If you don’t already know Fitenium is a free, mobile, video-based social network for athletes who train strength or bodyweight exercises. At Fitenium users can follow their performance, compete and get discounts in nutrition and sports equipment stores. Download it here.

It is quite likely that your city council has installed some strangely shaped bars and you see young boys and girls doing tricks and strange movements on said modules. It contrasts a lot to see these kids always training outdoors with life glued to a screen that has been imposed in the 21st century society. This sedentary lifestyle has harmful effects on our health, since we adopt bad postures for hours that end up causing injuries and chronic pain that significantly reduce the quality of life. Well then, what are these guys and girls doing? Very simple: Calisthenics and Street Workout.

Despite being closely related, Calisthenics and Street Workout are not exactly the same. Calisthenics is simply performing exercises using our body weight, while Street Workout adds a street element and the use of urban furniture to exercise by incorporating many Calisthenics exercises. That is, if you do Street Workout you do calisthenics but if you do Caslitenia you don’t have to be doing Street Workout.

It was in depressed areas of the United States where the Street Workout movement arose as an alternative to keep fit and have a healthy lifestyle spending little money and creating a community along the way, keeping young people away from bad habits and worse consequences. It has become very popular in Eastern European countries, where there has always been a lot of talent in sports gymnastics and Street Workout is a facelift that attracts many young heirs of Soviet sports culture.

It arrived in Spain about a decade ago and with the good weather that we enjoy, its explosion was inevitable, especially in recent years where the spectacular nature of the sport and the possibility of sharing audiovisual material on social networks has created this fever of calisthenics and street workout. that we want it to “worse” as much as possible and be very durable.

On the other hand, calisthenics has much older origins, since there are references to prescribers of this sport in France from the 18th century with works such as Clias. A., (1928) Callisthenie ou gymnastique des jeunes filles, Paris, France; although we already know that in the time of Ancient Greece the Spartan army of Alejandro Mango (yes, the one from the battle of Thermopylae known from the 300 film) already used calisthenics to exercise. If they were already this strong in 300 B.C., there is no excuse for us. In the 1960s, the Canadian army modernized the discipline with the launch of its famous 5BX (5 Basic Exercises) that became popular worldwide, being translated into more than twenty languages and is still popular today.

As a result of this explosion of Street Workout practitioners and taking into account that calisthenics have a tendency to organize themselves into training groups, federations such as the Spanish Federation of Street Workout and Calisthenics and the Spanish Organization of Street Workout and Calisthenics of this discipline that are organized to create leagues and championships at the national level and whose objective is to professionalize the sport as soon as possible to raise the level of athletes and compete internationally. Thanks to social networks and sponsors, there are already recognized figures in the world such as Sergio Ordóñez or Javi Ales.

The modalities of competition in Street Workout are the following:

• Freestyle: where the athlete has a defined time to perform the most difficult and spectacular maneuvers combining basic, static and dynamic maneuvers that will be scored by a jury.
• Workout Style: a variant of the previous category in which the athlete must do a “choreography” in which their maneuvers are mixed with the music and not only their difficulty and spectacularity are valued, but also their fusion with the musical rhythm.
• Resistance: it seeks to do a routine of calisthenics exercises, normally basic, in the shortest time and with the best possible technique.
• Tension: consists of maintaining an isometric position such as planks or levers for as long as possible.
• Strength: Although some people do not consider it “pure” when using weights to part of the body, in these competitions it is sought to perform the required exercise with the greatest weight possible.

In Spain, at the national level, the Spanish National Championship stands out, which the Spanish Federation has been organizing since 2015 and at the international level, it has positioned itself with the Battle of the Bars in 2015 and 2017 framed within an entire Arnold Classic Europe.

Why has Street Workout become so popular?

There are many reasons why the Street Workout has come to stay but they could be summarized in the following.

• Material: hardly any material is needed to start training Street Workout, not to say that when you start you don’t need anything. By going to your nearest park you can start with pull-ups, funds and other basics, and there are even many routines that you can do at home with absolutely no material.
• Spectacularity: it must be recognized that many of the Street Workout maneuvers are spectacular. Just like other urban sports like skateboarding or parkour, they are very impressive and attractive to everyone who sees them.
• Universality: Although it is more popular among young people, the street workout is accessible to people of any gender and age.
• Aesthetics: in calisthenics or street workout, the percentage of fat is very important when it comes to progress, since the more “useless” weight we have to move, the less access to advanced movements we will have. This is why calisthenics usually have a very good body composition and very aesthetic physiques.
• Calorie Burn: Street Workout routines are usually quite dynamic and burn very high calories.
• Transfer: the movement patterns of calisthenics or street workout transfer very well to other disciplines such as Crossfit or weight lifting.
• Variety: standard gym routines usually have a limited number of exercises, however calisthenics invites you to “unlock” new exercises by making each routine different.
• Physical benefits: when you perform calisthenics you will obtain improvements in many physical abilities: strength, resistance, flexibility, proprioception, balance… that will affect your physical condition and health.

However, being objective there are also some disadvantages of Street Workout compared to other disciplines and the most common criticisms are the following:

• Beginners: At the beginning, although you can always start practicing, the initial range of exercises for a person who is not in shape is frankly limited.
• Measurement: measuring the progress of some exercises in calisthenics or street workout is complicated since often the difficulty or beauty of the exercises is subjective.
• Injuries: dynamic exercises, as they require a lot of power, have a higher percentage of injuries per thousand hours than other disciplines that involve exogenous weights.
• Injuries: dynamic exercises, as they require a lot of power, have a higher percentage of injuries per thousand hours than other disciplines that involve exogenous weights.
• Leg: Many calisthenics will hate me for this but, although you can train legs intensely, it would be blind to deny that most calisthenics don’t even train legs and those who do, it is with a much lower intensity. Our legs are used to carrying our weight by now and doing bodyweight squats doesn’t create nearly the same stimulus to our quads as doing pull-ups to our upper back.

conclusions

With their pros and cons, both disciplines are becoming more and more popular among our youth and we love that it is so. Find your nearest park and the calisthenics of the area will be happy to introduce you to this discipline since the community is one of the pillars of Streetworkout, let’s not forget that its origin is in the poor neighborhoods of New York where Street Workout was the tool to escape addictions and bad company among the neighborhood’s Afro-American community.

Do you want to share your Calisthenics and Street Workout exercises? Join Fitenium, share your workouts with our community and you will have access to exclusive discounts and promotions.

If you don’t already know Fitenium is a free, mobile, video-based social network for athletes who train strength or bodyweight exercises. At Fitenium users can follow their performance, compete and get discounts in nutrition and sports equipment stores. Download it here.

Being calisthenics and street workout the fitness phenomenon that most attracts young people to physical exercise (replacing the Crossfit?) and being quite focused on young people and millennials, it seems quite reasonable that a whole generation of influencers specialized in this sport has emerged and have become extremely popular among bar users. In this article we will briefly talk about the most popular ones, their specialty and how they got to where they are. Without further ado we go with the list that does not have a specific order.

Buff Academy: Youtube – Instagram – Facebook

Vadym Cavalera has starred in one of the most curious stories in this world that has led him to travel half the world. Born in Ukraine, he spent his entire life in the ex-Soviet country until he came of age, although since he was 12 years old he was already training basics in the park of his hometown, obviously conditioned by the cold of that area. At the age of 18, he emigrated to New York, where he continued his outdoor training on scaffolding and construction sites in his neighborhood, but again he was conditioned by the cold and when winter came he signed up for the gym, which demotivated him greatly since What he liked was training outdoors and doing functional exercises.

After coming into contact with various training groups that opened his eyes to the possibilities of Calisthenics and Street Workout, he came to the conclusion that his progress was impaired by weather conditions that did not allow him to train as much as he could. would like. That is why in 2014 he moved to Colombia where he could train practically any day due to the privileged weather in that area. Bodyweight training became more important in his life and he opened his different Social Media accounts and his YouTube channel.

We all know that his channel is a success and is close to reaching 2 million subscribers, he has also created his portal where you can see more content and buy his training methods.

NordinWORKOUT: Youtube – Instagram – Facebook

Nordin is one of the referents of Calisthenics and Streetworkout in Spain thanks to his ability to communicate and teach, like Vadym, he does not practice in his country of birth, since Nordin comes from Morocco but has lived in Spain for many years. Like many other young people, he started calisthenics almost by chance, falling for some triple slap push-ups he saw when he couldn’t barely do push-ups.

He was one of the first Spaniards to approach calisthenics competitively, which is why in one of his first championships he finished fifth in Spain, traveling to Russia to compete internationally. There he was able to meet some of his calisthenics idols and he thought he could take advantage and interview them and upload it to YouTube. From there, he realized that he could contribute a lot of content in the form of tutorials, training, etc… Over time, his channel has undergone many changes, going towards mainly entertainment content, through collaborations with famous Youtubers such as The Fitness Boy or trying other disciplines like Crossfit, MMA or Parkour.

In addition to his facet as a Youtuber, Nordin has worked a lot behind the scenes as an organizer and businessman. President of the Spanish Calisthenics Federation, he has promoted Calisthenics competitions throughout Spain. He has also made his first steps in the business world with his sponsorships, personal website and other collaborations. You can hire Nordin to give you advice to optimize your progress in Calisthenics.

Kass Calistenia: Youtube – Instagram – Facebook

Kevin is a calisthenics who, like many others, began by sharing his progress and tips in calisthenics with his friends with his training group and it was his friends who encouraged him to open his channel in 2015 in a very amateur way. KASS Calisthenics was born with the initials of his first and last name and he began to upload his training routines and tips to improve both muscle mass and fat loss.

KASS began on vacation to train “bars” in his own home, going completely crazy and without worrying about technique or overtraining, he ended up suffering several shoulder and elbow injuries based on doing pull-ups every day with a lot of volume. After being more or less recovered, he signed up for the gym with his brother, even without being well informed, and he had various back injuries due to not training correctly.

While he initially had certain aesthetic goals, Kevin currently focuses primarily on controlling his body in a balanced manner, he doesn’t focus much on freestyle but instead is focused on maintaining a balanced progress in both pull and push. You can contact him to advise you and enjoy all the free content that he offers us on his networks.

Yerai Streetworkout: Youtube – Instagram – Facebook

From the Canary Islands comes Yerai, probably the most charismatic calisthenic of the networks. From a very young age he practiced various sports, mainly swimming, but he could not dedicate all the necessary time to it since he combined it with other types of non-sports activities. He wasn’t the best swimmer in his club but at least he played sports regularly. This changed when he gave up swimming and his other hobby, video games, took up most of his time. After being addicted for a while, he did not feel completely comfortable and developed some postural problems, so the following summer he decided to start doing push-ups and sit-ups every day in the town where he spent the summer.

When he returned to his place of residence, he also began to run next door to his house and it was there that he discovered the pull-up and parallel bars. Starting at a fairly low level of strength, he spent several years progressing by adding pull-ups and dips. He got a little bored with the same exercises and was trying team disciplines like soccer or basketball. Despite the boredom, he continued training and one day in the park a friend showed him the mythical video of Hannibal for King, that’s when he discovered the possibilities offered by calisthenics.

With this boost of motivation, he created his YouTube channel and his No Gravity training community, where he shared his progress and ideas with a growing community of calisthenics. By gaining credibility among calisthenics, he began to upload his famous tutorials and educational content along with his dose of humor, becoming very popular on Spanish-speaking YouTube. He has also cultivated his competitive facet by winning the Canary Islands Street Workout and business championship, capturing his knowledge in his Guide to Calisthenics and Streetworkout and later creating his own calisthenics training app called Calisteniapp.

Eryc Ortiz: Youtube – Instagram – Facebook

This Franco-Colombian athlete is a reference in competitive Street Workout worldwide along with people like Daniel Laizans, Vadym Oleynik or Andrea Larosa, becoming world champion on several occasions. It is curious to know that he began to train street workout after having become very weak and thin after going through hepatitis.

Even though he was born and considers himself 100% Colombian, he grew up in Lyon and that is where he learned about Street Workout (which is why he represents the French country in international competitions), as we mentioned, to gain muscle after overcoming an illness. Soon he began to stand out and win competitions until he was a double world champion. Ironically, while he was winning so many championships, he had financial problems and had to earn a living with small jobs.

That changed when he moved to Dubai and began working as a coach at the Gravity Gym calisthenics gym, from there and with renewed economic stability he is already planning his return to competitions.