Alright! Today's topic is an interesting one. For those of you who don't know what progressive resistance is; it means adding more resistance over time to your exercises as you keep getting stronger. This could by adding more and more reps or by 'progressive overload' which means increasing the weight or ,in Calisthenics, picking a harder variation.
I recently read an article written by Bill Starr
It read, "I saw a great example of progressive resistance at work while I was in the Air Force, stationed in Iceland. A corporal had allowed himself to fall into such a terrible physical state. Upon arriving on the island he'd stopped all forms of exercise and started indulging himself to the maximum. Within 6 months he'd gained 50 pounds, all of it ugly weight.When he became eligible for a furlough back to the States, he altered his lifestyle. It seemed he'd only been married a week before he shipped out to Iceland, and he wanted to look his best when he got back home. So, he stopped drinking alcohol, cut back on his eating and started doing just one exercise, pushups. He chose them as we didn't have a bench in our tiny gym, and he recalled how effective pushups had been for him in basic training. He was in such a sad shape that on the first day he could only manage to do 15. But he had a couple things going for him. He was extremely motivated and he was only 19. Slowly but consistently he added more reps to each set, then started doing multiple sets. Every time I'd see him in the base, the rec room, the mess hall, the barracks, he'd drop down and do a set. He got to where he could do 75 in a set and over the course of the day would do more than 1,500 pushups. Here, he was using progressive resistance. Just by increasing his reps he altered his physique in a remarkable way. I've never seen anyone transform their body so radically so rapidly. After less than a month on his pushups blitz, he had muscular arms, chest and shoulders, his upper back stood out in relief and he looked like he'd been doing some advanced level bodybuilding."
That transformation seems pretty sweet. Although pushups are an amazing exercise and if done right, they could get you some amazing results and a full body workout, I still think you should do some pulling movement and leg exercises.
So there you have a basic understanding of what progressive resistance is. Basically you can add more weight or more reps. Most professionals would recommend adding more weight, but I personally use more reps (most calisthenics athletes also opt for more reps). My most typical workout is a 5k run and 200 pushups (8x25). I started running cuz my chest and shoulders had gotten too big for me, as earlier I would do just the pushups. So to help me stay a little slimmer I started running.
Lemme give you a calisthenics sample of progressive resistance based on reps.
L 1
100 Pushups
100 Pullups
100 Dips
100 Squats
L 2
200 Pushups
200 Pullups
200 Dips
200 Squats
L 3
100 Wrist/ Knuckle Pushups
100 Clapping Pullups
100 Dips
100 Archer Squats
L 4
100 Finger Pushups
100 Archer Pullups
100 Knee Raises to Dips
100 Pistol Sqauts
Here, we are not only slowly increasing reps, but also occasionally decreasing and doing harder variations. This is one of the best usages of progressive resistance.
Many athletes have been known for using high rep calisthenics like gymnasts, boxers, etc. Most notable ones are Mike Tyson, Herschel Walker and more. These guys use high rep calisthenics and are still pretty big. Which removed the theory that high rep calisthenics does not build muscle. You can definitely get muscular with calisthenics, even high rep calisthenics.
So go out there and get your workout in! Thank you so much.
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