Bulking with Calisthenics.

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jforjorden
jforjorden Posts: 4 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
Do you guys think this can be done? My goal weight is 170lbs, I'm currently 6ft tall, 136lbs.
I will be focusing on progressive overload, time under tension, 6-8 reps, advancing to more difficult movements (muscle ups, hand stand pushups, weighted dips, weighted pullups, planches, etc.

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  • Cortelli
    Cortelli Posts: 1,369 Member
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    Check out strengthunbound.com/

    Waldo has a wealth of information, and the vast majority of his resistance training, if I am not mistaken, is / was body weight workouts.
  • Wheelhouse15
    Wheelhouse15 Posts: 5,575 Member
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    It is possible but it is also very difficult. I knew a few who did get big with BW but not exclusively. They tended to alternate between weights and BW.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
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    i would say possible yes, optimal, no ….
  • default
    default Posts: 124 Member
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    what's wrong with lifting weights and eating??
  • Cortelli
    Cortelli Posts: 1,369 Member
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    MrM27 wrote: »
    Cortelli wrote: »
    Check out strengthunbound.com/

    Waldo has a wealth of information, and the vast majority of his resistance training, if I am not mistaken, is / was body weight workouts.
    Waldo is one of the few people that I personally know (not saying there aren't others) that do that.

    And he's the only person I "know" (exclusively virtually, not personally) that does this - without Waldo's experience I would have been inclined to say "not really possible." No question that weights would be a simpler, more straightforward approach.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,665 Member
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    Another vote for Waldo for advice on this. I have friends at my gym who are gymnasts and train body weight only, but they don't bulk much because they can't get too heavy.

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  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
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    Tagging. Haven't actually seen Waldo's site but will definitely check it out. Need to learn more about BW training anyways.
  • jforjorden
    jforjorden Posts: 4 Member
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    default wrote: »
    what's wrong with lifting weights and eating??

    Thanks guys, I'll check out Waldo's site.

    My plan is to maintain my weight with calisthenics for a month or two so my body can adapt to the training (neural adaptations/beginner/novice gains) Once I can no longer make progress I'll start upping my calories for hypertrophy gains. I'll also try and deadlift/squat and maybe bench press 1-2 times per week.



  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,834 Member
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    Definitely possible as muscles don't really know what they are lifting/moving.

    The difficulty is really tracking progress. Say you can do 10 pullups at 136lbs BW and can do 8 pullups when you are 150lbs, is this better or worse? As opposed to I can deadlift 300lbs at 136 and then 350 at 150 it is relatively easy to work out if power/weight is going up.

    Also, weights can microload for slow progression.

    The other stuff is isometric holds. Holding for time with difficult movements is a good exercise but being able to track progressive overload especially with bw changes is tough.

    And obviously, the heavier you get the harder the calisthenics becomes.

    I'm a powerlifter who loves bar calisthenics btw.
  • luluinca
    luluinca Posts: 2,899 Member
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    If you want to see some amazing calisthenics look at "Pushing the Limits" by Al Kavadlo. I do calisthenics as my warmups to weight lifting and I was amazed at what these guys do. I just wanted to see what kind of progression they suggested although most of it is beyond my skill level. Not sure about bulking, not something I'm terribly interested in at my age, but the guys looked pretty buff to me.

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