From a relatively young age, I’ve been aware of the many benefits of resistance training.

But to my old self (and I assume many others too), resistance training = lifting weights in the gym.

Well let me tell you that the above equation is wrong.

The 2 golden rules of successful resistance training are training to failure and progressive overload.

In simple terms, training to failure means that you repeat an exercise until you physically can’t squeeze out another rep.

Or in other words, you train until your muscles “give in”.

Progressive overload means that in order to get bigger/stronger, your muscles need to experience more stress/tension than the previous workout.

Now that we’ve covered the 2 golden rules of resistance training, note that neither of them mentions dumbbells or expensive gym memberships.

Do you really think your muscles will think “Darn… I’ve just reached failure but this isn’t a dumbbell, so I’m not gonna bother growing”?

Or “Blimey! This is the most tension I’ve ever felt… but I’m not in a gym so screw getting stronger”?

Of course not!

(If I knew this earlier, I’d have saved a fortune on gym membership fees!)

So, with my new understanding of successful resistance training, I’ve been doing calisthenics (bodyweight exercises) daily for the last 3 months from the comfort of my home.

And to put it simply, it’s changed my life.

Now don’t get me wrong.

It’s not that I have an issue with going to the gym or lifting weights, but to me, calisthenics makes much more sense when you consider all variables.

So, to show my gratitude to discovering calisthenics, I’ve decided to share some of the benefits of doing calisthenics everyday right here in this article.

I hope you enjoy!

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1. Daily calisthenics are time efficient

I hope you realise that time is your most important asset.

You can always make more money, but you can never get your time back.

So, with this in mind, would you rather go to the gym 4 times a week, costing 8 hours of your valuable time per week?

(Assuming 1 hour working out and 1 hour on miscellaneous shit like travelling to the gym and getting changed, etc.)

Or…

Would you rather do 7 calisthenic workouts costing 15 mins each totalling under 2 hours per week?

To me, there’s only one answer.

Now I’m sure some of you will be thinking “Surely the person working out longer will see more results?”

To which I’ll remind you of the 2 golden rules of resistance training.

As long as you’re training to failure, and putting more tension on your muscles every day, there’s no reason why you won’t see good results.

(And let’s be honest… most people in the gym don’t follow these rules anyways so are wasting a lot of their time!)

2. Habits repeated daily are easier to stick to

Let’s list some things you do every single day.

Eat
Drink
Shower
Get changed
Clean your teeth

Since you do these things every day, they’re part of your “routine”.

On a deeper level, this means you don’t consciously think of doing them and hence you spend less mental energy thinking about them.

This is habit theory 101.

Well it turns out this theory applies to any activity, including calisthenics.

So, by doing calisthenics daily, not only do you get the benefit of working out every day, but you also don’t have to mentally prepare for it, since it’s just part of your routine.

3. Calisthenics can be done from home

The beauty of calisthenics is that you can do a full body workout pretty much anywhere.

In fact, my daily calisthenics are done in the comfort of my living room, requiring only a pull-up bar for equipment.

This is super convenient for me, because I know for a fact that I’ll be in my home every day, so there’s literally no excuse for missing a workout.

It also means I can cook my post-workout meal whilst I’m working out, saving even more of my valuable time.

Compare this to if I relied on the gym for my workouts:

The gym may be closed for whatever reason
I wouldn’t be able to cook whilst working out
There may be a huge traffic jam on the way home
The gym may be too busy to get a good work out done

4. More motivated to beat records

Getting 1% better everyday for a year will result in a huge positive change in your life.

However, if you get 1% worse everyday for a year by slacking off, the outcome is shocking.

By doing calisthenics every day, you have your last workout (from the day before) fresh in your mind so you know exactly what you need to do to beat it.

Just be to clear though, “beating” your last workout doesn’t have to mean doing an extra rep.

It could mean you increase the time under tension per rep, making each rep slower.

5. Faster metabolism

A recent study showed that an intense workout as short as 6 minutes could boost your metabolism by 20% for up to 6 hours after the exercise.

(To put this into perspective, my daily calisthenics workouts take around 15 minutes to complete. I’d be interested to see if a longer workout would increase the metabolism even more.)

What was also fascinating was that on average, 5 times more calories were burned in the 24 hours AFTER the workout, than during the workout itself.

In other words, by doing calisthenics every day, you’ll become a calorie-burning machine.

(My favourite benefit of this is knowing I can “cheat” on my diet every now and again, without putting on much fat.)

6. Improved mental health

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I can take on the world after completing an intense workout.

I feel much more confident, energized and happy.

The beauty of doing calisthenics every day is that I get to have this feeling every freaking day.

Don’t just take my word for it though, many studies have shown that intense exercise improves mood and mental wellbeing.

Conclusion

To conclude, I want to remind you of the 2 golden rules of successful resistance training:

Training to failure
Progressive overload

Everything else (i.e. training method, type of exercise, where you train, etc.) is just distracting noise.

My life changed for the better when I realised I could follow these rules with calisthenics, but the real game changer has been doing calisthenics every day.

It’s easy to follow, fun, healthy, convenient and saves you so much money.

If you haven’t started doing calisthenics daily, then what are you waiting for?

Calisthenics Every Day (Can You Do Them? Are There Benefits?)