Hey guys. It's my first time here. I see that this thread has been inactive for quite a while. I want to see what the local people are saying about calisthenics vs what others out there around the globe are saying about calisthenics. It seems the debate is still on whether it is good for muscle mass or not. I'm with the latter, I say for building muscle calisthenics is great!

I myself am trying to gain weight. With calisthenics only exercises and lots of eating (healthily) in 6 months I gain 10kg in lean muscle mass. I was a scrawny, skinny, wimpy looking man at 47kg before. At 57kg I am still a long way away from my target of 70kg. I hope to get up to 60+ by December. I have the muscled look, but you can still call me skinny. I guess 10kg in muscle doesn't really make you look bigger as opposed to 10kg of mostly fat. I like the proportions of my body now and hope to continue growing it that way.

I consider myself a beginner still. So far my workouts are hanging leg raises, various forms of raised push-ups, various dips, various pull-ups, chin-ups, squats, jumps, sprints, and hanging upside down crunches. I'm on my way into handstand push-up, one arm push-up, one arm chin-up, pistol squat (or one-legged squat), and the fancy-schmancy planche. Need more mid-body strength and balance for that last one. I can kinda do that thing where you go side-to-side on top of a pull-up. Dunno what that's called though. Also I like to challenge myself every week by doing 100 diamond push-ups in under 5 minutes.

A few tips that have helped me a lot:
-After you've mastered the proper form and posture, do fast and explosive positives, and slow negatives. Helps to improve the fast twitch muscles, and gain muscle definition.

-Never go too much into failure. I have seen my pull-ups being from 15 (which surprised me the first time, didn't know I had it in me to do past 10) down to about 12 reps because of that mistake. After weeks of limiting myself to 10 reps, I got back my form and went forward from there. I experiment by adding 1 or 2 more rep to my usual number of reps after every week. If I can't do a proper one, it doesn't count.

-Good form is the key. Saves you from injury and you gain the maximum benefit.

-To gain weight, never workout more than one hour a day.

This post has been edited by tunertoobe: Sep 7 2012, 05:40 PM

Hmm. I am assuming you are doing dips with something like parallel bars (or 2 chairs, or whatever you can use to simulate parallel bars).

Keep your elbows in tight, close to your body, just like you would on those tricep push-ups. Have your shoulders back. Try not to shrug your shoulders.

What you're doing is probably working your chest a bit more.

I'm thinking of installing one for the house. Then again, I think it's better for me to master every form first before taking on the ring. The extra imbalance might screw up my form because I don't have enough strength to keep myself from wobbling.

My parents wouldn't be happy about having those in the backyard either.

My local park doesn't have any fitness things there, only playgrounds for kids. Now that I think about it they should. There are only playgrounds for kids. Also they're full of young kids and teens, I'm not comfortable with that kind of audience. They only have monkey bars and they're a bit too low as well. Those fitness parks are too far away to even consider jogging.

Though there is a rock climbing wall at the local Belia dan Sukan complex not far from my place. One day I'm gonna show off my strength by pulling myself up using one arm. I hope my development is fast enough that the wall will still be there when I'm ready to have a go. I don't see anyone using it eventhough I pass by it every week.

Oh hey, do you mind telling me when you started this workout? You lost 4kg right?

I wish I can gain 1kg a week easily. In order for me to do that I eat 3 HUGE meals a day plus snacks in between. I can almost throw up after each meal. Losing weight is so much more fun since you still have the feeling of real hunger. The first time in months since I felt real hunger was on the first day of the fasting month. I still workout in the fasting month, an hour before breaking fast.

I'll try, but that would mean I have to prepare a meal 4-6 times a day. I don't have that much time to spend preparing and eating, so 3 big ones and snacks in between means I can eat the snacks and work at the same time. I'll try this on the weekends. I probably have the discipline now to force myself to eat.

Why the hell didn't I think of that?!
Thanks.