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Calisthenics Workout Program : The 3 Day Plan

Looking for a calisthenics workout program? In this article I’m going to go over a 3 day calisthenics workout program that’s going to get you bigger, faster and stronger as each week passes.

The Secret Weapon Behind Your Workout

I’m sure that you’re really eager to learn the program, and you’re not too concerned with much else.

I know because that is the kind of mindset I had at one point. But what if I was to tell you there are some things that are just as important, if not more important than the actual program?

Well it’s true. The truth is that just having a calisthenics workout program that covers what exercises to do, isn’t enough to get you where you want to be, whether your goal is to build muscle, lean out, get stronger or all of the above.

Luckily for you guys I’m going to cover one of the fundamentals that everyone needs to know if they are serious about progressing in calisthenics.

This is going to serve as the foundational knowledge that will underpin your workouts. When you combine this knowledge, with the workout I’ll be going over later in this article, then you will be in a much better position to reap the rewards you seek from your training.

Foundational Knowledge: Focus On Continuous Progression

Whatever your goal is, you will not be able to get there in an instant. It takes small steps over time to get the increases you’re looking for.

Continuous progression is the method by which you can take those small steps over time to eventually reach your goal. It works like this:

Your body is an adaptation machine. It will adapt to whatever needs are placed upon it, in order for it to be able to survive better.

Example: If you cut yourself, then eventually your body will form a thick layer of skin over the cut, also known as a scar. This happens because your body is trying to protect itself from this situation in the future, and as a result overcompensates by putting more skin in that spot.

The same thing happens when you put your body through a challenging workout, the muscles are taxed to a point where the body decides that it is currently not well equipped to handle that kind of work.

As a result the body will repair and build the muscles so that they become stronger and bigger, and thus more equipped to handle the work you put it through.

In calisthenics, we want to make sure that every time we work out, we are utilising this reaction of the body, so that we can make progress towards our goal.

How Do We Put Continuous Progression Into Action?

It’s important that your able to take this concept and apply it into real life. Thankfully, it’s relatively simple.

With every workout, you should be aiming to do better than your last

There are many ways you can progress a bodyweight exercise, but here are some of the most common.

  • Do more reps then last time
  • Do more sets then last time
  • Make the exercise your doing harder e.g instead of doing push ups, do dips
  • Reduce your rest time, or do exercises back to back

Don’t get hung up on trying to make large leaps from workout to workout. This may be the case in some, but treat that more like a bonus. In reality you will be making small progressions each workout.

For Example:

Let’s say your doing push ups as your first exercise. On week one you managed 3 sets of 10 reps. On the second week you may be able to do 12 reps on the first two sets, and then 10 on the last one.

As you can see there is progression, its not massive, but it is there. This is what continuous progression really looks like.

Write Down Your Workouts, It Will Take Your Results To New Levels

Personally I like to write down my workouts, making a note of the exercise and the number of sets and reps that I did.

This way you can know exactly what you did last workout, and what you will need to do this workout to beat it. This really makes all the difference for me, as I know in many situations I only managed to beat my last workout because I had the exact numbers from last time, and I was determined to beat them. Without them I would have probably stopped a few reps short.

With that being said, you don’t have to write down your workouts. Loads of people don’t, and they still get results. Reason being that they still apply continuous progression, but more unconsciously. They will likely push themselves really hard on each workout, and inevitably they will be able to progress their workouts over time.

If that sounds like you then you don’t necessarily have to take notes. However for the majority I highly recommend it. It can get slightly tedious if your not used to doing it, but trust me, it is worth the results.

Continuous Progression Also Enables You To Locate Plateaus Immediately, And Blast Through Them

If you have ever seen progress in changing your body…… getting bigger, stronger, leaner etc, you will know how good it feels.

And you know what sucks? when that stops. When for some reason your not seeing any progress at all.

Some people go on for years not progressing their bodies or their fitness, simply because they were not aware that they stalled, or why.

When you shift your mindset to that of continuous progression, you will be able to approach this situation with more clarity and insight, be able to see plateaus as soon as they come, and use the right techniques to blast through them.

Example:

You have been writing down your workouts for the past 8 weeks. Each workout your aim has been to beat the last one, and in the vast majority of cases you have done so successfully.

However for the past 2 weeks you have not been able to progress at all. Your sets and reps are staying the same.

First of all, this is a good situation. You noticed immediately that something is wrong, most people would have not, and therefore would have kept doing things the same way, unaware that they are actually not making any progress at all.

So you know there is a problem, your goal now is to find out what it is, and solve it.  Usually when you plateau in calisthenics, it’s one of these things:

  • Your not giving enough rest time between workouts, so you can’t fully recover.
  • You have increased your body weight, and now each rep is harder because your heavier.
  • You under ate, and your body hasn’t had enough energy in the form of food to rebuild and refuel your body,

Once you figure out what the issue is, you can implement it and see your progress return immediately.

Example: Recently I reduced the number of days I was resting between workouts, and i noticed that my progress stopped. I knew immediately that it was because of my change in schedule. I reshuffled my training days to give myself more rest, and just like that, I was progressing again.

Hopefully you can see the importance of continuous progression. Implement it into your training and you will not regret it.

Now let’s look at the 3 day calisthenics workout program.

3 Day Calisthenics Workout Program

The workout will be structured as follows:

  • An upper body day, to be performed twice a week, with 2 days rest in between them.
  • 1 lower body day to be done whenever suits your schedule best.

For the upper body days I like to do them on a Monday and then a Thursday. You can pick whatever days suit you best, but make sure to always have 2 days rest in between them, rest is very important if you want to see progression.

Calisthenics Workout Program : Upper Body Day

The upper body day is as follows:

  • 3 sets of pull ups
  • 3 sets of dips
  • 3 sets of chin ups
  • 3 sets of push ups

Perform every exercise for as many reps as you can, and make sure to do them in the order given, its designed from the hardest exercise to the easiest.

It’s not a really fancy or elaborate workout, but it doesn’t need to be. In calisthenics, the simple exercises are usually the most effective, and this workout is no exception.

This workout, plus the continuous progression you will be applying, will give you amazing results. Don’t be fooled by its simplicity.

Learn How To Progress and Regress These Exercises

With continuous progression, you need to know how to adapt these exercises to make them harder or easier, that way you can progress onto the harder variations when you need to, or make the exercises slightly easier if they are too hard for you.

Just do a google search for “push up progression” and you will get all the info you need, alternatively you can try some of these push-up progressions. Search the same phrase but just with a different exercise and you will begin to get a good overview of progression models for dips, pull ups and chin ups.

Calisthenics Workout Program : Lower Body Day

The lower body day is as follows:

  • 4 sets of pistol squats
  • 4 sets of walking lunges
  • 4 sets of a 20 second sprint or 40 yard dash

Perform every exercise for as many reps as you can, and make sure to do them in the order given, its designed from the hardest exercise to the easiest.

For the pistol squats, you probably won’t be able to do them straight away, that’s fine. Go ahead and google search “pistol squat progression” and you will get an idea of where to start and how to progress from there, alternatively you can follow this Pistol Squat progression guide.

If You Have Enjoyed This Article…

Thanks for taking the time to read this calisthenics workout program guys! I appreciate Dave for giving me the opportunity to contribute to mpcalisthenics.com.

If you have enjoyed and resonated with my content then I would encourage you to check out my website realhomeworkout.com, where I regularly post articles on all things calisthenics.

Between realhomeworkout.com and mpcalisthenics.com, I’m sure you will take your calisthenics knowledge to a new level that will help you transform your body and your life.

Here are a few of my top articles:

If you have any questions regarding this calisthenics workout program then leave a comment below and we will try and answer as soon as we can. Thanks for reading!

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