CaliMove Complete Calisthenics

- 7 minutes read - 1476 words

A few months ago I’ve opted for the “complete calisthenics” program (a paid program) of calimove.com. Specifically, I enrolled to the “Level 1-5” program bundle since I read somewhere that it is the recommended plan especially if you’re a beginner athlete or if you’re doing your first steps in the calisthenics field. Here I’ll try to describe what’s all this bundle about, how is the material laid out and what are (this is in progress…) my impressions from the program.

First Impressions

Well, if you’re not familiar with the term “calisthenics” then what you should basically know is that it refers to a bodyweight training/exercise regime. Or in short - no weights, just you, a very basic set of equipment, and the good old field-of-gravity.

The results, as demonstrated by professional practitioners (such as the guys behind Cali Move — “El Eggs” & Alex Lornez), are admirable in terms of the practitioner’s balanced physique and the extreme degree of elegance in the way that some of the more complex and demanding movements a human body can carry out, are being performed.

The Word Is: “Clean”

Cali Move “Complete Calisthenics” program as a whole is clean.

What do I mean by that? The whole experience is clean and polished. The narration is clear. The examples (videos and gifs) are clean. For example, “El Eggs” always wears a blue (navy?) shorts and shoes. Background setting is always black. The same background music is played when narration is off. Clean. This creates almost a therapeutic atmosphere, where you experience some sort of familiarity in each session — what is called in psychotherapy as a “session setting”.

And that is great. The reason why might be obvious, but still, when considering the relative complexity of executing bodyweight exercise (a different level than gym/machine based exercise), especially if you are a beginner, clean is a blessing, clean is a must. clean clears the clutter.

Everything is so sensible, so exact (hope you can sense how excited I am about the clean experience).

Program Layout

First things first: apologies. I’m not adding screenshots and images from the program — which is available online, and btw renders nicely both on mobile and desktop (in my case, iPhone and MacBook). The reason being is that I’m guessing that the material is basically behind an intellectual property (IP) agreement that I’ve signed somewhere when I joined the program and I don’t want to A) breach it. B) harm in some way the Cali Move business. So, no images and detailed description, but:

What Do You Get

As I mentioned in the intro above, I’m describing the “Complete Calisthenics”, the levels 1-5 bundle program. At first, it seemed that the program is a bit pricy - 199$, especially when compared with the freely available programs you can scratch from youtube or from a subscription based website. But, after using the program for the last 3 months (I’m currently on day 92 of the beginner program, level-1, phase 3) I can attest without no doubt that its just worth the expense.Lets see what do you get for your money, as stated by Cali Move’ website:

  • Lifetime Access to Exclusive Online Content
  • Online Course to Follow Along
  • Step by Step Guide to Master Your Body
  • Intuitive Layout with Graphics and Animations
  • Exercises That Fit to Your Level of Performance
  • Additional Content (Mobility, Nutrition, Regeneration etc.)
  • High Quality Instructional Online Videos
  • Downloadable PDF (Schedule) & Excel Files (Test Evaluation)
  • Follow Along Warm-Up Routine
  • Calisthenics Skill Training
  • Tests to Detect Your Progress

All of the above statements are sound and true, but I want to stress out something great that is missing from the description above. What’s missing is the fact that you get a proper, rational, progressive loading program that follows the SAID principle (Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand). Or in simpler words, it keeps you safe by slowly and gradually increasing the load/volume/intensity of the exercises.

Personally, in almost any exercise program that I grabbed with or without a professional trainer (I’m becoming one myself!), it ended up in injury. Probably because I’m too enthusiastic, with much workout but not enough recovery and because of that, many of my efforts went down.

But using the “Complete Calisthenics” program so far, and putting my trust in it actually helped me recover from minor injuries and tensions (I had a too tight Gastrocnemius and posterior deltoids). Effectively, I left my “ego out of the gym” and let the program “manage me” while scaling my intensity of training using the test week tables (evaluations in the sorts of repetitions max - RM) so that I could safely adjust to the program, while gaining achievements I’m very proud of.

Effectively

Effectively you get a training program and schedule, with the following constructs:

  1. Phases - where each phase containing its specific exercises
  2. Phase Videos - videos of correct (and incorrect) exercise execution demos, sometimes containing different progressions (e.g. leverage changes to make a given movement harder or easier) with narration
  3. Phase Tests - tables (Excel & Google Sheets) with the phase exercises to be filled by the student in the first week of the phase - for calibration of the exertion level and progressions adjustment
  4. Phase Schedule - a graphical (highly innovative one) layout of that particular day’s session.

The Phase Schedule is the heart of the program, and as I mentioned, the graphical layout is extraordinary and almost ingenious. Essentially the CaliMove guys created gifs for each movement that contains:

  1. a demo of the exercise,
  2. range of reps,
  3. exertion level,
  4. rhythm (rest-concentric-excentric times)
  5. rest times

…All in a single informative infographic. This is super and really helps when you get used to it training on your own. All you need is to pick up your mobile phone and load that day’s session and it is quite clear what essentially you should do on that session.

Drawbacks

To me, the drawbacks are quite minor compared with the benefits of the program, but essentially:

  1. I felt there is a hidden assumption that you are ‘balanced’, meaning is that this is a general program and not tailor made one, so if you are like me and suffer from imbalance in my quads strength (vs. my posterior upper body muscles for example) then following the program in a strict manner, would surely strengthen you as a whole but would not ‘level’ your quads performance with rest of your body. But as I said, this is reasonable given that this is not a personalised program - just take that into consideration

  2. Self discipline - you need a high dose of that especially if you’re the regular Joe who is used to an almost static exercise program (no variation) and just goes from one station to the other. This program is done almost without any of the scene behind ‘going to the gym’. You are mostly on your own, progressing at your own pace, but without anyone else helping you out or providing some sort of external motivation. That’s not for everyone. On the other hand, and this is to me very very good - there is no gym. I just go out and enjoy the sunshine and do my shit. That’s excellent, but not for everyone

  3. As a beginner it feels that my capability in calisthenics is really lacking, and this is probably due to the lack of essential and much needed rotator-cuff strength (shoulder strength - the upper body axis, essentially), which might explain why the 3rd phase is highly invested in just a few compound movements aimed at building this basic strength. Don’t get me wrong, I highly appreciate my gained ability to do 4 sets of 8 pull ups, but at times it felt like I want to reach the more advanced phases just to get to a more diverse palette of movements. You do however get your diversification around intensity, frequency, etc. but still, the movement variation is a bit lacking. And I forgot to mention, you can’t skip phases and weekly sessions ahead of their time (they are locked)! This is both great but at the same time, a bit depressing.

  4. Lower body - this is calisthenics (not something particular to CaliMove) and there are not so many ways to strengthen your legs. The pinnacle of leg strength in calisthenics, as I understand it, is doing Pistol Squats. Can you think of another strength centred leg movement without weights?

  5. Mobility - the program is not focused on improving you mobility (that’s another program they offer), but as I see it, to be able to progress to higher levels you would surely need to be somewhere near the peak of your joint mobility

Conclusion

I highly recommend the CaliMove program, it is just great. Consider the drawbacks I mentioned above, but don’t forget that it is a great program and a valuable offer