5 Easiest Calisthenics Skills Everybody Can Learn

When people start with calisthenics, they want to progress as fast as possible. Often people set goals on advanced calisthenics skills, like for instance: planche, front lever, and human flags preferably as soon as possible. However, this is actually a big mistake a Calisthenics beginner can make. In your starting phase, you should mainly focus on getting stronger and getting comfortable with the basics of calisthenics, such as learning your first pull-up, doing push-ups, squats and dip exercises. Nevertheless, there are a few easy calisthenics skills you can learn besides your regular training. These calisthenics skills/party tricks will look impressive to everyone but are, in fact, pretty easy to do.

#1 The Elbow lever

One of the first skills I learned when I got started was the elbow planche. This exercise looks so impressive because it is very similar to the real planche. Only the elbow lever requires very little strength. The hard part is actually the balance that is needed.

Understanding the elbow lever is very easy. When you take a look at the picture, you can see the person is not really using any shoulder strength like in a real full planche. The person is just leaning on his elbows. By placing your elbows on your hips and leaning forward, your hands will be the center of mass. Now you can lift your legs, which gives this gravity-defying look.

#2 Back clap push-ups

The next calisthenics skill was, in my opinion, the coolest skill when I got started. It looks so badass and effortless when I saw people doing these explosive push-ups on youtube. But the same as with the elbow lever, the back clap push-up looks more impressive than it actually is. There is just a little trick you need to understand.

As you can see in the video, the person uses his hips to create momentum, which gives you more air-time to clap behind your back. To learn this skill, you first need to have enough mobility to clap your hands behind your back. Also, learn to do it as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you will bump your head into the ground. The next part is to be more explosive in your push motion. Practice with traditional clap push-ups. The more explosive your push, the better and easier this move will be. Lastly, focus on throwing your hips in the air as soon as you push yourself off the ground. At first, this can be a bit difficult. But after some time practicing, you will get the hang of it.

#3 The L-sit

The L-sit is one of the most basic and easiest calisthenics skills, but a skill I think every beginner should master. It builds up the needed core strength you need for a lot of other calisthenics exercises. It is called the L-sit because you basically sit in the shape of an L.

If you struggle with the L-sit hold, practice the L-sit progression with bend knees. If you get comfortable with this variation, then slow build-up to the real L-sit hold. If you are looking for more L-sit progressions, then you should consider downloading the free calisthenics app, named Thenics.

The Thenics app is nice, but has limitations. I think the progressions for the more advanced calisthenics skills are too big, which means that every harder progression is too hard. In other words: I’m missing some smaller progressions in between de exercises. For example: when learning the planche with the Thenics app you’ll progress from frog stand (level 2), immediately to the Tuck Planche (level 3). The step between these two progressions is, in my opinion, too big. However, the progressions for the L-sit is quite decent and since this calisthenics app is free, it’s a no-brainer to download this app, only for the L-sit progressions.

If you don’t want to download it, here is here is a screenshot of all the progressions you should be aware of, when learning the L or V-sit.

#4 Archer pull-ups

If you want to appear like a king at pull-ups, invest some time to learn the archer pull-up. It is a slightly more advanced version of the normal pull-up. It is basically an easier version of the one-arm pull-up.

You start off grabbing the bar as wide as possible. Pull yourself up to one side until your chin is over the bar. You use your other hand for assistance. Lower yourself and repeat the process with the other hand.
Mix the archer pull-up with some type-writer pull-ups, and you will look like an absolute beast.

#5 The free-standing handstand

The last and probably the hardest skill on this list is the handstand. Learning the handstand can be quite a challenge because it requires a lot of time and practice before you master it. The handstand is not even that difficult because you need so much strength. No, you really need a lot of balance. It will probably take you a couple of months to master it but believe me it is worth it. A solid straight handstand is really beneficial in calisthenics. If you are interested in learning this impressive skill, please read my whole dedicated article on learning the handstand.