MADE BY CALISTREETICS

BEGINNER GUIDE FOR CALISTHENICS @calistreetics

& NUTRITION calistreetics@gmail.com
 DISCLAIMER

• The usage of the content provided in this guide should be taken at your
own risk. In no case shall the author of this guide be liable for any
damages done to your body by following the instructions and advice.
• User understands that any and all advice and suggested programs
pertaining to exercise and fitness should be performed after consulting
with the appropriate medical professionals, under the guidance of a
qualified trainer.
• User understands nutritional advice is not intended as a substitute for
professional medical advice, diagnosis, and/or treatment, and has been
advised to seek medical advice from a physician before altering a diet or
beginning an exercise program.
 CONTENT

• WELCOME
• HOW TO START WITH CALISTHENICS
• EXERCISE SELECTION AND FORM (12 pages)
• WARMING UP
• WORKOUT ROUTINE
• HOW MANY DAYS IN A WEEK SHOULD YOU TRAIN?
• HOW TO PROGRESS? (2 pages)
• NUTRITION (4 pages)
• CHEAT MEALS
• OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS
• WHAT TO DO AFTER?
 WELCOME

• Hello and welcome to the beginner Calisthenics & nutrition guide. This
guide will be all you need to start calisthenics, improve your nutrition and take
a crucial step towards a healthy and more positive life.
• In terms of strength, after mastering the workout included here, you will have
set a basic calisthenics foundation including the main compound exercises.
• After you become confident with the basic foundation, it will be up to you to
decide what your next goal would be. Whether you want to pursue strength,
size, learn skills, do dynamics... or you want to combine some of them.
 HOW TO START WITH CALISTHENICS

• To start with bodyweight training you are going to need a pull up bar and parallel bars (for dips and
austrailian rows). If you don't have parallel bars you can use two chairs (to do dips) and do
austrailian rows under a table, but if you are not able to do dips from the start, you won't even
need parallel bars to start with.
• The exercises that are included in your program, are the following:
• Pull ups/Chin ups
• Push ups
• Squats
• Dips
• Austrailian rows
 PUSHING EXERCISES

• The pushing exercises, mainly hit the

following muscles: chest, triceps,
shoulders and core.
• There are two main pushing exercises:
push ups and dips.

PUSH UPS DIPS

 HOW TO DO PUSH UPS

• Place your hands on the ground and straighten your arms. Your
legs should also be straight and your hands should be at chest
level. Keep your core engaged.
• Inhale as you slowly lower down and slightly forward, bringing
your torso, chest, and thighs towards the ground. Touch the
ground with your chest and pause for a second in the bottom
position.
• Exhale as you push towards your starting position.
 HOW TO DO DIPS

• Grab the parallel bars and jump up, straighten your arms.
• Lower your body by bending your arms while leaning a
bit forward.
• Dip down until your arms create a 90 degree angle (you can go a
bit lower if you don't feel pain in your shoulders).
• Lift your body up by straightening and pushing with your arms.
• Lock your elbows at the top.
 PULLING EXERCISES

• The pulling exercises, mainly hit the

following muscles: trapezius, latissimus
dorsi, rear delts, teres
muscles, the rhomboids and core.
• There are two main pulling
exercises: pull ups/chin ups and
austrailian rows.
• The main difference between pull ups
and chin ups is that chin ups work the
biceps more, that is why they are easier.
Back is worked comparably in both.

AUSTRAILIAN ROW PULL UP/CHIN UP

 HOW TO DO PULL UPS

• Grab the pullup bar with your palms (shoulder-width grip).

• Hang on the pullup-bar with straight arms and your legs off
the floor.
• From a full, passive hang (shrugged shoulders), draw your
scapula down and together, thus raising your body slightly but
without bending your arms as in a regular pull-up. The point
is to create as much space between your ears and shoulders.
• Combine that move with pulling yourself up by pulling your
elbows down towards the floor and imagine putting them in
your back pockets.
• Go all the way up until your chin passes the be bar.
• Lower yourself until your arms are straight and you come in a
passive hang.
 HOW TO DO AUSTRAILIAN ROWS

• Position yourself under the bar lying face up.

• Grab the bar with an overhand or underhand grip, slightly wider
than shoulder-width.
• Contract your abs and glutes and keep your body in a completely
straight line. Your ears, shoulders, hips and legs should all form a
straight line.
• Depress and retract your scapula and pull yourself up to the bar
until your chest touches the bar.
• Lower yourself back down slowly with proper form.
 LEG EXERCISES

• The main leg exercise that you need is the

squat.
• This exercise targets the following muscle
groups: quadriceps, glutes and hamstrings.
• It is very beneficial to train your legs
because they have the biggest muscles on
your body. They help boosting
your testosterone which helps in the
process of building muscle mass and losing
fat.

SQUAT
 HOW TO DO SQUATS

• Set your feet shoulder-width apart, toes slightly turned out. Pull in your
lower abs, and keep your eyes forward.
• Slowly bend at the knees and drop your hips to lower your body. Keep
your heels flat on the floor.
• At the bottom of the exercise pause for a moment and strongly push
back up to the starting position, mirroring the descent.
• Squeeze your quads and glutes at the top.
• To counter balance your weight hold your arms out in front of you at
shoulder height.
• Keep your back as straight as possible throughout the lift to avoid strain
or injury.
 CORE EXERCISES

• These exercises target the abdominal

mucles.
• The main core exercise for beginners is
the plank. You can also switch that
exercise every other week for an exercise
called the hollow body hold.
• Make sure that you abs are tight and you
make a posterior pelvic tilt.

HOLLOW BODY HOLD PLANK

 EXERCISE FORM

• All of the exercises in the workout plan,

MUST be done with proper form. That means
that you shouldn't care how many reps you
can do on a given exercise and just focus on
executing the reps with a quality form.
• So, when you get fatigued in the end of your
set, STOP before your form breaks down in
order to avoid injury, overtraining and
wasting your effort.
PROGRESSIONS AND REGRESSIONS

• If the exercises we have specified in the workout

plan are not suitable to be completed in the target INCLINE PUSH UP
rep range (either they are too easy or too hard), you
can scale the difficulty to match your current level
of strength.
• For example: if normal push ups are too hard, you
should do them on an incline to lower the
difficulty (as shown in the 1st picture).
• If push ups are too easy for you (done with proper
form), you should choose a harder progression, for
examle:
decline push ups (as shown in the 2nd picture). DECLINE PUSH UP
 OTHER EXAMPLES FOR EXERCISE
SELECTION 1.

1. Negative pull ups instead of normal pull ups. Jump

with your chin over the bar and lower down slowly,
taking 5-8 seconds for each repetition. Complete 3-4
sets of this exercise.
2. Bench dips instead of normal dips. 2.
3. Inverted rows using a more vertical position. The
higher the bar, the easier the rows will be.

❖ If the exercises become too easy, you can make

them harder by adding weight to yourself, choosing a
harder progression or doing them more explosive on 3.
the concentric part.
 WARMING UP

• A mistake that I see a lot of people doing is

skipping the warm up.
• In order for your muscles to work properly and
avoid injury, you MUST warm up.
• Do some low intensity cardio like: jump rope,
shadow boxing, cycling or running and also warm up
your joints.
• DON'T do passive stretching (longer than 5 seconds),
because it can harm your performance during the
workout.
 WORKOUT ROUTINE

EXERCISE SETS REPETITIONS REST

PULL UPS/CHIN UPS 3 3-15 1-3 MIN.
DIPS 3 8-15 1-2 MIN.
INVERTED ROWS 3 8-15 1-2 MIN.
PUSH UPS 3 8-15 1-2 MIN.
SQUATS 3 8-15 1-2 MIN.
PLANK/HOLLOW B. HOLD 3 15-30s 1 MIN.

The lower the repetitions, the longer you should rest in order to do the next set efficiently and the
higher the repetitions, the less rest is required.
To save time, you can do the exercises in superset fashion, for example: one set of pull ups + one set of
dips and rest for 2-3 min, repeat for 3 supersets.
 HOW MANY DAYS IN A WEEK SHOULD YOU
TRAIN?
• What is the best training split? I see this question asked a lot. A simple answer
is, that there is no perfect training split for everyone.
• One factor to consider here is recovery. Not everyone recovers the same from
the workouts. Some people need more and some need less time for recovery.
• Another factor is your daily lifestyle. Work, family, friends and a lot of other
stuff can get in the way and that is why you have to plan your training split
according to your lifestyle.
• Most commonly used training splits (but not limited to) are: Upper-Lower (2x),
Full Body(3x), Push-Pull-Legs (2x). The most important thing is to make sure
that you hit every muscle 2-3 times a week.
• The most optimal training split for beginners is Full Body 3x a week. So that
is what I suggest you to start with.
 HOW TO PROGRESS?

• In order to achieve results with your training, you have to be honest with
yourself and forget your ego.
• First step is to make sure that your form is completely on point. You
can only be sure if you record yourself while performing the exercise.
• After you achieve the right form on the exercises, you should attempt to
do more reps in order to make the workouts more challenging. You
should do that on almost every training.
• That method of progression is called "progressive overload" and it simply
means that you are making things a bit harder. With that, your body will
adapt to the changes quickly and your muscles will grow bigger and
stronger.
 HOW TO PROGRESS?

• The repetitions you do should be in the range that is specified for the
exercise (for example: 8-15 reps).
• When you hit the maximum amout of repetitions recommended, change
the exercise for a harder one, but keep the movement the same (for
example: incline push ups to horizontal push ups). The reps will
decrease, but keep up the quality and work on increasing them again.
• Another way to make an exercise harder is to lower the rest periods.
• As a beginner, the ability to make gains is the highest compared to
the later stages in training. So take advantage of that and apply
the tips I just mentioned.
 NUTRITION

• You can keep a car's engine clean and smooth to run, but if you don't fuel the car, it won't
get you anywhere. The same applies to your training and nutrition.
• In order to perform at your best, you have to eat right. Choose healthy and nutritious foods
instead of junk food. You can still eat whatever you want, but, if you choose to
eat unhealthy food, your health will suffer. It's not just your performance that matters.
• Also, keep the protein in your diet high(about 1.6-2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight).
Your muscles need protein in order to repair themselves (grow).
• The most important thing to know is that: every food contains a certain amount of calories.
Healthy food contains much less calories than unhealthy food. That's why you can easily get
fat from unhealthy food. It's also very addictive and has low nutritional value. On the other
hand, healthy food will fill you up, and if you eat larger portions it won't get you fat as
easily.
 NUTURITION

• You might often hear the fitness enthusiasts say that they track
their daily calories. However, for someone who is just starting out,
I don't suggest you to count calories as it might overcomplicate
things. Just know that in the future you can start using apps such
as MyFitnessPal to track your calories for optimal results.
• As a beginner, you don't need to make drastic changes to your diet
and lifestyle. Make smaller steps and improve week by week in
order for your progress to be sustainable.
 WHAT ABOUT CHEAT MEALS?

• Don't think that you should forget about cheat meals and never
enjoy a night out with somebody. But also, don't feel bad after
eating a cheat meal even if it gets out of control. Just get back
on track as soon as possible.
• My recommendation is to look at cheat meals as reward meals.
So, from time to time, reward yourself for putting in all the
hard work and dedication in order to improve yourself.
 OTHER IMPORTANT FACTORS

➢ SLEEP
• Sleep is the most important factor for repairing your muscles. It's the most important recovery "tool". You
don't build muscle while training, what you are doing during the training is damaging your muscles. So, when
a muscle is damaged, it needs to get repaired and with that the muscle grows. For that purpose you
need enough food and sleep. Aim to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night.
➢ STRESS
• Stress is another important factor which is not taken into consideration by most people. Stress releases the
hormone called cortisol which makes building muscle a harder task for your body, also, it can cause you to
gain fat. Minimize or eliminate the stress in your life for optimal results with building muscle.
➢ WATER
• Our body is mostly made out of water. Your goal should be to drink around 2-3 liters of water a day. In the
morning when you wake up, I suggest you to drink half a liter of water and spread the rest throughout the
day.
 WHAT TO DO AFTER MASTERING THIS
PROGRAM?

After you become confident with the workout routine and start to improve
towards more advanced variations, you can add some isolation exercises for
the smaller muscle groups. Add those exercises at the end of your workout,
for example: triceps extensions, calf raises, bicep curls... depending on
your goals and physique.
The next step is to decide what your goals are and structure your
training specific to them. If you need help with that, you can contact me
anytime.
 • Feel free to send an email to
calistreetics@gmail.com or DM me on Instagram to
ask any question that you may have.

GOT ANY • Also, don't forget to follow me on Instagram for

some extra tips and inspiration.

QUESTIONS?
• I WISH YOU SUCCESS!