Congratulations! You have reached the intermediate level. If you started here, that is great for you. There is no shame in an intermediate level of stamina, just as there is no shame in a beginner level either. The important thing is that you have a desire to better yourself and your body.
This level is a little bit harder, so make sure that you truly are up for it. There will be more exercises, and the reps will be more and longer. You also have to make sure that you allot more time to doing your exercises. Twenty to thirty minutes is advised to give you plenty of time to do your stretches, and rest occasionally along with doing your exercises. If you have more time, you can also allot for some cardio as well.
The intermediate level is for people who have a little bit of workout history, and who are in good enough shape to do 25 pushups and 30 chin ups. There is no time limit on these, but you must be able to do at least that many reps to be considered an intermediate level participant. Once you have reached this level, make sure that you can do this many without wanting to quit for the day as well, because there are a lot more exercises to do as well.
Stretches
As you are doing more reps and holding them longer, you are going to need some more in depth stretches. Follow the beginner stretching regiment, and hold each stretch for five seconds longer. You will also want to do these stretches as well.
Side Bends
This stretch helps stretch the muscles that run along the sides of your body, as you will be using these more.
Take your left arm, and raise it high above your head, and then lean over as if you are trying to touch the floor with your raised hand. Make sure your hand stays above your head as it curves like a delicate swan, fingers pointing towards the ground. Repeat with your right arm. Hold each bend for thirty seconds, and do three reps.
Cat Stretch This stretches almost every muscle in your body. Great for an all-over workout.
Start on your stomach with your body flat against the mat, even your nose. Place your arms on either side of you with your palms flat against the mat, shoulders back, elbows creating a 90-degree angle from your body to the floor. Push your torso up and back as far as it will go, while simultaneously pushing your legs into the mat as hard as you can. Hold for thirty seconds. Do three reps.
If you have time after stretches, go for a ten-minute cardio run. The Plan
Now that you have had some time to get used to working out with calisthenics and you have mastered some of the basics that come in the beginner’s plan, it is time to move on to something that is a bit more challenging. If the idea of going intermediate scares you, don’t worry about it. This simply means that you will change up the routine a bit, try some things that are a bit harder so that you can see more results. If you loved some of the results that you got in your first month, you are going to really love what can happen in your body when you move on to this stage.
We are going to stick with this stage for the next two months, or a bit longer if you feel that you need it for the results. We will have four days of working out with three days in between since the muscles are more used to the work and it still gives you some time to take a rest and to even stretch out a little bit to help the muscles. You don’t want to work out on these kinds of things each day because that can result in many injuries.
Remember that this section is going to be more challenging than what you did in the previous one, but if you were able to master some of those exercises, this shouldn’t be a big issue for you to try out. You will want to take breaks when you need and work on the program in a way that helps you to get the results that you want without causing injury. We will give some recommendations on break times and so on, but take some longer breaks or split up the cycles if you need to make things easier. So now let’s get to doing some of the intermediate exercises so that you can get the results that you are looking for.
Contents
Day 1 Workout
This level of exercises is a little bit tougher, follow along, and don’t be alarmed at the newly introduced exercises. Now that you have moved into something that is a bit more advanced, it is time to work more on getting the harder moves down so you can really see some of the results that you are looking for. Remember that this section should be a bit more of a challenge to you to complete compared to the beginner, but this is a good thing because it allows you to get the muscles a bit stronger than before. Here is the workout that you should follow when you are ready to start building upon what you learned in the first session so you can see even better results.
You will want to go through this workout every other day starting on Monday through Sunday, taking a rest day in between. This is the basic intermediate that will get you warmed up and help you to see some results. We will then move on to a different workout program for week 2, or you can stay on this one for two weeks if you plan to spread this out into 2 months. The workouts that you should do for this workouts are a bit harder than before so you may need to take your time and try them out a few times before doing the full workout. Over time, you are going to get so much stronger and will be able to do three or more cycles of all the workouts without needing to take the long breaks or feeling like you will never be able to finish. You are only in competition with yourself so as long as you see improvements in what you are doing, regardless of how other people are doing, then you are going to see the results that you want out of your calisthenics program. Just keep working hard, trying new things, and working out that body, and you will be happy with the results.
Advanced Workout Plan
If you are here immediately, chances are you are just looking to supplement on your days off a more rigorous exercise plan. That is great! If you worked your way here from beginner or intermediate, congratulations! This is obviously the hardest level, and will have ten exercises with rigorous reps, and will take your full hour to do. You are an expert if you can do fifty push-ups and sixty chin-ups.
Stretches
Combine the intermediate level stretches, and the beginner level stretches, and add two more reps to each one. You can also go find more intense yoga poses online if you feel you need more muscle release than these give you.
If you have more than an hour to spare, you can go on a twenty-minute cardio run.
Workout Day 1
This is the fun part! More reps! More exercises! More of everything! Are you ready to really feel the burn? Well let’s begin, shall we?
Walking Wall Squats
This is just like the regular wall squat, except you step sideways into the next squat, propelling you further along the wall. Do thirty squats, and hold each squat for thirty-five seconds.
Chin ups Do sixty reps. Turn your hands the other way and do forty more.
Rest one minute
Walking lunges Hold each lunge for thirty seconds, do thirty reps Push-Ups
Do fifty push-ups, you can do more if you would like, timed or untimed. Track your progress over time.
Rest one minute
Bicycle Crunches
Do thirty reps.
Jumping Jacks
Do as many as you can in five minutes. Track your progress. Rest one minute
Cross Body Sit- Ups
Unlike a normal sit-up, you take your elbow all the way up to the opposite knee. So, your right arm would meet your left knee, and your left arm would meet your right knee. One rep is after you have done two sit-ups, one for each knee. Do thirty reps.
Squats
Do thirty reps, holding each for thirty seconds.
Rest one minute
Sit-Ups
Do as many as you can in a minute, track your progress. Lunges
Thirty reps, holding each for thirty seconds.
Rest one minute
Repeat stretches to loosen up your muscles and relax. Day 2 Workout
This is going to be a rest day. You should make sure that you take this day off and just relax a little bit. If you are a beginner, you don’t want to push yourself too far or your muscles are going to get sore and you may cause some injury to yourself. If you feel like doing some light stretching on this day to alleviate some of the muscle tension and to increase flexibility for later on, go ahead and do this, but be careful not to strain yourself. When you are a beginner, you want to make sure that you are giving your muscles the break that they need to be strong and to ensure that they are not going to overdo it.
Day 3 Workout
Now it is time to move on to the second day of working out in the advanced part of your calisthenics. By this point, you have had a chance to do some of the workouts that are expected when you are doing the advanced stuff, but we are going to take it a bit further now. The exercises that you will need to do on this day includes:
– Diamond push-ups: for this one, you will want to do 30 reps for each cycle.
– Leg raises: for this one you will want to do 30 reps for each cycle.
– One arm push up: for this one, you will want to do 30 reps on each arm for each cycle.
– Plank: hold this one for as long as you can before moving on, but preferably 30 seconds or longer.
– Dips on a straight bar: you will want to do 30 reps of this for each cycle.
– Chin ups: you will want to do 30 reps of this for each cycle.
In between each of the exercises, you should not take any rests and should just go from one of the workouts over to the next one. If it takes a few seconds to switch between the workouts, that is fine, but try not to rest unless you really need to. This workout requires 3 cycles and you are able to take a 3 minute rest in between each of the cycles that you are working on before you move on.
Day 4 Workout
This is going to be a rest day. You should make sure that you take this day off and just relax a little bit. If you are a beginner, you don’t want to push yourself too far or your muscles are going to get sore and you may cause some injury to yourself. If you feel like doing some light stretching on this day to alleviate some of the muscle tension and to increase flexibility for later on, go ahead and do this, but be careful not to strain yourself. When you are a beginner, you want to make sure that you are giving your muscles the break that they need to be strong and to ensure that they are not going to overdo it.
Day 5 Workout
This workout is going to be a great one to work with on a day that you have a lot of free time and you really want to go strong. You are going to do three sets of each workout and then take a short break before moving on to the next one, and then do this for five rounds for the best results. If you don’t have the time to get it all done at
once, it is fine to split it up during the day to get the results that you want. Some of the exercises that you are able to do to get your full body in this workout include:
– Push-ups: you should do as many reps of the pushups as you can, take a 90 second break, and repeat for three sets.
– Chin ups: you should do as many reps of the chin ups as you can, take a 90 second break, and then repeat for three sets.
– Single leg squats: you should do the max reps that you can on each leg, take a 90 second break, and then repeat for three sets.
– Bench dips: you will want to do as many reps of the bench dips as you can, take a 90 second break, and then repeat for two sets.
– Glute and hamstring raises: you will want to do as many reps of these as you can, take a 90 second break, and then repeat for 3 sets.
– Calf raises: you will want to do as many of the calf raises as you can on each leg, take a 90 second break, and then repeat for 3 sets.
– Handstand push-ups: you will want to do as many of these handstand push—ups as you can, take a 90 second break, and then repeat for 3 sets.
– Crunches: you will want to do 25 reps of the crunches, take a 90 second break, and repeat for 5 sets.
When you are done with one of the rounds, take a break for three minutes. Once you have had your break, you can go through this full body workout again. It is recommended that you go through five rounds of this one if possible, but try to go through it at least two or three times and then build up from there.
Day 6 Workout
This is going to be a rest day. You should make sure that you take this day off and just relax a little bit. If you are a beginner, you don’t want to push yourself too far or your muscles are going to get sore and you may cause some injury to yourself. If you feel like doing some light stretching on this day to alleviate some of the muscle tension and to increase flexibility for later on, go ahead and do this, but be careful not to strain yourself. When you are a beginner, you want to make sure that you are giving your muscles the break that they need to be strong and to ensure that they are not going to overdo it.
Day 7 Workout
This is going to be a rest day. You should make sure that you take this day off and just relax a little bit. If you are a beginner, you don’t want to push yourself too far or your muscles are going to get sore and you may cause some injury to yourself. If you feel like doing some light stretching on this day to alleviate some of the muscle tension and to increase flexibility for later on, go ahead and do this, but be careful not to strain yourself. When you are a beginner, you want to make sure that you are giving your muscles the break that they need to be strong and to ensure that they are not going to overdo it.
The workout plan above is an advanced option of working out with calisthenics and while you should be a bit more prepared for some of the work thanks to working on the beginner and the intermediate plan, it is still going to take some hard effort. You are really going to see some good results when you are working on this program. If you find that the work is hard, take it slow and just do what you are able to handle. You will get better at it and will be able to finish the workouts with some hard work and practice, just as long as you listen to your body and keep on trying no matter what.
