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!
✨Meet Talen
Talen isn’t new to bodyweight training
At the age of 17, he started gymnastics and fell in love with the sport.
But since he’s still in high school, gymnastics club membership can get expensive even with only four times a week.
Talen found an alternative that is way more affordable and provides convenient bodyweight training anywhere at any time. He found The Movement Athlete app.
This is the story of Talen- The Movement Athlete
Since becoming a Movement Athlete, Talen has been continuously developing his bodyweight mastery through calisthenics which is closely related to gymnastics.
He never looked back and still trains with the app even when he’s in a gymnastics training facility.
Learn more about his story below.👇
🏃Active lifestyle
“I also have been a gymnast before. I’ve been interested in gymnastics for a while since I was a kid. Unfortunately, I got into it a little late.”
Talen has always had an active lifestyle. He also became a gymnast at an early age. However, due to the very high demands of the sport, the ages 10 and above can already be considered too late if you’re planning to compete at a very high level.
Regardless of competing, Talen enjoys the sport so much that he continuously trains with it.
In addition, he also just got certified as a personal trainer and works for the AmeriCorp doing conservation work, wildlife, and fire, and disaster response.
🤜He’s definitely not a beginner when he joined The Movement Athlete.
♥️Love for gymnastics
“I wish I would have gotten to it a lot sooner, but once I got to the age of 18-19. I wasn’t really able to compete in any gym anymore, unfortunately.”
Talen was competitive. He wanted to pursue gymnastics Kids can start training for the sport as early as two years old. There are also recorded professional gymnasts that started later at the age of 12.
Gymnastics can be said to be the epitome of bodyweight mastery.💯 This is a systematic sport involving movement using your bodyweight or an apparatus and placing the body in mechanically disadvantageous positions.
Popular gymnastic apparatus is the gymnastics rings which require a high-level of upper body strength to master.🥇
High-level gymnasts don’t only display an incredible amount of strength. They also possess amazing agility, endurance, coordination, and balance, which is why starting at an early age is ideal for competition.
While everybody AT ANY AGE can train in gymnastics, starting your training at an earlier age puts you at a massive advantage for pursuing advanced gymnastics competitions.
✊Even though Talen might not be able to compete at his dream goal, he still wanted to train in gymnastics because he enjoys the sport so much.
Gymnastics expenses💸
“I couldn’t really afford paying the fees and stuff as a high schooler for $$80 to $100 a month just for four classes.”
Unfortunately, gymnastics training doesn’t come cheap. Because of the huge facilities and specialized coaching, the rate of gym usage as well as hiring a coach, can get expensive.💰
Especially for the case of Talen who was just still at highschool during his start of interest in gymnastics.
👀Looking for an alternative
So I was looking for an alternative, like an app. I could train that at home and kind of still do the same thing that I was doing at Gymnastics Place. So I looked into apps and I found TMA…”
Talen was determined to train with a gymnastic approach, so he searched for an app that could offer the same amount of challenge and structure that gymnastics training provides. And then he found The Movement Athlete.
At first, he was skeptical, but he gave it a try with the available free trial period.
If you want to check it out, click the link below:👇
7-DAY FULL ACCESS FREE TRIAL PROGRAM
🔥Gymnastics VS Calisthenics
“Gymnastics is calisthenics in a way. So I decided to try TeamMay out, and I was not disappointed at all!”
Gymnastics isn’t synonymous with calisthenics. HOWEVER, both sport make use of bodyweight exercises to develop the fitness level of athletes. In fact, many movements in calisthenics also came from gymnastics, such as the following:
✔️Planche – Ultimate Planche Guide
✔️Front Lever – The Ultimate Guide to Front Lever
✔️Handstands- The Ultimate Guide to Freestanding Handstand
✔️Ring Dips – Ultimate Guide to Ring Dips
✔️Muscle-ups – Ultimate Guide to Muscle-ups
At the same time, both disciplines also utilize bodyweight fundamental exercises to build a solid foundation of strength, mobility, muscle, and endurance.
Here are the calisthenics fundamentals which is also emphasized in The Movement Athlete App:
- 👊 Pull-ups – The Ultimate Guide to Pull-ups
- 👊 Push-ups – The Ultimate Guide to Push-ups
- 👊 Dips – The Ultimate Guide to Bodyweight Dips
- 👊 Squats – Squat Progressions
- 👊 Core work – The Best Core Exercises
- 👊 Basic Wall Handstand – How to Wall to Handstand
But what’s the difference between gymnastics and calisthenics?
⚡️Gymnastics is a sport, and you’ll hear of it from the Olympic competitions. Calisthenics, in our context, is an exercise training method. It’s basically weightlifting but using your body weight instead of weights, dumbbells, and barbells.
Gymnastics has diverse elements in the sport. It’s not only about rings and floor work or balance beams. It’s quite complex and also involves a form of an artistic element.
💥In calisthenics, you can also get creative, but generally, it mostly focuses on the strengthening and conditioning side. Although we also have Street Calisthenics which is also a sport that offers more dynamic aspects similar to gymnastics.
You can use calisthenics to build up strength and condition your body for gymnastics elements. There are many overlapping layers between the two disciplines which is why Talen opted to work on calisthenics for now.☝️
“I even ordered a pair of gymnastics rings to get back on the rings again. It was great to have TMA be able to implement that with it too because gymnastics is part of calisthenics too, so I love that they have that aspect on there too.”
⚡️The Movement Athlete Experience
Options on Skills to Work on
“…the whole entire training style of going into the app and being able to choose different skills you want to work on and choose how well you did the skill. I thought that was awesome.”
✊Specificity is king when learning skills.
While working on many skills simultaneously can yield results, it’s not as efficient as working on 1-2 major skills at a time, especially for strength skills such as planche and levers.
This is why The Movement Athlete app offers an opportunity to choose your next path upon mastering the calisthenics fundamentals.
Talen enjoys this feature as he knows he’ll be able to make more meaningful progress this way.
Choosing a specific goal lets him enjoy himself more and stay motivated in his workout.
But what guaranteed his progress are these elements of The Movement Athlete training approach:
☑️Progressive
Many calisthenics programs fail to maintain progressiveness in the workout.
For the most that we see, cookie-cutter workouts just keep on adding reps and sets on push-ups.
Yes, this is still progressive, but it is one-dimensional. It offers to build up muscular endurance, which is only one aspect of fitness.
What if you want to build more strength?💪
In The Movement Athlete app, we offer a variety of progressions to target different goals, muscle groups, and fitness attributes.
😱Do you want to build more strength with push-ups?
Then you can work on one-arm push-up progressions or move towards the planche progression, increasing general pushing strength.
To progress in calisthenics, your approach needs to stay progressive. 📍Calisthenics is progressive if you know how to manipulate the factors.
In the app, Talen doesn’t need to study tons of progressions. He just needs to tap his app, and the powerful AI designs a program suitable for his goals.
☑️Friendly for beginners to advanced!
I like the progression of it because if you’re a beginner, like, I was just starting out into it, it can be a little confusing. And TMA kind of had their progressions. I needed to be able not to be afraid to try new skills and utilize them in a way I can use them for other skills.
Progressive training is encompassing. It’s not only for beginners. It’s not only for the advanced. Each level has a suitable progression that can meet an individual’s needs and situation.
The Movement Athlete app caters to all skill levels.🤸
Are you a complete beginner? No worries, we’ll provide the workout and guidance for you, especially for new movement patterns you’re not familiar with.
Do you have prior calisthenics experience? We’re happy to challenge you and guide you to new skills!🔥
☑️Personalised
Speaking of designing programs catered to Talen, the TMA app also emphasises personalization in the training program.
📍Cookie-cutter workouts or one-size-fits-all programs look good on paper, but can be harmful in practice.
🎯A training program should be tailored to your skill level, lifestyle, and goals.
If not, you’re going to get either injured, get stuck in a plateau, or end up frustrated with inconsistent workouts.
The Movement Athlete app first studies your capabilities through an extensive assessment before generating a tailored program.
🎯At the same time, you can also adjust your training frequency, training duration, goals, and available equipment in each workout.
This way, you can stay consistent with your training while getting a challenging workout for efficient and safe progress.
☑️Adaptive
In addition to personalization, the TMA app adjusts the programs based on your current mood, energy levels, and past sessions.
This is called 📍autoregulation.
Applying this strategy allows Talen to get the most from this workout, even during the days when he’s not feeling his 100%.
In an ideal world, you would want to gradually increase your intensity in every workout.
But in reality, this is not always sustainable. We have a life outside of training (even if you’re a professional athlete) and things can get busy.
Other responsibilities in life also require mental, physical, and emotional energy. You can get tired from your workout in the long run if you try to sustain a high level of effort throughout your journey.🏃
In addition, pushing hard too much can lead to overtraining which can lead to overfatigue and injuries.
Instead, you can maintain a good level of challenge while toning it down just enough through autoregulation.
💯This way, training is still fun, effective, safe, and can last for the long run.
Adaptive training keeps you consistent for the long haul of the fitness journey.
Benefits Talen Now Enjoys After Training with
The Movement Athlete and Calisthenics
Accessibility and Affordable
“That’s when I started to use the app a lot more to train and purchase a membership. I’m like, wow, this is a lot cheaper than gymnastics.”
Thanks to TMA, Talen can now train as if he’s in training with gymnastics!
It’s just like he’s still training with a gymnastics coach, but at a much more affordable rate, and at the same time, he can do it anywhere at any time!
The value for such an affordable price is also amazing, as you will on the next benefit!
Making huge progress
“…and it’s been great ever since. Some of the changes I’ve noticed when I started training with teammates, I immediately got a lot better at my handstand. It was great having progressions leading up to it.”
Talen was surprised to see the handstand progressions that he used to do in gymnastics training.
The combination of adaptive and personalised approach and the excellent progression list helped Talen boost his handstand mastery.
Learning new skills
“TMA has really kept me up on my game and allowed me to be able to continue to learn new skills and try them out. And I think it’s the perfect app for that what I like most about the program.”
Since Talen already has a solid foundation of strength and mobility thanks to his gymnastics background, his goal is to keep getting challenged.
With various bodyweight skills to learn, Talen stays motivated and hungry for growth.
Keep in mind that calisthenics skills take time to learn. You can’t master them overnight. For higher level skills like planche, it might even take some years!
Training anywhere
““I could just take this anywhere, and I could go back and be able to use that if I wanted to.”
One major advantage of calisthenics is that you can train anywhere.
All you need is to show up and bring your mobile device!
Convenient training
“During quarantine, it wasn’t the greatest, but having TMA there to be still able to train and be sane TMA was great to have to have with me.”
The 2020 lockdown closed all gym facilities, which made many people lose their opportunity to train.
However, this is not the case for Movement Athletes!
Because calisthenics can be done at home, Talen managed to progress in his fitness journey despite losing gym access.
With TMA, Talen also was free to choose the equipment he had at home. Convenient training means higher chances of consistency. And consistency means long-term gains.
📌Takeaway
Talen has fallen in love with gymnastics training.
But because of the expensive gym membership and coaching fees, Talen needed an alternative.
And the alternative actually offered more than what Talen had expected!☝️
Since training with The Movement Athlete, Talen has improved his gymnastics skills, developed more strength, and now enjoys new advanced challenges thanks to an adaptive, personalised training approach.
🌟What Talen wants to share with you
“And what would I tell someone who is on the sales page deciding if they would like to purchase? I would tell them just do it. It’s really worth it honestly, especially if you’re paying high gym membership already.”
Talen says TMA is so good that gym memberships are nothing compared to the app. You can even use TMA in gymnastics places. You can take TMA anywhere and train as if you have a personal coach guiding your workout.
“You won’t be disappointed with the results at all.”🏆
If you’re interested in becoming a Movement Athlete, we invite you to take an assessment first to know your strengths and weaknesses before your calisthenics journey.🤸
This will also allow our powerful AI to design a program based on your current skill level.
Are you up to the challenge?
BEGIN YOUR TRAINING ASSESSMENT! 💪
GET A FREE CUSTOMIZED TRAINING PLAN!
Start your life-changing journey with calisthenics and get lean, strong and mobile while unlocking and mastering over 100 new gymnastics & calisthenics skills.
It only takes 5 minutes, and no credit card is required!