feels great to add a few kilos over time. This is one of the reasons you can grow so quickly. Progressive overload can be achieved optimally with weights.
- You don’t feel strong – Even though your muscles are gaining size, you are feeling bigger, you will not necessarily become stronger. There is the initial phase where you will gain some strength but after that, it platues. I remember being able to do twice as many curls from when I started but, only to try out my push-ups, I struggled doing 10 pushups.
- Gets comfortable quickly – Lifting weights after a while doesn’t become a challenge anymore. There are days when I am forced to do weights due to rain. That doesn’t feel hard or challenging anymore. Yes the workouts will be hard, I will sweat more doing weights than calisthenics but it’s not true exhaustion. It’s very selective and its easy to get used to it.
- Quality of life – When you are a big, fit guy, people will be intimidated and it is a strong body language to have. It portrays.. or should I say SCREAM confidence and tells the world you are someone who works on yourself. You will also attract the opposite gender easily. There is a quality of life element to body building.
Calisthenics:
- Slow Progression – With calisthenics, you rely entirely on your body weight and you also rely on multiple muscle groups when doing an exercise, progression in terms of muscle mass gain and strength both are quite slow. Your strong muscles are limited by the weaker muscles which are fatigued much quicker, hence progression is slow.
- Limited progression – Since you entirely rely on body weight, the idea of progressive overload only applies to how many reps you increase over time. Else, you will have to add substantial body weight. There is only so much progressive overload you can do with reps with them soon crossing over endurance rep range.
- Highly prone to injury – In many cases, starting out with calisthenics could mean starting off with quite a bit of body weight, in those cases simple exercises like pushups, dips or squats could end up injuring you. When I was starting out, despite not being overweight, I ran into multiple cases of tennis and golfers elbow. Not to mention my leg joints that still pop. You are prone to injury, so it is advised to start off slow.
- Never gets comfortable – For over a year of me working out consistently and I can barely recount the days I wanted to do calisthenics. You aren’t playing around with a limited range of movement with limited weights. You are pulling your entire body at the mercy joints. Workouts are less fulfilling, it is full-on exhaustion, my entire body is tired. While with weights, your muscles are fatigued and that soreness feels good.
- Getting stronger – One of the best things with calisthenics is strength progression. Over months, going from 3-4 strict form pullups to 10 will always feel good. Plus the strength comes not just from the dominant muscles but also from the inferior muscles, so your entire body is progressing and not just some targeted muscle groups. You also tend to have much more energy doing calisthenics. Partly because your body is stronger but also because calisthenics has some endurance element to it.
- Functional – Not very often I see myself lifting 100s of kilograms over my chest with a straight bar. But I can see myself in situations having to pull myself up. I can also see myself trying to balance in awkward positions, carrying something or just walking on hard terrain. So I would say calisthenics is more functional.
What would my choice be?
My choice / advice would be to go hybrid!
If you are in a situation where you cannot afford the gym or don’t have access to one, calisthenics is good. But if you can make the choice between two, go with both. I do the same.
With calisthenics you are making your tendons and joints stronger, it’s harder to maintain discipline with calisthenics and my philosophy always emphasizes on hardships.
As for weights, it’s good to start off with weights, if you are someone who hasn’t worked out before, you will slowly ease into workouts with “less-heavy” weights, which will save you a lot of injuries. Then slowly incorporate calisthenics to know your body better and build up the essential functional strength.
It’s important to look strong as well as be strong. Just like Arnold once said “You cannot be a 200 pound man without the strength of a 200 pound man” …. or something like that. The point being, you need the strength that complements your body. If you cannot properly master your body, it’s a shame.
I am currently doing a hybrid workout implementing both weights and calisthenics. I workout every other day and I mostly focus on calisthenics because it is harder than the weights but when I do weights (viz maybe 1-2 times a week) I do go hard 🙂
