Callisthenics: Bodyweight resistance training for ultimate strength

Wellness and fitness

Callisthenics: Bodyweight Resistance Training for Ultimate Strength

Sunday 04 June 2023

Calisthenics Fitness Club trainer and founder Joseph Olu performs the human science exercise during a fitness session on May 31, 2023. Photo | Wilfred Nyangarisi | NMG

Sitting through a 40-minute talk about bodyweight resistance training brought to you by 34-year-old Joseph Olow, a certified calisthenics trainer, is no small feat.

It’s even more baffling when he’s clutching a bowl of beans and chapati on a chilly morning at Calisthen Fitness Center in Kileleshwa on Othaya Road, Haven Cottage in Nairobi.

“Is your chapati even healthy?” I find my mouth goes before my mind.

haha! Not at all, it’s definitely not one of the meal options I’d recommend, but on my fitness level, I know how to play around with my body. For me, this is a snack, not a meal,” Olu explains.

Donning his tracksuit, the soft-spoken Olu transforms into a skinny figure. When he decides to go topless, he’s slashed to the core, and every muscle pops out for the world to see.

Even with chapati as a snack, his body fat content is seven percent, which many fitness gurus consider moving up a mountain.

In this sit-down, Oloo is joined by longtime friend Young Obara, 31, and fellow calisthenics instructor, who offers a contrast to his demeanor.

Opara’s gossip isn’t quite as ripping. He is massive and slender at the same time. His six packs are visible even from a stone’s throw away. Just like Oloo, Obara was in the form of his life.

I tease them to show us (accompanied by their colleagues) what they are made of. They hold the parallel bars, easily perform handstands and hold for about 30 seconds.

Handstand involves supporting one’s body weight in a stable upside-down vertical position by balancing on the hands. In a basic handstand position, body held straight with arms and legs fully extended, hands approximately shoulder-width apart and legs together.

“This form of movement strengthens the shoulders, arms, and wrists and also stretches the navel. Essentially, unlike weight-lifting exercises that in most cases target a specific group of muscles, calisthenics are compound exercises that target a group of different muscles.” Offers.

Oloo and Obara then perform forward and backward lever movements again with ease. They are exercises that sound very easy, but once you try them (I did), you will realize that you are nowhere near performing them, even in decent form.

But professional gymnasts and advanced calisthenics athletes, like this duo, execute them effortlessly.

The two lifts provide tremendous strength to the upper body, especially the lats, which are the largest muscle in the upper body, while also strengthening the core.

They then pull the human flag, which is considered one of the ultimate gravity-defying body strength moves for about 30 seconds.

The movement of the human flag is a feat of force in which the body is parallel to the ground, supported by a vertical rod. A straight line is formed using the arms and body, giving the impression of a flag.

The trick here requires the performer to have great upper body strength. This pose works the deltoids and glutes, with secondary muscles being the glutes, hamstrings, calves and quads. Obara then chose to sit in executing the planche movement. He said in his defense:I haven’t gotten there yet(I’m just not at the level yet.)

Planche is a complex movement where the body is parallel to the ground while being supported above the ground with straight arms. It is a movement that requires great strength, concentration and balance.

These movements work your biceps, triceps, deltoids, lats, and glutes. To finish off the show, Oloo did a mid-level workout that required core strength to execute properly. The V-sit targets the abdominal, obliques and hip group muscles.

Oloo asserts, “Getting to the point of executing these moves is the ultimate prize for anyone in the gymnastics industry. It’s a summary of the tremendous strength and mobility of the human body.”

But to get here, it took them years of perfection.

Oloo and Obara have never lifted weights on their fitness journey. They both lost their jobs and turned to fitness. A mutual friend brought the duo together in 2018.

“In 2017, I was working in an NGO that closed shop and became redundant. At that time, I started to participate in calisthenics because from a young age I loved gymnastics. The intricate executions of a gymnast pushed me there is this picture I saw of a man balancing on a Empty bottles stacked on top of each other and I was hooked,” says Obara.

With no job, he trained at a local gym but didn’t fancy weights, spending most of his time focusing on his body weight from watching gymnastics athletes.

Obara would then begin coaching his family and neighbors, who would pay him, and it was at that point that he decided he wanted to become a coach.

Later, he took a course as a certified personal trainer from the American Council on Exercise.

Until 2016, Olu worked for a real estate agency, which paid him a monthly salary of Sh30,000.

Other than his morning runs, he never indulged in any other form of exercise. “One day I saw a YouTube video that said, ‘100 push-ups a day that changed my body.’ The guy was chiseled and had the body of his life, and then I thought to myself why can’t I try too and look the part too,”

Every evening after work, he would try 100 push-ups.

“I would do segment after segment until I hit the 100 mark and I also kept watching more videos on YouTube and as you know with YouTube the more related content you watch and that’s what started gymnastics and gymnastics. Monday,” he says.

It wasn’t long before he raised his chin and started doing the workout from YouTube.

“It wasn’t long before people started noticing the transformation in my body but I wasn’t very good. Then a funny thing happened. One day I saw a video of a guy who had a body like my body, he was an expert gymnast doing a handstand move. I took a screenshot Because he was doing it from behind and he shared it online and for some reason everyone thought it was me and the inquiry started coming in.”

That’s when he knew it was time to get certified as a personal trainer as well and enrolled in a year-long fitness course.

“While studying I was going on with my fitness routine, I was living along Thika Road at the time, I would do jogging on the fly and do push-ups there and I didn’t know people started joining and it wasn’t long before a few suggested I start training them.”

Oloo would have two customers who would pay him Sh20,000 a month. At work, the pressure was mounting because now he had a tendency to show up late and leave early.

“With the pressure, I thought to myself if with two clients I easily make a lot more than I earn what’s the point, that’s how I quit,” he says.

Once he got his degree, he got a job as a trainer at Alpha Fit and when Covid-19 hit, his life changed for the better.

“I struggled to find jobs in gyms because calisthenics isn’t very popular with many, but when Covid-19 hit people were now looking for home trainers in person. The few videos of me doing calisthenics that I shared on Facebook became my favorite. My moment in Damascus as many people communicated,”

Last October, Oloo found this space in Kileleshwa and set up a gym – Calisthens Fitness. Suspended bars, parallel bars, and gymnastic ropes are all you see around, but there is no sight of weights.

“So far we have 30 clients and we offer various packages. The monthly package is Sh15,000 and for those who need personal training the price of the package depends on the number of classes,” says the entrepreneur.

For 20 rows one pays 20,000 shillings, 16,000 shillings for 12 rows, 12,000 shillings for 8 rows and so on.

According to calisthensfitness.com for gyms, they focus on strength training, mobility, flexibility, balance, calisthenic skills, and nutrition.

Obara adds, “For starters, we start with the basic movements which are always push-ups, squats, leg raises, upper body strength and so on.

“For any human being, there are certain movement patterns that one should be able to perform with ease. These are the squat patterns, which in our case we focus on using one leg, because the whole idea in calisthenics is to perfect your own body weight. This also helps build balance.” Then there are the push and pull movement patterns.”

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