Home / Guides / Calisthenics Program
How to Build a Calisthenics Program
Calisthenics programming has two halves that want different things. Strength work (push-ups, pull-ups, dips, pistols) progresses like any lifting program. Skill work (the planche, levers, the handstand) progresses by earning harder positions, and it has to be practiced fresh, not ground out. A good program feeds both without letting either starve the other.
Structure the strength half like a lifting program
Bodyweight strength still obeys progressive overload; the load just comes from leverage instead of plates. A push, pull, legs split at three days, or upper/lower at two, covers it, with each day anchored by the hardest variation you own for quality reps: dips or push-up variations for push, pull-up variations for pull, pistols and split squats for legs. Progress by moving to a harder variation when the current one gets comfortable, or by adding reps and sets to the one you have. Bands, rings, and parallettes extend the ladder in both directions, easier (band-assisted chin-ups) and harder (ring dips, deficit work).
Progress skills by rungs, not reps
Every headline skill is a ladder of positions. The planche runs from the lean through tuck, advanced tuck, straddle, to full; the front and back levers run tuck to full through the same shapes; the handstand goes wall-supported, chest-to-wall, freestanding. The programming rule is the same for all of them: train the hardest rung you can hold with clean form, accumulate quality time at it, and move up one rung when it stops being a challenge. Jumping rungs teaches bent-armed, sagging versions of a skill that take longer to unlearn than the slow road would have taken.
Program holds in seconds, and practice fresh
Timed holds are dosed in short, crisp sets, several sets of 5 to 15 seconds, stopping each one before the shape breaks, rather than one long degrading max hold. And unlike strength work, skill practice does not wave up in intensity week over week: it is a steady dose of quality attempts, done early in the session while the nervous system is fresh. Skill-first ordering matters more than most programming details; five minutes of crisp handstand practice before pushing beats twenty minutes of tired kicking after.
Track holds like lifts
Progress in calisthenics is measured in seconds held and rungs climbed, so your log has to capture both. A best tuck-planche hold going 8 to 20 seconds over a block is a PR as real as a deadlift single, and it is the signal that the next rung is ready. If your tracking cannot represent a timed hold, the skill half of your training is invisible.
Doing it in Ægir Iron
The Program Wizard has a dedicated calisthenics step: pick up to three skills (planche, front lever, back lever, handstand, muscle-up, one-arm chin-up, L-sit, pistol squat) and the program adds practice for each at a rung matched to your experience, never above it, with holds prescribed in seconds. A balance control sets whether skill practice stays on a dedicated day, mixes onto matching days, or opens every session. Programs are bodyweight by design, and rings, parallettes, and bands count as equipment. Time-based PRs track your best holds per variation, and the Skills page shows each progression family as a ladder so you can see the next rung. Prefer a template? Beginner through Advanced Calisthenics are ready to load.