Choose your level, target muscles and equipment to discover exercises.
The 90 degree push up is an advanced calisthenics skill that combines a freestanding handstand with the strength of a bent-arm planche. You start in a handstand, lower your entire body towards a horizontal position, and then press all the way back up without letting your feet touch the ground. It requires serious pushing strength, balance, and body control, making it one of the hardest push up variations in calisthenics.
The Advanced Tuck Planche is a straight-arm Planche progression where the knees remain bent but move farther away from the chest, opening the hips and creating a flatter back. This longer lever makes it significantly more demanding than the basic Tuck Planche and prepares you for the Straddle Planche.
The archer pull up is an uneven pull up variation where you pull your body towards one hand while the opposite arm extends along the bar. This shifts much more of the work onto one side and develops the unilateral pulling strength needed for harder skills such as the one arm pull up. It is a natural progression once regular pull ups are strong and controlled.
The Archer Push Up is an intermediate unilateral pushing exercise performed with a wide hand position. By bending one arm while keeping the opposite arm nearly straight, the athlete shifts most of the bodyweight towards the working side. It develops chest, shoulder, and triceps strength while preparing the body for the One Arm Push Up.
The Australian pull up, also known as an inverted row, is a beginner-friendly pulling exercise where you hang underneath a low bar and pull your chest towards it while keeping your feet on the ground. It builds back and arm strength without requiring you to lift your entire bodyweight, making it a great stepping stone towards regular pull ups.
The back lever is an advanced static calisthenics skill where you hold your entire body horizontally underneath a bar or rings with your arms completely straight and your body facing the floor. It requires strong shoulders and arms, solid shoulder extension, and enough full-body tension to keep your hips and legs from dropping.
The back lever pull up is an advanced pulling exercise performed while holding your body horizontally underneath a bar or rings. Starting from a full back lever, you bend your elbows and pull your body towards the bar without losing your straight body line, then lower back to straight arms. It combines the full-body control of a back lever with demanding bent-arm pulling strength.
The back lever on rings is an advanced static skill where you hold your entire body horizontally underneath the rings with your arms straight and your body facing the floor. It requires strong shoulders, biceps, back, and full-body tension while your arms support your weight behind your torso. The freedom of the rings allows your hands to rotate naturally, but also requires you to control each ring independently.
The Bear Crawl is a beginner dynamic bodyweight exercise performed by moving forwards on the hands and feet while keeping the knees slightly elevated above the floor. It develops core stability, shoulder endurance, coordination, and full-body control through alternating contralateral movements.
The bent arm planche is an advanced static pushing skill where you hold your entire body horizontally above the ground with your elbows bent. Unlike an elbow lever, your torso does not rest on your arms: your shoulders, chest, and triceps actively support your body while your core keeps you horizontal. It is an important position for skills such as the 90 degree push up and planche push ups.
Broad jumps are an explosive lower-body exercise where you jump forward as far as you can and land under control. Also known as standing long jumps, they train your ability to produce force quickly through your hips and legs while teaching you to absorb that force safely when you land. They are simple to learn, require no equipment, and are a great introduction to horizontal plyometrics.
The Bulgarian squat, also known as the Bulgarian split squat, is a single-leg exercise performed with your rear foot elevated on a bench or similar surface. Most of the work comes from the front leg while the rear leg helps with balance. It is a great way to build strong quads and glutes while improving unilateral strength, stability, and control.
Burpees are a full-body conditioning exercise that combines a squat, a transition to plank, a return to the feet, and an explosive vertical jump. They challenge cardiovascular fitness, coordination, lower-body power, and the ability to repeatedly move between standing and floor positions.
The Butterfly is an elite gymnastics rings strength element where the athlete rises from a dead hang through an Iron Cross and continues pressing until reaching a stable support above the rings. The entire movement is performed with straight arms, combining powerful straight-arm pulling and pressing strength through a very large range of motion.
The Caruso is an elite straight-arm rings strength movement where the athlete pulls from a Front Lever into a Victorian Cross. The body rises while remaining horizontal as the straight arms travel from an overhead Front Lever position towards the wide Victorian position beside the body.
Grip the bar slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, engage your core, and pull yourself up until your chest touches the bar, then lower yourself with control. Start with regular pull-ups or assisted chest-to-bar pull-ups to build strength, gradually increasing repetitions while maintaining proper form. Once you can perform 10–12 clean reps, add extra weight or progress to explosive chest-to-bar pull-ups to increase difficulty and develop upper-body strength.
The clapping push up is an explosive variation of the regular push up where you push with enough force to lift your hands off the floor and clap before landing. Instead of focusing only on strength or endurance, this exercise teaches you to produce force quickly. It is a great introduction to explosive calisthenics and a useful progression towards more advanced plyometric push up variations.
The Close To Impossible, or CTI, is an elite straight-arm bar hold where the arms remain approximately parallel to the ground while the body extends downward at an oblique angle. The position creates an extreme leverage challenge through the shoulders, back, forearms, wrists, and grip.
The Clutch Flag is a static calisthenics hold performed against a vertical pole, where the athlete uses a clutch-style arm position to support the body horizontally. Strong lateral core tension and upper-body stability are required to keep the torso and legs extended parallel to the ground.
The commando pull up is a pull up variation performed sideways underneath the bar with one hand placed in front of the other. Instead of pulling straight up behind the bar, you bring your head to one side of it and alternate sides between reps. The unusual grip challenges your back, biceps, forearms, and core while adding a new coordination and stability challenge to the regular pull up.