Guys want to get big biceps, and girls want to get toned arms. With a calisthenics arm workout you can get both 🙂
Before we zoom in on specific bodyweight arm exercises, I would like to stress the important of training the complete body. Therefore, if you not all ready have a full-body workout routine you are more than welcome to try one of these I have right here.
Ok, now back to what you came for. You want to have strong arms, so lets get on the same page so we know what we are talking about when we talk arms and the muscles to address.
We will focus on three areas in this article.
Biceps
Triceps
Forearm
Of course the arm consist of more muscle groups, but these are the major ones and we will hit the other ones as well.
I have been writing several articles about other focus areas like abs, legs, chest, etc., and I will use the same template, that means we will cover:
Exercises
Progression
A calisthenics arm workout for beginners, intermediate, and advanced.
Bear crawl is one of my favourite exercises and especially for beginners. It’s excellent to develop strength and a natural movement pattern.
To be honest, the Bear Crawl is a full body exercise, but if we do it with bent legs and arms, we will get a good focus on the complete arm. So, the Bear Crawl is where we start.
Push-ups
Push-ups is the favourite exercise of most guys without a gym, and there is a good reason for that. They are excellent at developing the arms and chest. But, as we want to focus on the arms in this article we need to select the right kind of push-ups.
Standard push-ups will be fine for the beginner, and you can even do them on your knees if the standard is too hard.
Diamond push-ups are harder than normal push-ups and will put more focus on the triceps than normal push-ups. To perform them simply put your hands close together and let the fingertips touch each other so they make a diamond shape. As with normal push-ups, these can also be performed on your knees.
Sphinx push-ups really focus on the triceps. The placement of the arms will change the intensity. Also, these can be done on your knees.
To make the push-ups harder we can elevate the legs or simply slow them down, but I will get back to that later on.
Handstand push-ups has a lot of shoulders involved, but also a good portion of triceps.
Pike push-ups can be an alternative if the Handstand push-ups are too hard.
Dips
We continue with the focus on triceps, and for that dips are great. Make sure to keep the body vertical so the focus stays on the triceps and not on the chest.
Bench dips is where we start, and if they are still hard we can tuck the legs to make them easier. Then, slowly extend your legs more and more until fully extended. When you can do 15 repetitions with legs fully extended, it’s time to try standard dips. Another option could be to elevate the feet.
Standard dipsare performed on a dip station or parallel bars. With full range of motion and elbows close to your body, you simply dip down and then fully extend your arms. When you can do 10 of those, move on to ring dips.
Ring dipswill require more strength. As you need to stabilise in different directions they will be more demanding. Form should be like standard dips, but in the top you want to externally rotate your arms so you get a good shoulder position.
Moving on, we will look at exercises that focus on biceps.
Pulls
Pulls are where we work on our biceps. However, as with the push-ups, we need to select the right ones in order to get as much focus as possible on the biceps.
Horizontal pull-ups with supinated grip, meaning where palms faces the body. This will give a lot of focus on the biceps. Adjust the intensity by changing the angle of your body when your arms are fully extended. The more horizontal your body is, the harder they will be. You can even elevate your feet to make them harder.
A bar placed in a rack, a table, two stools with a broom across the backrest, hanging rings, or a TRX strap will work fine.
When you can do 5-10 with feet elevated, then move on to chin-ups.
Chin-ups are next level, and this is where you pull your body upward until the chin is over the bar.
For progression, start with horizontal pull-ups, then do negative chin-ups where you jump up until the chin is over the bar and then lower yourself slowly. Using a rubber band for support is also a good choice.
When you can do 15 with good form, start to work on archer chin-ups.
With as wide a grip as possible, place on hand on the top of the bar and the other hand in a normal chin-up grip, meaning supinated grip. Now pull with the hand holding the normal grip but support with the other hand as needed.
When this starts to become easy then simply start to practice chin-ups with one arm only.
Now we have covered the big guys, but how about the forearm?
To be honest, by doing the pulls and some of the push ups, you have covered the forearms very well. Hanging from the bar and pull-ups where you have some movement in the wrist will develop the forearms.
However, lets just add a single exercise.
Dead hang might be the place you start before going in to horizontal pull-ups & chin-ups. The exercise is straight forward. You simply hang in your arms from a bar or something else you grip on to. This is of course a prerequisite for any kind of pulls, and when doing whichever pull, you will train this as well.
To progress, you can select different objects to hang on to or just do dead hang with one arm.
Progression
We briefly touched upon progression for some of the exercises above. I can’t stress hard enough the importance of starting out right and then progressing correctly. I actually dare to say that this is why 80% fail, and here I mean the 10% that actually continue to work out for more than 3 months.
Beside the ways I all ready mentioned, lets have a look on some more general ways to progress.
Slowing down the exercises will give more time under tension for the muscles, meaning the intensity will be harder. So, add some slowly performed exercises to your workout routine and it will be a good way to progress.
Isometric holds are closely related to the slow exercises. What we do here is simply to freeze the movement completely in a position where the muscle is under tension. With chin-ups we could pause at the top where the chin is over the bar.
As with the slowly performed exercises, this will give a lot of tension in the held position, and all the muscle fibres will have to fire at once. Often you will experience some sort of shaking which is simply the muscle that have to work so hard that they need to shut down for some time before they turn on again.
Plyometric exercises is kind of the opposite to isometric. Here we are talking of an explosive movement where we fire everything for a split second. Jumping is such a movement, but we can easily apply it to a calisthenics arm workout. For chin-ups, we simply pull as fast as possible to the bar, and for push-ups we push so hard that the upper body will elevate from the ground.
Rubber bands I already mentioned shortly. I believe they are excellent for pull exercises. I’m not saying that you should rely on them purely, but they a great for strength development, as you can go through a full range of motion for the exercise.
Calisthenics arm workout
Ok, now it’s time for the workouts. I have made three workouts: A beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
As we discussed make sure to pick up one you can handle.
Do the workouts 2-3 times a week if you only want to focus on your arms — which I wouldn’t recommend 🙂 Or do them I’m combination with your normal workout routine.
Beginner calisthenics arm workout
We focus on basic exercises to build a good strong foundation.
Select a version you can handle and do without to much resting. The amount of repetitions should be challenging but not so hard that you need to rest all the time.
A total of 4 rounds — rest 1min between exercises and 2min between rounds.
Round 1 & 3:
15 Push-ups (Do them on knees if needed)
10 Horizontal Pull-ups – Supinated grip (Select a version where you can do 10 with some effort)
10 Diamond Push-ups (Do them on knees if needed)
Round 2 & 4:
30 sec Bear Crawl
15 Bench Dips (Tuck legs as needed)
Max Horizontal pull-up hold – Supinated grip (A version where you, as a minimum, can do 10sec)
When you can do around 10 horizontal pull-ups with elevated feet and all rounds of dips with fully extended legs, then move on to intermediate level.
Intermediate calisthenics arm workout
We focus on basic exercises to build a good strong foundation.
Select a version you can handle and do without too much resting. The amount of repetitions should be challenging but not so hard that you need to rest all the time.
A total of 5 rounds — rest 1min between exercises and 2min between rounds.
Round 1 & 3:
15 Dimond push-ups (Do some of them on knees if needed)
10 Chin-ups (Do them negative or with rubber band if needed)
10 Sphinx Push-ups (Do them on knees if needed)
Round 2 & 4:
10-15 Horizontal Pull-ups with feet elevated. Supinated grip.
10 Dips (Break them up if needed)
Max Horizontal pull-up hold – Supinated grip (A version where you, as a minimum, can do 10sec)
Round 5:
Max Dead hang.
When you can do the complete routine with correct form, then move on to advanced level.
Advanced calisthenics arm workout
We focus on advance exercises as you all ready have a good strong foundation.
Select a version you can handle and do without too much resting. The amount of repetitions should be challenging but not so hard that you need to rest all the time.
A total of 6 rounds — rest 1min between exercises and 2min between rounds.
Round 1 & 4:
15 Sphinx Push-up (Explosive up & slow down)
5+5 Archer Chin-ups (Do them negative or with rubber band if needed.)
10 Handstand Push-ups or Pike Push-ups
Round 2 & 5:
+15 Horizontal pull-ups with elevated feet. Supinated grip.
10 Ring Dips
Round 3 & 6:
Max Chin-up hold in the top – Supinated grip
Continue to progress by adding more repetitions, doing them slower, longer holds, or even wearing a weight vest. Also, start to work on chin-ups with one arm.