Although calisthenics — a type of strength training that utilizes one’s body weight — is not taught in our P.E. classes, it is an activity enjoyed by students and teachers here alike.
Calisthenics is a fancy word for gymnastics, P.E. teacher Randy Redic said. Redic has done calisthenics his entire life, he said.
“It’s a good way to maintain a certain level of fitness, especially one that revolves around moving your own body weight,” Redic said. “It’s always a good workout. It’s just a good measure of strength, relative wise.”
Redic picked up calisthenics through doing lots of martial arts like Taekwondo and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) while growing up, he said.
“Some of our conditioning (for martial arts) involved a lot of push-ups, squats, pull-ups,” Redic said. “I guess that was like my introduction to calisthenics. And then from there, I got into CrossFit, and there’s more gymnastics introduced, like muscle-ups, dips.”
Freshman Axel Lopez has pursued calisthenics for about seven months, roughly since the start of the school year, he said.
“I tried doing a lot of different sports, but none of them really worked or really caught my interest, except calisthenics,” Lopez said. “Calisthenics is the one sport that I actually liked the most because it helps you train your body a lot, and stretching is a really good way to work out.”
Lopez was introduced to calisthenics by a friend who had been doing it since 8th grade, he said. From then on, he taught himself calisthenics and has encouraged other students to try it as well, he added.
“In my P.E. class, there are three people that I’ve actually been teaching calisthenics to,” Lopez said. “I’ve taught them how to do handstand push-ups … One of the people that I’m teaching already learned how to do a one-arm handstand against the wall.”
Redic has taught calisthenic techniques to his students before, like muscle-ups and front levels, he said.
“Usually, for demonstrations, I’ll have some (resistance) bands,” Redic said. “I’ll have some bands or some type of assistance to help them (students) out. But that’s how teaching works. A lot of it is work outside of those coaching sessions.”
Redic typically trains calisthenics every day, only changing the intensity time to time, he said. He usually goes hard on his workout once a week, he added.
“All the other times it’s either something like really long duration, or just something that’s at an easy level or easy intensity every day,” Redic said. “If I were to give a specific regimen for calisthenics, you want to train whatever movements you’re working on at least three times a week. If you’re looking for faster results, then you’re going to want to go up to four or five.”
Senior Nathan Ly chose to pursue calisthenics instead of other sports because of restrictions set by his mother, like not being able to go to the gym or do sports with heavy contact, he said. Ly discovered calisthenics through social media, he added.
“I remember, I think it was online when I first got Instagram, and you see all these people doing flagpoles, muscles-ups, and stuff,” Ly said. “And I was like, ‘They get fit just from all these workouts with their own body?’ And I wanted to be like them.”
Ly also pursued calisthenics for the looks, he said. But Ly quit the activity after realizing that his body and looks weren’t everything, he added. People used to comment on Ly’s physique and ask him how he got to it, he said.
“It (his training regimen) would be 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, 50 crunches, two-minute planks, and then I do that for two times,” Ly said. “Then I would do 20 pull-ups. I would take a rest, another 20 pull-ups – pretty crazy.”
The biggest challenge in learning calisthenics is the startup, Ly said.
“You will notice that you are weak,” Ly said. “I mean, you can’t do all these things that other people do, and it will really bring you down, but as long as you keep pushing and pushing yourself, and have that motivation, you will reach all those other influencers.”
