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!

😎You want to be invincible, strong and mobile for years to come.

You train with weightlifting thinking you’ll get there but this is not the best approach for it.🙄

I don’t know about you but I definitely don’t want to become one of those old guys always complaining about his back, knees, shoulders, and elbows aching all the time.

Warning to the young’uns out there to take it east in the weight room lest they become in pain all the time and restricted in movement.

🔎🔎How to you exactly build strength and muscle while still keeping you limber throughout the years?

A lot of people are moving from weightlifting to calisthenics – but why? Is weightlifting really that evil? 👀

Maybe you are one of the folks who have been weight lifting for years. Maybe you love it or maybe you are starting to feel bored, repetitive, maybe you experience random joints pains and your mobility is not where you would like it to be.

There is a whole movement of people who are ditching weightlifting for calisthenics:

“I’ve been working out for years. I ended up getting stronger and maybe not so mobile, with some impingement in my shoulder and that’s when I thought, “Okay, something needs to change.” – Jacques

“I was just tired of aching all the time and feeling like I was losing mobility. I’ve always been interested in calisthenics but I never knew how to get started with it.” – Anthony

“Life used to be governed by hard and fast gym times, but now I’m free to build my days around workouts but all the while listening to how I feel that day and responding appropriately in my regimen.” – Ryan

📌 They reason walkthrough vary but there is a definite pattern visible among their answers.

WHY DO THEY MAKE THE SWITCH

Meet Jacques, a 35-year old physicist. He has years of weightlifting and martial arts experience. He’s active all his life but his activity came into a decline.

He experienced these in weight lifting:

☹️ Joint aches and muscle pain
☹️ Boredom
☹️ Immobility and muscle stiffness
☹️ Hitting a plateau

All of these experiences made him missed his trainings and unmotivated. He was stressed all the time because he wants to be active. He wants to train, but he knows that training with weights will just put him in a vicious cycle.

PROBLEM WITH WEIGHTLIFTING

Weightlifting has its place – especially when you are younger and you want to put on muscle fast. Maybe you are after a big physique and looking for that pump.

Yet, as time progresses, you would be looking for something better in the long run in your fitness journey. Also, strength and muscles aren’t the only things you should be focusing on if you want an overall healthy body!

Here’s Jacques, a Movement Athlete, and what he has to say about weight lifting. He realized that weightlifting was:

🤬boring & repetitive

“[Weight lifting] was kind of boring, to be honest. You count to seven and you push something seven times”

🤬not functional

“Even if you bench press how many kilograms, how are you going to use that in the world out there.”

🤬constraining him to machines

Today I have shoulders, I have to do that machine, that machine, that machine. So it wasn’t very enjoyable. And I used to stop a lot”

Because of all of that he struggled with consistency, he was plateauing and his joints were hurting.

Anthony’s issue with weight lifting has to do with his work. He’s an airline pilot which means he gets to travel a lot. He’s having trouble finding a near gym abroad. Not only that, stress due to weightlifting is affecting his body.

Oh, by the way, he’s been weightlifting already for 5 years!

🤬tendinitis. Ouch!

“I was doing just compound lifts, squats, deadlifts, bench press. I was starting to get tendinitis in my hips and then that led to my lower back so I knew I had to just step away from it.” – Anthony Monte, 37, Airline Pilot

🤬not accessible

“Because it’s kind of difficult to find a place where you can actually do barbell squats or deadlifts or things like that on the road. You can try to find a gym that’s nearby. Usually, you have to pay a fee to get in and then you never know if it’s going to be, you know, super crowded or what kind of facilities they’re actually gonna have.”

🤬mobility loss and aching body

“Honestly, I was just tired of aching all the time and feeling like I was losing mobility.”

Anthony that something needs to change with his process of achieving a healthy body. Weight lifting is not the way to go.

Here’s a case of another The Movement Athlete who was religious with lifting weights for 10-12 years until he realized that weightlifting isn’t aligned with his goals.

👉 Meet Jan-Erik. Even with a decade of weightlifting experience, he still made the switch.

🤬too bulky

“I’ve been doing strength and gym trainings for like at least 10 or 12 years now and I got pretty tired of it because I felt that I don’t want to get big and I don’t want to get really strong in the bench press.”

🤬not holistic

“I wanted more all-around training or method or whatever, compared to just strength lifting and all that.”

Weight lifting could be good for you but not all the time. In Jan-Erik’s case, the weights reached its limit and it’s time to move on to the next approach to fitness.

There are so many other cases in which weight lifters cross over the road and join calisthenics. These individuals are just some of them.

BUT IS WEIGHT LIFTING REALLY THAT EVIL?👀

When Does it becomes an issue?

Don’t get me wrong. Weight lifting is not an evil incarnate trying to mess with everybody’s gains and joints.

It becomes a major problem when that’s the only thing you’re doing or is the major portion of your workout in improper form for extended periods of time. As the old saying goes, “Too much of anything is bad.”

Actually, weight lifting can even help you improve your mobility if done properly even if you’re getting older.

The main problem of weight lifting lies in the nature of the approach.

Safe or not safe?🏋️🏋️‍♀️

It’s not totally safe and very prone to injury! This is true whether you’re dealing with massive loads of weight and even light weight. Using external loads can pose lead you to negatively affecting your gains.

Especially if you’re a beginner, working out with weights could be dangerous. You can’t do it all alone because lifting too heavy too soon might lead to very serious injuries. Imagine trying out a weight too heavy for you with bench press. The weight will drop straight to your chest if you’re not strong enough to push it up.

Ego lifting is a thing

Weightlifting is also very prone to what’s commonly known as “ego lifting”. Ego lifting is when you try to show your strength in the gym and lift heavy even if it’s too heavy for you. Of course, you’ll be training at a gym and sometimes, your ego would love to show everyone at the gym who’s the alpha male around there. Then you start lifting the weight, you break form, then you might break your back.

Breaking form with weightlifting could lead to serious injuries. Depending on the exercise and weight you’re lifting, joint pains aren’t the only type of injury you should be aware of. Pulling or tearing a muscle is a very common injury that could set you back with your gains. This doesn’t only apply to heavy weights. Improper form even with relatively light weights can still lead to those aches and pains we want to avoid.

What about other aspects? 🤔🤔🤔

Another disadvantage of the approach is the inability to address other aspects of fitness. As we said earlier, it’s not always about getting stronger and bigger alone. Body control, mobility, flexibility, endurance, body awareness, all of these contribute to overall fitness which weight lifting has difficulty in addressing.

Speaking of other aspects of fitness, weight lifting is also prone to muscle balance for those who aren’t following a well-structured program. There are plenty of isolation exercises integrated in a program that might help get one muscle group but leaves other muscle groups behind.

Of course, there’s always the case of being expensive. There’s a number of pieces of equipment you need to properly progress and train with weightlifting. You can buy them or get a gym membership, but there is always an alternative to train: calisthenics.

Here again, are just some of the possible things you might experience from weightlifting improperly over time:

😭 Joint pains
😭 Muscle pull, tares, and strain
😭 Muscle imbalances
😭 Empty pocket
😭 A wounded ego

You don’t want to be that guy🤦‍♂️

In the past we talked about how some type of training can make your body fall apart over time instead of making it healthier and stronger.

You see, just working out is obviously better than not working out but you don’t want to end up like these athletes:

“I’ve been working out for years. I ended up getting stronger and maybe not so mobile, with some impingement in my shoulder and that’s when I thought, “Okay, something needs to change.” – Jacques, 34

“I was just tired of aching all the time and feeling like I was losing mobility. I’ve always been interested in calisthenics but I never knew how to get started with it.” – Anthony

The truth is you are not getting any younger. 👴🏼

The truth is also that you don’t have time to do random workouts, you need to be strategic about what you do.

Your time here is limited.

Your fitness routine is not only important so you can lose weight and look awesome – but it will DETERMINE HOW THE NEXT 10-30 years of your life unfolds. ⚡️

🤔 Will you be achy, stiff, immobile and bored out of your mind?

Will you be full of energy, able to run around with your kids and grandkids, look and feel your best look good, be insanely strong, flexible, and pain-free?

If you woud rather opt-in for the second choice – you need the right type of training to get you there.

Bodybuilder and calisthenics athlete walk into a bar…

👊 Challenge a bodybuilder to do a lever…

Most won’t be able to do this exercise because he lacks the strength and mobility in his scapula and wrists. Even if he has a well-chiseled six-pack, he might still lack the core strength needed to perform the move. Even if he’s strong, he’s not lever-strong.

👊 How about challenging a bodybuilder to do a simple handstand?🤸‍♀️

You might be surprised that he/she might still find it difficult to execute. Even though handstands don’t need monstrous amount of strength compared to levers and planche, handstands require balance, body awareness, and mobility. In this case, a weightlifter might have not been able to address these key points.

IS CALISTHENICS REALLY A

BETTER SOLUTION? 🤔🤔🤔

Let’s check if calisthenics is the way to go if you want to improve more efficient and effective in your fitness journey.

With that in mind, these translate to these amazing benefits that weight lifting cannot achieve.

But don’t take our word for it.

Here are just some benefits that some of our 25,557 users experienced just after a few weeks of training with The Movement Athlete Academy.

🏆 Build lean muscles and lose fat naturally

“My physique changed hugely, now have a six-pack my core is very strong, shoulders and upper body has grown quite a bit.” – Sean

🏆 No more joint pains and muscle aches

Since you’re using only your bodyweight, calisthenics is a lot safer option compared to weight lifting. There’s less stress on your joints. You’ll also get stronger since calisthenics exercises strengthen your joints. You’ll have the minimum risk of getting injured compared to getting crushed by a 100kg weight. Just remember to take it easy, because you can still get injured if you rush the learning process.

“Some knee pain that I have from time to time is also dissipating.” – Taha

🏆 Improved mobility & flexibility

Mobility and flexibility are also improved through calisthenics. This means that even if you’re aging, you don’t have to worry about limitations in your movement. Bend over the lowest you can go. Jump as high as you want and twist whichever way you please. You have the freedom to move.

“My mobility has improved significantly. I finally can touch my toes, my hamstrings are not tight any more and finally can lift my kids without pain” – Matt

🏆 Functional strength

When lifting weights, you’ll get stronger in lifting weights. When training with calisthenics, on the other hand, you’ll get stronger also in your everyday basic movements. This will allow you to move freely in the world.

“I have developed a surprising amount of strength and I just feel so much healthier and more energetic after starting the program.” – Michael

🏆 Confidence & feeling my best self

“I feel more confident, my disposition is bigger, I feel more calm and relaxed. My humour is better. Now, I have better physical conditioning and my muscles grew. I have much more strength.” – Wagner

🏆 Better posture

“The first change that I noticed was the fact that my posture improved. I felt like I became taller, which in turn made me more confident.” – Taha

🏆 Mentally stronger

“My pain threshold has dramatically challenged and I believe that is a fundamental shift in my mentality. I can keep going with my workouts a lot more than before.” – Matt

🏆 More energy and younger than ever

“I am full of energy, get lots of compliments, and my gym hired me as a personal trainer so I could be a role model for their 60+ [years old] members.” – Carol

🏆 Stress-free workout

Since calisthenics is very accessible, no need to stress about your workout especially if you have The Movement Athlete app. Your workout is just a tap away in your phone.

“My life has gotten simpler in terms of training when I can rather than stressing about not making the gym/ scheduled workouts.” – Phil

🏆 Always motivated & excited to train

“Mentally, I’ve started getting used to working hard, and have really made an effort to take my time during each exercise.” – Liam

🏆 Control and body awareness

Getting strong is one thing. Getting to control your body is another. Training with calisthenics allows you to learn calisthenics skills that teaches you upmost body control and awareness. You’ll get to use every fiber of your muscle, not only the ones you want to use. You’ll be surprised by the capabilities of the muscles you haven’t gotten the chance to train!

“I can control my body much better than before and am more confident about lifting things without risk.” – Timo

🏆 I am having so much fun

You’ll get to enjoy a wide selection of exercise variations as well as program structure variation that would depend on your goal. You’ll never get bored!

“It’s like a game, with levels and all that, so that was a bit exciting, it was very interesting to see.” – William

🏆 Invincible for years to come

Long-term better quality of health – Calisthenics trains your body in a holistic manner. This leads to a better quality of health and also a better quality of life.

✊NOT ALL CALISTHENICS IS EQUAL:

As amazing calisthenics already sounds, I should warn you that not all calisthenics can produce these amazing benefits.

You know bodyweight strength training is powerful – but picking up any bodyweight training app or a training program will not get you results we are talking about.

Even progression based calisthenics apps make you vulnerable to injury.

Just see what other athletes are saying about finding a good calisthenics app/ program to train with:

“I’ve tried a few other bodyweight apps, but they sort of left you to make it up as you go along. No structure just some random routines” – Edward, 40, Gas Rig Operator

“The other apps at some point were just too hard. The steps they were taking were just too big. It was just super unrealistic, very disappointing and very frustrating in a way.” – Nicholas, 27, Project Manager

“You can get a bit of help through YouTube videos and all of that, but it’s not the same. And I just wanted something more. I found TMA, and I thought might as well try.” – William Hayman, 33, Counselor, Therapist

“I used freeletics and Kernwerk before. With both of them, I had the greatest problems with the duration of the workouts, which I couldn’t adjust. I also felt a lack of variation and long term motivation. The holistic approach and this “working towards a certain skill” slowly progressing but knowing “what the effort is for” feels much more motivating.” – Jelka, 33, Office worker

“I used madbarz for a long time, but it’s so rigid in moves and reps. I did not make any progress, instead, I got myself an injury by trying exercises that were too hard for me.”. – Symon, 42

🔎What calisthenics is not?

Calisthenics is a form of exercise that uses the bodyweight as resistance. It also makes use of minimal equipment. There are many gymnastics and yoga influences in the exercises since they also make use of body weight.

Often, there are numerous myths covering this approach that it can’t build muscle and it’s only for beginners because people don’t know how to fully maximize this approach.

Doing random exercises and expecting growth doesn’t produce the best results. If you’re a beginner in fitness, you might feel some results but I guarantee that it will die down soon.

Solution?💡💡💡

Luckily, there’s progressive calisthenics. This type of calisthenics focuses on developing strength through a proper guide which is called progressions. Progressions are the “adding weight” to weight lifting. It keeps you getting stronger and breaking plateaus in a safe and efficient manner. Adding of sets and reps are also integrated into the guide for better progress.

Then there’s adaptive calisthenics.

Adaptive calisthenics, similar to progressive calisthenics, makes use of progressions but it also makes use of detailed ASSESSMENTS to adapt to your skill level and CONCEPT CALLED AUTOREGULATION that suggest to adjust sets and reps based on how are you feeling on a given day.

Think of it as if you have a real fitness coach that assesses your current skill level first and prepares the program each training. It is the most efficient, effective and fun way to train calisthenics.

The other big difference is unlike a lot of calisthenics training programs adaptive calisthenics also includes skill work, appropriate mobility and flexibility and also muscle and endurance trainings, not only strength training. It’s for overall fitness.

WHY IS ADAPTIVE CALISTHENICS

SO POWERFUL 💪💪💪

After training thousands and thousands of athletes we started clearly seeing patterns of what works and what does not and understanding what makes the most comprehensive calisthenics training program that will make you invincible.

👉 It was clear that personalisation, daily workout adjustments

& autoregulation were the key to success. 🏅🏅🏅

As coaches we found ourselves in a conundrum: demand for gymnastics and calisthenics training was sky-high, and we could not offer everyone the attention and personalisation required. That’s why we decided to distill the knowledge of trainers and physiotherapists into a simple interface so you can have truly personalized, world class guidance at every step of your journey at a fraction of the cost.

And The Movement Athlete was born.

With these things in mind, it’s important to know where to get a good programming that can actually offer these benefits. Let me introduce to you The Movement Athlete.

The Movement Athlete app, if you haven’t checked it out, is literally like your personalised coach that prepares your program just for you.

The Movement Athlete adapts to you.

Being adaptive paves the way for fun, effective and efficient progress.

🏆 Ever adapting

As the app can adapt, as you get stronger, mobile and more skillful, the app adjusts the program to your current skill level. As a result, each training, you’ll know that it would be challenging and not boring.

Training also with The Movement Athlete means that multiple elements of fitness are integrated into your workouts. This saves you time and effort as everyone doesn’t always have the luxury of training for hours every day. The app adjusts to your schedule and energy levels as well.

🏆 Ever challenging

As the app challenges you, you’ll get its results: progress. Not only that, there are a number of things and skills you will learn while training with the app. The app provides an endless supply of exercises, progressions, and variations so you’ll be progressing all throughout.

🏆 Ever rewarding

Speaking of progress, with the app, you’ll have a gamified version of your progress. You’ll get to train as if you’re in a game. Each training would increase your percentage of completing a goal and when you reach a goal, you’ll unlock another level.

It’s a fun way to train and keeps you motivated to train harder until you finally reach a goal so you can set a new one!💯

COMBINING WEIGHTLIFTING AND CALISTHENICS

If you still find the need to pump some iron, one good option is by incorporating weightlifting with calisthenics. In this way, you’ll be able to lessen the dangers of solely lifting weights as well as feel the benefits of training with calisthenics.

The only issue with this training regime is that you need equipment for this workout. It’s a small price to pay for an endless amount of benefits, but you can always go full on calisthenics, too!

To sum it all up!

So if you really want to build strength for years, live until 100s of years and still be mobile and run around with your grandkids you need to be able to take care of your body, and weightlifting is NOT the most optimal exercise regime to get there.

You don’t need to take years to realize that!

Learn from your fellow athletes and incorporate training that will actually make you strong, mobile and help you move without pain for years to come. Avoid the aches and pains that will only cause you to quit working out.

Here is what some of them are experiencing / saying about the switch and trained with The Movement Athlete:

💪 “If you commit to this program, you will learn a lot about gaining strength and flexibility.” – Noah, Software Engineer

💪 “You increase your strength and mobility, basically anything that you want to do with your body.” – Jan Erik, Engineer

💪 “In just one month, I’m already seeing the difference, especially with my core.” – William, Therapist

💪 “I’ve gotten a lot stronger on it. Plus, too, not using weights … I find, using bodyweight, I don’t have stress on my joints. I’m just a lot looser, too, so it’s pretty cool.” – Ross, Professional Athlete

💪 “It’s really satisfying because I can feel my body is getting stronger and more mobile as I’m doing them, which it wasn’t when I was lifting weights.” – Jacques, Physicist

💪 “It’s definitely making me feel a lot better. I mean right now my hips and my lower back have stopped hurting, which has been great.” – Anthony, Airline Pilot

These are just some of the athletes who’ve been enjoying the change. There are a lot more people and we wish you to experience this amazing change.

Maybe you have been weight lifting for years like some of our athletes. Maybe you have just started your training.

The question is – Where do you want to be in 6 months?🔍🔍

Do you want to be stiff, achy, and stressed out?

Worried that you’ll get a worse injury later on down the road?

Frustrated that the progressions you’re using keep making you get stuck?

Or….

Do you want to have fun unlocking new moves? 🤸‍♀️

Feel a sense of reward as you make progress towards your goals?

Become insanely strong💪, flexible, and pain free…. ⚡️

And join the 2% of all people inside the “Invincible Club?”

There’s never going to be a better time than right now.

Wherever you are at your fitness journey, we challenge you to try out The Movement Athlete and feel the change for yourself.

Feel the change and train with The Movement Athlete!

BENEFITS LIST

Here what adaptive calisthenics has to offer:

🏆 Build strength, endurance and muscle – Adaptive calisthenics is still a type of resistance training. You can still get stronger and build muscle even with just bodyweight provided you have the proper program built for you like The Movement Athlete can provide.

🏆 Adjusting program – With adaptive calisthenics, your program is structured to adjust with your goals, needs, and current situation. It adapts and adjusts to you. It’s not a strict program that you’ll HAVE and MUST do or else you will fail. It gives you room to have fun, enjoy and rest while still getting you the results.

Not everyday or every week you can execute your workout with the same intensity and energy. That’s when the importance of adaptive calisthenics comes in. With adaptive calisthenics, your training program will adjust depending on your current situation and energy levels and mood, so that you can still maximize your gains during your workout even if you’re feeling your 100%.

🏆 Focus on Improve mobility and flexibility – Through the calisthenics exercises, mobility and flexibility can also be developed further. This is just because of the nature of calisthenics. So from there, you can have the freedom to move even with age as said earlier!

🏆 Protects your joints – Loads on joints are just enough to strengthen them without exerting too much force. There are also exercises that help you specifically to strengthen the joints you want or need to target.

🏆 Better endurance – In terms of building cardiovascular endurance and muscle endurance, calisthenics does these through the endless variations of exercises.

🏆 Skill learning – This personally what got me, and a lot of others, into calisthenics. Not only you get to build your body, but you also learn jaw-dropping skills!

🏆 Body awareness and control – Because calisthenics exercises mainly uses the whole body and in the process of learning skills, body awareness and control are further developed.

🏆 Accessibility – As long as you have the right guide and proper program, you can do calisthenics virtually anywhere, anytime you, please. Unlike weight lifting that requires you a number of pieces of equipment.

🏆 FUN! – Adaptive calisthenics adapts to your needs and wants. It’s not a very strict program that you need to accomplish each and everyday which sometimes makes training feels like a chore.

BUT ALL THE MORE IT PROVIDES A LIFELONG APPROACH TO FITNESS!