Join the tribe of Movement & Calisthenics Athletes – people just like you that are working with their own body weight to get strength, lose fat build muscle, recover from injuries and live their best lives!

“If you want to move better and learn new skills, The Movement Athlete‘s the best app out there. It’s a companion for the whole life, so it’s totally worth the price.”

Getting 🤕injured can be demotivating. And it’s even worse if you’ve experienced debilitating conditions such as stroke.

Neil, a 33-year old software developer from Germany, didn’t had any background in fitness. And sadly, when he was 31, took an enormous challenge against stroke which caused his arm to lose all strength and movement.😢

Neil didn’t let his situation from stopping him from learning how to handstand🤸, one of his fitness goals. He has rise to the occasion and trained with The Movement Athlete to regain his movement and more.

Here’s his story.👇

Facing the challenge

“When I was 31 years old, I had a stroke, a juvenile stroke and a minimal invasive heart surgery. And afterwards, I wasn’t even able to lift my left arm above her shoulder level.”

Shoulder stiffness, weakness or even paralysis occurs to 30 to 66% of stroke survivors. Luckily for Nils, he was still able to move his left arm but with huge movement limitations.

Prior to his condition, he had the dream of performing a 📍freestanding handstand which requires a good overhead shoulder mobility. But after the stroke, his goal became almost an impossibiltiy because of the pain and tightness on his left arm.

Rising to the occassion

“[While] still, in the hospital, I decided to join the Movement Athlete because I wanted to get back on track with all my skills and wanted to get strong again.”

All of the unfortunate circumstance did not deter Nils’ mindset of accomplishing his goal. To set his mind on the right path, he quickly searched for the 📍BEST CALISTHENICS WORKOUT PROGRAMS and found out about The Movement Athlete.

Now, from being unable to lift his arm overhead, he can easily hold a one-arm dead hang with his left arm!

Here’s how he did it!

But because he was fresh from the condition, he needed to start right from the basics. There’s nothing wrong with that. One small step backwards to make a lifetime, meaningful progress.

The Movement Athlete app creates a workout that suits his individual skill level. ✊No cookie-cutter “beginner” workout that actually does more harm than good.

Read more here: 📍The End of Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced Workouts

✅ADAPTIVE

Another way calisthenics maintains personalization is thanks to the adaptive training regimen.

This is thanks to the principle of 📍auto-regulation. Simply put, auto-regulation refers to the app’s ability to adjust the training program according to what Nils can perform on that day.

Everyone can’t give their 110% in every workout. That’s too exhausting and draining over time. Sure you might be able to sustain that level for 3 or 4 weeks, but over a lifetime, you will eventually get overtrained or mentally fatigued.

🔥The adaptive training style of The Movement Athlete keeps workouts fun and sustainable while providing enough challenges for growth.

So even Nils’ can’t give his all in a training session, he can still make some progress which adds up in the long run.

✅✅Aside from progressions, there are 📍many other ways to progress in calisthenics. Maintaining a progressive approach, even with minimal increments, allows Nils to make headway in his journey.

Progress is progress.💯

“The game aspect is like, are we seeing the next level and the next progression, the leveling up and unlocking new skills.”

Speaking of progress, The Movement Athlete app provides a very basic, understandable, and fun way of seeing his progress in an objective manner.

The app turns exercise goals into locked goals which you can unlock by performing the progressions under each exercise.

The gamified progress chart keeps Neil hooked and motivated to master each calisthenics skill. In fact, he already had unlocked many calisthenics skills such as the back lever and 📍freestanding handstand push-up!

✅BREAKING DOWN SKILLS

“I was able to learn some new skills like the back lever and the handstand push-up: I like most about the Movement Athletes”

It’s crazy to think that Nils, from not being able to lift his arm shoulder-level, to completely performing full handstand push-ups in a relatively short period of time.

Nils made great progress in learning skills thanks to the way TMA breaks down skills into segmentation. Here they are below:

👊STRENGTH

In almost all skills and movements, your muscles need enough strength to control your body. This is the heaviest portion of the exercises.

🤸SKILL

The skill component covers mobility and the technical aspects of an exercise. Not necessarily demanding in terms of strength.

💪MUSCLE

You will need a certain amount of muscle to further increase your body’s capacity to build strength. A muscle component of the workout tends to be moderate intensity with moderate to high training volume.

🏃ENDURANCE

What good is your strength and muscle if you can’t sustain the level of activity for a longer period of time? Endurance trains the body’s capacity to handle work for an extended time. This is highly functional as well.

By breaking down each exercise into a certain segment, progress for Nils became fast even if he basically started as a complete beginner.

✊FOCUS ON FOUNDATIONS

When he just came out of the hospital, Nils’ first priority in his TMA workouts was on learning and mastering the calisthenics fundamentals.

The fundamentals set a solid foundation of strength, mobility, endurance, and body control so he can progress much faster and safer in his calisthenics journey.

These are the basic exercises:

• ✅ Push-ups
• ✅ Pull-ups
• ✅ Dips
• ✅ Squats
• ✅ Handstand
• ✅ & core work

Basics don’t mean easy. These exercises are crucial before advancing to other degrees of calisthenics exercises.

Nils mastered these moves that’s why he made much efficient progress in his training.

🩺Movement as medicine

While he attained so much body control, strength, and mobility thanks to calisthenics, what he loves the most is that calisthenics was able to help him recover from his nagging arm.

Calisthenics is a natural way how our bodies move. The daily movements we perform such as walking, running, standing up, pushing a cart, carrying a bag, and lifting a sofa, are performed with the whole body.

This is also the same case with calisthenics exercises and the reason why they are powerful.

Unlike weightlifting exercises that isolate muscle groups, calisthenics exercises make use of the body as a whole to perform exercises. Even if there are emphasized muscle groups, each body part contributes to executing the movement.

Aside from that, movements can also be used to improve mobility. 📍Mobility refers to the range of motion you can do with full control. This means mobility helps facilitate 📍the strength you can perform.

Lack of mobility causes tightness and loss of range. Eventually, this causes nagging aches and pains as well. Injuries are commonly caused by this issue.

While there is pain, it doesn’t mean you have to completely rest for your muscles and joints to repair. In fact, calisthenic movements can be used as medicine to treat injuries relating to movement dysfunction just like Nils did.

Read here: 📍How to Treat Injuries with Calisthenics

Disclaimer:

If you’re experiencing any pain, severe movement restrictions, tingling sensations, or numbness, be sure to consult with your physiotherapist or healthcare specialist IN PERSON.

Online consultations might be convenient, but personal consultations provide a more accurate diagnosis and action plan for your specific situation.

Injuries and conditions are highly specialized.