I generally enjoy staying fit and being active so I thought it might be interesting to try various protocols to see what kind of results I can achieve.  For this one, I wanted to establish a 30-day calisthenics workout plan and see if it resulted in any visible changes to my physique.  I mean, who doesn’t want to look like Heracles!  Let’s go!

Here is the workout protocol which I attempted to perform every day for 30 days.

Results

Since it’s a fairly simple protocol and does not take an extraordinary amount of time, I thought I would have no trouble in keeping up with the daily routine.  However, I actually struggled with this but did successfully complete it 24 days out of the 30 days from January 20th to February 18th.  So, that is an 80% adherence to the plan.  Even with this adherence rate, I achieved quite good results in my view.

Running

I tracked my runs using the Runkeeper App that is free and fantastic in my view.  The screen prints above are from the App.  My run times varied greatly but improved from a pace of 9 minutes 39 seconds per mile on my first run to 8 minutes and 30 seconds on my last run.  That is an improvement of 1 minute and 9 seconds which I think is quite good.  I was generally significantly slower on the second half of the run after doing the calisthenics.

Calisthenics

I completed the calisthenics each time but I am not sure it ever became much easier.  After the 30 days I did start adding more exercises so I suppose that is a sign I was getting stronger.   

Visible Results

One of the questions I was most curious about was whether or not I would see visible results or changes in my physique.  I figured I would get stronger and faster but I was not so sure that would be visible in such a short period of time.  

Front – Non-Flex

So here I am just standing straight but not flexing.  I think you can tell I got some sun from running outside a lot but there is minimal or no change in appearance in my view.   

Front – Flexing

In these one I am facing forward and flexing with the Before photo on the left and After on the right.  Here I think you can see a significance difference in abdominal definition with arms and chest about the same.   

Side – Flexing

In these one I am facing sideways and flexing with the Before photo on the left and After on the right.  In these, I think you can see a very significant difference in definition in the abdominals, chest, and arms.     

Summary

Overall, I think this basic running and calisthenics workout yielded solid, visible results in a very short timeframe.  However, I realized in doing this article that slight differences in posing make fairly big differences in how the photos appear.  I suppose this is why body builders actually practice posing.  For example, if you place your fists against the front of your hips and push them backwards through your body while pushing your hips forward, your abdominals will show much better.  I tried to pose in as similar way as possible to avoid these types of issues but I did not realize these tricks when I started the project.  Even with this potential issue, I believe I was able to see great results and I do think the results had a significant visible impact.