Best Calisthenics Arm Workout For Maximum Gains

Did a calisthenics arm workout can add kilos of lean muscle mass to your arms? It will probably in the event you train right!

Calisthenics is an awesome form of coaching that helps people placed on muscle mass, increase strength, and improve overall athleticism. Nonetheless, exercise selection is proscribed in comparison with going to the gym, and the choice of isolation exercises to coach the arms is even lower. This causes many to consider you are out of luck when constructing your arms using calisthenics. We understand why someone might imagine this, but lucky for you, it is not true.

This text will lay out an entire calisthenics arm workout that can have you rethinking your arm training. No equipment is needed for this calisthenic arm workout!

What Is Calisthenics?

Calisthenics is a type of resistance training that uses the body because the loading mechanism. It consists of body weight exercises resembling push-ups, dips, and chin-ups.

It’s known for using more advanced movements resembling muscle-ups and planches. Nonetheless, before you get there, you must construct a robust base with the fundamentals, which incorporates constructing some powerful arms.

Training Arms With Calisthenics

Resulting from its nature, calisthenics will not be often called the very best method for “training arms.” It primarily uses compound exercises to lift and push the body as a method of resistance.

Calisthenics training confines you simply to make use of these body weight movements, which ultimately means your selections of isolation exercises are limited. Routinely, this will make having a calisthenic “arm day” tough.

Well, perhaps not tricky, but it is going to look drastically different from training arms within the gym. To have workout, you’ll have to know what exercises and hacks to assist isolate the arm muscles, specifically the biceps and triceps.

Best Calisthenics Arm Exercises

Many individuals falsely assume that calisthenics doesn’t include “arm” exercises. There most definitely are, and in reality, a few of the very best arm exercises are calisthenics. To simplify things, we’ll break these exercises into biceps and triceps exercises.

4 Best Biceps Calisthenics Exercises

For those who thought you could not construct your biceps with calisthenics, you are about to search out that you just couldn’t be farther from the reality. Actually, perhaps the most effective biceps exercises is a calisthenic exercise.

We’d like to keep in mind that the biceps job is to flex the elbow. Subsequently, you are training the biceps each time you do that, whether in isolation or a compound movement like a row.

1. Chin-Ups

Chin-ups are our primary exercise on our list because they’re the very best calisthenic exercise for constructing massive biceps. Actually, they could be the best biceps exercise period: calisthenic, free-weight, or machine.

Chin-ups are performed with a supinated grip, meaning your palms face towards you. Further, the elbows are placed in front of you, which alters biomechanics and allows a big selection of motion within the elbows.

To perform a chin-up, you have to bring your body all the best way as much as the bar in order that your head passes above the bar. This requires full elbow flexion, which ultimately lifts your entire body!

Be sure you perform chin-ups with proper form. Keep your shoulder blades pulled back, lean barely, and consider driving your elbows right down to the bottom.

If you desire to increase the biceps’ activation, use a rather narrower grip. You too can add a load, resembling wearing a weighted vest or holding a kettlebell together with your feet.

2. TRX Curls Or Towel Curls

TRX curls are one among the few true calisthenic arm isolation exercises, making them a must in any workout for constructing larger arms.

You will need a TRX or suspension trainer set-up right off the bat. For those who haven’t got one, you would use a towel; just be certain it’s long enough.

Arrange your TRX on a stable support or wrap a towel across the support to carry each ends. The precise height doesn’t make a large difference; just be certain it’s no less than at head level.

Once arrange, you will grab the handles with an underhand grip and stand back. Lean back so the TRX becomes taught and your arms hold your body weight. You may adjust the angle of your body by moving your feet forward, which can lower your body and increase the load you lift. Then again, you may stand back so your torso stays more upright, decreasing the load you lift.

Either way, tighten your core and prepare to curve your body up. Keeping your elbows stationary, perform a curl and lift your body up until your chest is delivered to your hands. Slowly lower yourself down and repeat.

Keep your hips prolonged and your core tight throughout the movement so your body can simply pivot in your feet.

3. Reverse Grip Pushup

A reverse grip pushup is a singular calisthenics exercise for training the biceps. It involves performing a pushup but placing your hands backward so your forearms face forward.

Now, we wish to say this exercise is more about increasing the strength of the biceps and elbow joints fairly than muscle hypertrophy. Regardless, a stronger bicep has the potential to be a much bigger bicep.

4. Isometric Curl

An isometric curl is just curling up against an immovable object so that you just contract the muscle isometrically, meaning the muscle length doesn’t move.

Resulting from the character of the movement, isometric training will be helpful when training with limited equipment, resembling calisthenics.

There are several ways you may perform these:

• Standing on a towel and holding the ends to curve.
• Holding a railing and curling.
• Curling up on an immovable object resembling a countertop.

You are probably wondering at what a part of the rep it is best to perform the curl. Should your elbow be at a 90-degree angle? Lower? Higher?

The reality is you would perform an isometric curl at any angle. With that said, there’s now a theory that it is best to perform it with the muscle in a lengthened state, together with your arm more prolonged, as research shows contractions within the lengthened state end in more muscle growth.¹

Nonetheless, we would recommend you alter and train the arm at different positions.

4 Best Triceps Calisthenics Exercises

An amazing calisthenic arm workout is not complete until you hit the triceps, too! As you will see, there are some intense triceps calisthenic exercises, just as there have been with the biceps.

Identical to the calisthenic exercises for the biceps, we’ll start with the largest triceps exercise after which work down into some smaller isolation work. Again, that is the order during which you will train them with calisthenic arm workouts.

1. Triceps Dips

The triceps dip is the reply to the chin-ups for the biceps. It’s one other big compound movement that puts tremendous stress on the arms, specifically the triceps.

Dips are often called the squats of the upper body. They seem to be a improbable calisthenic exercise that improves upper body strength and adds kilos of mass. It is best to do them no matter what equipment you will have access to.

You will need to make use of the correct variation to hit the triceps.

Once you perform the triceps, keep your body vertical and head up. Leaning forward will shift a number of the load to your chest, which is not bad, nevertheless it’s not what we’re searching for here. Let your body down while keeping your forearms vertical.

2. Close-Grip Pushups

Close-grip pushups are one other compound calisthenic exercise that targets the triceps. They’re an incredible exercise and will certainly add size.

Let’s first consider that pushups have almost an identical muscle activation, when it comes to sequencing and intensity, because the bench press.² The one caveat is that you just use similar loads. For instance, loading a pushup to a maximum of 10 reps is comparable to a 10-rep max bench press.

That said, it’s no surprise that training your triceps is such a brutal exercise! Nonetheless, you will perform close-grip pushups because we wish to focus on the triceps.

You’ll place your hands barely narrower than shoulder width to perform close-grip pushups.

Then, while you perform the pushup, keep your elbows tucked into your body. To be clear, this doesn’t mean at a 45-degree angle; this implies tucking them so your elbow grazes your torso at the underside position.

Performing a close-grip pushup in this fashion will do three things.

1. Mitigate activation of the pecs.
2. Maximize the range of motion of the elbows.
3. Make the triceps the first mover.

3. Triceps Pushups

The triceps pushup is a variation of the pushup that isolates the triceps.

To perform these, lie in your belly on the bottom. Place your forearms on the bottom in a pronated position together with your palms on the ground. Your hands needs to be at about shoulder level, and your elbows needs to be tucked straight back so that they are up against your torso.

At this point, your forearms needs to be flat on the bottom. Let your body come down so your shoulders come down towards your hands; that is the starting position.

From here, you’ll keep your forearms and elbow on the bottom whilst you press your body until your elbow is at a 90-degree angle. You’ll then proceed coming up and pressing all the best way up so that you come up in your hands and fully extend your arms.

4. Body weight Triceps Extensions

Overhead triceps extensions are the most effective exercises for triceps, but you wish a cable machine or dumbbells. The following neatest thing is body weight triceps extensions.

You will need a bench or a sturdy ledge against which you may press your body weight to perform these.

Stand back out of your support and place your hands on it. Use a narrow grip so your hands are nearly touching. For those who were a triceps rope extension, they needs to be that close. On this position, it is best to lean forward in order that your arms support your body.

Brace your core, after which let your body move towards your hands. It is vital to maintain your elbows close as they extend back. Control the descent with a slow rep and produce your head to your hands.

Your head needs to be in your hands together with your elbows tucked underneath. You’ll then extend your elbows and push your body up.

Best Calisthenics Arm Workout

And now we’ll lay out your workout. You most likely noticed that there are various more calisthenic arm exercises than you thought—too many to do in a single session.

That is why we’ll lay out two days of arm training.

Calisthenics Arm Workout 1

Calisthenics Arm Workout 2

You may notice you will do the chin-ups, triceps dip, and chin-ups on each days. Nonetheless, you will switch rep schemes, and a few people might want to perform these weighted, especially for doing 4 reps.

The close-grip pushups have a large rep range; for these, work within the range, so if you must, perform them weighted. For those who are training solo and may’t have a partner, place a weight in your back, wrap a band around your back, after which hold it in your hands to extend the load.

Finally, your other exercises have RPE8. This simply means to perform as many as you may until you hit a rate of perceived exertion level of 8, which is largely 80% maximal effort. Read our post What’s RPE Training? to search out out more about this fitness concept. 

Running The Calisthenics Arm Workout

Depending in your program, you may run this workout independently or integrate it into an existing program. You could possibly also simply use the exercises—either way, they are going to help construct muscle mass.

Besides, you’ll have to follow the identical principles of progressive overload with calisthenic exercise, just like every other program. Subsequently, over time, your goal is to have the opportunity to extend the intensity of the exercises. There are several ways to do that with calisthenic exercises:

• Add a load in the event you can (weight vest, hold kettlebells, etc.)
• Increase reps
• Increase time under tension

An alternative choice is to pre-fatigue your muscles. For instance, perform one among the smaller exercises before your major movement.

For instance, perform isometric curls before you perform weighted negative chin-ups.

4 Suggestions On Training Your Arms With Calisthenics

Now that you will have the exercises, we gives you a couple of tips about the best way to take advantage of them and blow up your arms.

1. Mind-Muscle Connection

The mind-muscle connection is greater than just bro-science. Research has shown that concentrating on a muscle as you train can increase its activation.³ Over time, this might theoretically result in more muscle growth.

Bodybuilders have used this hack for a very long time, but it could play an important role in calisthenics. Resulting from the character of the arm exercises, it could be hard to isolate the muscles fully, even when performing exercises which might be more arm-focused.

Concentrating on the biceps or triceps may also help fully optimize the activation during calisthenic exercise.

2. Slow Reps, Especially Eccentric

Calisthenic arm exercises will be difficult, meaning you could only have the opportunity to do a couple of reps.

Reap the benefits of these exercises’ eccentric contraction (taking place phase). Research has shown that eccentric contraction plays essentially the most significant role in muscle growth and strength gains compared to a full rep.⁴ You may make good use of this.

For instance, let’s pretend you may only do 2 full chin-ups.  As a substitute of doing your entire rep, jump up to help you in pulling your body to the highest of the bar. At the highest, hold yourself for a second after which slowly lower your body, taking no less than 3 seconds at a minimum.

Ideally, you may hit 5 or more seconds!

When you’re back down on the bottom, rest (10 seconds) and jump back as much as repeat the method.

3. Overload Reps

An alternative choice is to overload a calisthenic arm exercise and only perform the eccentric exercise. This takes advantage of the eccentric contraction mentioned above but purposely increases the load.

For instance, you would perform a chin-up, hang kettlebells out of your feet, or use a weighted vest. You’d then jump to the highest of the movement and slowly lower yourself.

4. Use Controlled Reps

Calisthenic movements require great body control to perform appropriately. For instance, when performing pushups, your hips can sink, or your elbows may flare out. Or, when performing chin-ups, your body may swing.

All of this extra movement will change the biomechanics of the movement and alter the muscle activation. Subsequently, you have to control these movements under control to optimize muscle growth.

Final Say On Training Arms With Calisthenics

Training arms with calisthenics will look different than training on the gym, but you may still construct some massive guns. The calisthenic arm workouts specified by this text will enable you get there, so it’s just as much as you to place within the effort and time. Calisthenics will be more difficult in some unspecified time in the future, nevertheless it makes the progress that way more satisfying.

References

1. Maeo, Sumiaki, et al. “Greater Hamstrings Muscle Hypertrophy but Similar Damage Protection after Training at Long versus Short Muscle Lengths.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, vol. 53, no. 4, 2 Oct. 2020, pp. 825–837, https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0000000000002523.
2. Tillaar, Roland van den. “Comparison of Kinematics and Muscle Activation between Push-up and Bench Press.” Sports Medicine International Open, vol. 03, no. 03, 5 Sept. 2019, pp. E74–E81, https://doi.org/10.1055/a-1001-2526.
3. Calatayud, Joaquin, et al. “Importance of Mind-Muscle Connection during Progressive Resistance Training.” European Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 116, no. 3, 23 Dec. 2015, pp. 527–533, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3305-7.
4. Schoenfeld, Brad J., et al. “Hypertrophic Effects of Concentric vs. Eccentric Muscle Actions.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, vol. 31, no. 9, Sept. 2017, pp. 2599–2608, https://doi.org/10.1519/jsc.0000000000001983.