Your body builds muscle when you put stress on the muscle fibers. The stress results in micro-tears, and during recovery, your body rebuilds those muscles to withstand similar stress in the future. Hence, progressive overload is required to grow the muscles. How you choose to apply that resistance and progressive overload is on you. Yet, calisthenics has always been one of the most accessible forms of resistance training.

In simple words, calisthenics is another term for bodyweight training. People who use their body weight to build their bodies are calisthenics practitioners. Since all you need is your body weight, calisthenics can be done anywhere, any time, and beginners often start with bodyweight training. Unfortunately, the popular belief among hardcore bodybuilders is that training with your body weight becomes ineffective after a point. However, that’s far from the truth.

An outdated myth

One of the biggest misconceptions about bodyweight training is that you can’t really build muscle with calisthenics. Many gymgoers believe you should switch to weight training once you become an intermediate to advanced lifter. In fact, many bodybuilders think bodyweight movements are only good as warmups before the actual training begins. However, this is a myth.

Calisthenics effectively builds muscle, especially for beginners. Just like weight training, calisthenics movements like pull-ups and push-ups are incredibly effective at building strength and muscle. While the muscle-building ceiling for bodyweight training is far lower than weight training, to say it doesn’t build muscle is wrong.

Even scientific studies have found bodyweight training to be an effective tool for muscle building. Research published in the Physiology and Behavior journal found that calisthenics effectively built muscle “independent of an external load.” Multiple other studies suggest the same. People also underestimate just how much various bodyweight exercises can be modified to isolate muscle groups and provide greater resistance.

Hence, it’s safe to say that bodyweight training definitely builds muscle. Even bodybuilding legends don’t shun bodyweight movements in their entirety. Multiple-time Mr. Olympia winners have touted the benefits of certain calisthenics exercises.

Even the best of the best ignore calisthenics

Seven-time Mr. Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger is an original record-setter. Only Ronnie Coleman and Lee Haney have surpassed his Olympia winning record. However, even one of the biggest bodybuilders of his era religiously praised bodyweight exercises like pull-ups and dips. Arnie still credits these exercises as essential for helping him build a wide back and chest.

However, we don’t have to go back to the golden era to find a Mr. Olympia recommending pull-ups to everyone. Four-time champion Jay Cutler said pull-ups were among his top five back exercises. Despite being a mass monster, Culter did bodyweight pull-ups. He said that nothing builds the back quite like a pull-up. Even more recently, 24-time Olympia-winning bodybuilding coach Haney Rambod spoke about dips.

While training the 2022 Mr. Olympia Hadi Choopan, Hany Rambod asked the former champion to demonstrate the right way to do dips. While Choopan performed the dips on an exercise machine, the same tips can very easily be applied to bodyweight dips. However, there’s weighted calisthenics for those still on the fence about bodyweight training.

A case for weighted calisthenics

While you could argue that adding weight to bodyweight movements turns it into weight training, it’s called weight calisthenics for a reason. The only limitation for bodyweight movements is the fact that you can’t add or reduce your body weight at will. Hence, after a point progress will slow down and stagnate no matter how many reps or sets you increase.

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However, to get around this advanced calisthenics athletes add weights. Weighted push-ups, pull-ups, dips, inverted rows, leg raises, and many more variations can have the same hypertrophic effect as traditional weight training. Performing the same movement with some weight strapped on your body provides the much-needed progressive overload effect required for muscle building.

Hence, even advanced bodybuilders can benefit from bodyweight exercise and weighted calisthenics. For a bodybuilder weighing more than 250 lbs, doing a pull-up might pose a much harder challenge than doing lat pulldowns. Even if it becomes easier, strapping on some weights can make the movement challenging again.

Hence, it’s safe to say that while bodyweight training has its limitations, these limitations are not so easily reached. Not only does calisthenics build muscle in beginners, but advanced variations and weighted calisthenics can help even elite bodybuilders reliably build muscle.

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