Calisthenics skills, like the planche and handstand, are certainly impressive, but they are not the best choices for building muscle.
Don’t get me wrong, you most certainly can build muscle with calisthenics skills. However, when clients come to me looking to build muscle, they will stand a much greater chance of success with techniques that require relatively low levels of skills.
The reason is simple; when training to build muscle, strength, or endurance, you want to do exercises that make it easier to challenge those functional qualities. Skill techniques are typically more challenging for things like stability and coordination. So while you certainly can, and will challenge your muscular work capacity, you probably won’t challenge it as much as you’ll run into the limitations of how much skill you have.
That’s why I created the Grind Style Calisthenics Workout Program; to help you focus on some of the best low-skill muscle-building exercises in calisthenics.
