# How to gain muscle mass with Calisthenics



## LibertyPrime (Dec 17, 2010)

So you are fit, can do 50 pushups, squats, burpees, crunches, leg levers and so on, you have full body strength, endurance and speed, but you aren't gaining mass and you WANT mass. What should you do? How can you build muscle? Its not that hard and you don't need to pump iron either.

*The goal:* to overload the muscles and cause micro-tearing which results in hypertrophy 

*How to do it: *

*1. Low repetitions are key* - we need to overload the muscle, not tire it out. Most calisthenics exercises focus on endurance and speed, so the standard way of doing it won't yield results.

They way we can make low reps work is by *ANGULAR TRAINING* and *WEIGHT* *REDISTRIBUTION *. Simply load more weight on the muscle through either method. For pushups this would mean doing one arm pushups and loading your weight on one hand at a time or you can put your feet up on a chair or bed or something, which increases your angle and loads more weight on the right muscles. For squats, just do pistols etc..










*2. Do multiples sets* - since we require tearing to achieve hypertrophy, we need to do multiple sets of the same exercise, aprox. 6-8 sets to be exact. This will ensure hypertrophy.

*3.* *Split workout plans* - this means we HAVE TO do ONLY ONE or max TWO muscle groups per day. Why? Because muscles do not grow when they are constantly in heavy use. They need multiple day rest for hypertrophy to occur.

Splitting would look like this:

Monday: Chest/Back
Tuesday: Shoulders/Arms
Wednesday: Legs
Thursday: Chest/Back
Friday: Shoulders/Arms
Saturday: Legs

*4. Isolate your muscles* - this is what weight lifters do, if you want muscle mass, you need to focus on specific groups at a time for 35-45 minutes a day.

*5. Overload progressively* - this means you gradually do either more reps or more sets of the exercises once you manage to do them at full inclination and weight shift.


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## yet another intj (Feb 10, 2013)

Would you also like to mention consuming crazy amounts of protein? It sounds like catabolism porn without nutrition details.


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## LibertyPrime (Dec 17, 2010)

yet another intj said:


> Would you also like to mention consuming crazy amounts of protein? It sounds like catabolism porn without nutrition details.


<.< no idea I'm not a nutritionist. I eat heavy on vegetables and meat+fats, plants which contain plenty of protein and supplement with varied fruits & greens. My carbohidrate intake is just enough for my brain to function properly (feelings based)

<.< but yeah I eat a LOT....


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

I would say try adding more protein to the mix and see what happens.


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## pretense (Jan 2, 2013)

This is how you split it.

Chest and Tris
Back and Bis
Legs
Abs whenever you want.

At least, it's the most logical way to split it.

Push ups and dumbell/barbell presses work the chest and tris.
any type of pull up works the bis and the back
legs need there own day


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## LibertyPrime (Dec 17, 2010)

PowerShell said:


> I would say try adding more protein to the mix and see what happens.


?_? more protein, like powder?


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## PowerShell (Feb 3, 2013)

FreeBeer said:


> ?_? more protein, like powder?


Sure or eat more sources of protein like meat, dairy, etc.


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## Purrfessor (Jul 30, 2013)

It's probably a good idea to also work out in a different way that combines your muscles in your body totally. Example, 8 weeks of the training you described, followed by 4 weeks of yoga, endurance, full body interactive exercises like burpees. And of course change the ratio dependent on how much mass you need to work on and how much real fitness you need to work on. That way you can be healthy AND big.


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## LibertyPrime (Dec 17, 2010)

Stelliferous said:


> It's probably a good idea to also work out in a different way that combines your muscles in your body totally. Example, 8 weeks of the training you described, followed by 4 weeks of yoga, endurance, full body interactive exercises like burpees. And of course change the ratio dependent on how much mass you need to work on and how much real fitness you need to work on. That way you can be healthy AND big.


Yeah, actually I'm doing calisthenics workouts 3-4 times a week. Some of it looks like this *Hyperion*:









...while on other days I do things like *Hades*:









I'm in my 6th week atm. Personally I'm more interested in full body strength, but I did research how to gain mass, which is why I shared it here.


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## Derange At 170 (Nov 26, 2013)

Diet, as far as hypertrophy goes, should be a matter of being in a slight caloric surpluss, getting at least your base amount of fat in your diet to support body function, and at least the base amount of protein for hypertophy(somewhere around 0.6-0.8 grams of protein per lbs bodyweight) and filling the rest of your caloric needs up as your please/prefer (so protein/carbs/fat -- doesn't matter what). So higher fat or protein for satiety or taste, or going nuts on carbs are all irrelevant for the most part as far body composition goes.



FreeBeer said:


> 3. Split workout plans - this means we HAVE TO do ONLY ONE or max TWO muscle groups per day. Why? Because muscles do not grow when they are constantly in heavy use. They need multiple day rest for hypertrophy to occur.


Nah. Muscles are recovered within 48 hours. So you could simply do full body workouts every other day.

For beginners, who use limited sets/reps, it would be a good to start out doing a full body routine. They will likely not workout their muscles unilaterally as much (one armed) so they spend less time in the gym per session. To garuantee optimal gains, they would do a full body workout every other day, ensuring that they workout every muscle as often as possible per week, while also ensuring they're all recovered. Basically, optimizing both frequency and recovery.

If your workouts start to become so long that you're overly physically and mentally fatigued where the quality of your work-out suffers, start doing splits. Perhaps a two way split (upper/lower body, or push/pull). A 3 way split, repeated once every week (working out 6 days per week), would be the next step.

However, there is also nothing wrong with increasing work capacity by increasing how much time you can spend in the gym per session.



Stelliferous said:


> It's probably a good idea to also work out in a different way that combines your muscles in your body totally. Example, 8 weeks of the training you described, followed by 4 weeks of yoga, endurance, full body interactive exercises like burpees. And of course change the ratio dependent on how much mass you need to work on and how much real fitness you need to work on. That way you can be healthy AND big.


No, not at all. This 'shocking your muscles' theory that states you have to mix things up is an outdated myth, unspported by science.

The only way to properly shock your muscles is through progressive overload. Which can mean more than just adding reps/sets/weights, but also by shortening your rest period or performing the exercise with better technique. Porgressive overload is basically a fancy term for 'improvement'.

Your pistol squat will suffer from the 4 weeks of not doing it. A better idea is to do cardio and mobility work as part of your weekly routine just like your resistance routine is. For example, someone could do a calisthenics routine every other day, do cardio (cardio can also just mean doing a fun team sport or rollerblading) on 2 rest days and always cool down by stretching the worked body parts.


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