Is Calisthenics Better Than Cardio?

Depending on which calisthenics and aerobic exercises you choose and how you do them, calisthenics can be a better choice than traditional, low-resistance cardiovascular workouts for calorie burning and overall fitness. By using a moderate amount of resistance during calisthenics workouts, you can create cardio routines that don’t make you choose between one exercise method and the other.

Exercise that raises your heart rate approximately 50 percent to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate for 15 minutes or longer is aerobic. Many people refer to exercise that puts you at an intensity similar to a jogging pace for 30 minutes or longer as cardio exercise. Using heavy weights or performing high-resistance exercises, such as pushups or pullups, causes muscle fatigue that might exhaust you to the point you won’t be able to continue exercising for half an hour or longer. Low-resistance exercises and lighter weights are best for cardio workouts.

Calisthenics are exercises that use your body’s weight to create resistance. These exercises require little or no equipment and include movements such as situps, crunches, chinups, jumping jacks, skipping rope, butt kicks, cross-body toe touches, burpees and mountain climbers. Performed slowly, they require more muscle use and help build muscle. Performed quickly, they require less muscular intensity to perform and let you burn more calories with longer workouts.

A cardio workout that includes resistance burns more calories per hour than a low-resistance aerobic workout, helps build muscle and creates a longer post-calorie workout burn. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, vigorous calisthenics burn more calories than many common cardio workouts, such as a stationary bike, stair stepper, rowing machine or aerobics routines. Using too much resistance during a cardio routine might fatigue your muscle to failure, requiring frequent breaks, causing you to end the workout early. Examples of low-resistance cardio workouts include swimming, walking or running, cycling at a low gear setting, using an elliptical with no arm poles and aerobic dancing. A cardio workout that includes high-resistance exercises, such as pullups and pushups, works your entire body, and is better for improving fitness than using a machine that only works your legs or other low-impact workouts. If you create a cardio routine using only low-resistance calisthenics, such as jumping jacks or butt kicks, you might not see much difference between this type of workout and an aerobic dancing routine.

To create an optimal workout using calisthenics and aerobics, alternate low- and high-resistance body-weight exercises during the course of a workout, performing each exercise for 60 to 90 seconds with a quick recovery break after each. Perform the exercises using rapid arm and leg movements to let gravity and momentum to assist you and take some of the burden off your muscles. For example, start with jogging in place for 90 seconds, take a 15- to 30-second break, then perform pushups for 60 seconds. After a short break, do jump squats for 90 seconds, recover, then do crunches for 60 seconds. The key is to find an intensity for each exercise that keeps you breathing hard and that doesn’t require a long recovery after one minute.