1) Who are School of Calisthenics? (where are you from, what do you do, a bit about yourself (hobbies, etc)
The School of Calisthenics was founded by me (David Jackson) and Tim Stevenson having discovered a passion for calisthenics and bodyweight training. The ‘birth’ of the School of Calisthenics was very organic. We started Calisthenics as a fun way of training to explore our physical potential as we were bored of conventional weight training. We came into calisthenics with no gymnastic experience. We’d both played rugby previously and started calisthenics carrying old shoulder injuries (dislocations and fractures) from rugby, so really started at zero… or maybe even -10!
When we first started we were awful and had no plans for teaching it to anyone else, we were just enjoying playing around in the gym and seeing what calisthenics style exercises and moves we could do. Tim fell in love with handstand and I always wanted to learn the Human Flag (hence our titles, Head of Handstand and Head of Human Flags at the school!) but thought it was impossible or photoshopped! It was impossible at the start and people even said to us in our gym (where no one else was doing anything remotely like calisthenics) “what are you too doing? It just looks like you’re p*ssing around!”
However after a few months of training we started applying the Strength + Conditioning and exercise science we’d learned over the years as professional Strength + Conditioning coaches in Paralympic sport. We used what training principles we use with the Paralympians except just applying it to calisthenics… and we started getting pretty good!
People in the gym when from “you look stupid” to “can you teach me to do that?”
And the School of Calisthenics was born!
2) How many years have you both been training?
We’ve been training calisthenics for 4 years now but been weight training for rugby for many years before that. I started weight training for rugby at the age of 18 and played professionally until the ages of 31 so training has always been a huge part of my life.
3) Whats been the most challenging/hardest part of your journey so far? and how have you overcome them (set backs, rejections, injuries, basically anything difficult that you have had to overcome)
Well I started Calisthenics because I finished playing professional rugby due to a head injury. I couldn’t run without getting a headache for a year due to the injury. So that took quite some time to get over and start training again. But once I started back training I was bored without having the motivation of a rugby game at the weekend to train for. That was a pretty tough time! But when Tim introduced me to Calisthenics I never looked back!
The hardest thing with Calisthenics training hasn’t been getting started (we've got a FREE Beginners Guide to help anyone that is interested) as you learn things quickly at the start. It’s after a year or two when you can do a few things like muscle ups and human flags and want to move onto even more advanced stuff that it gets more difficult… particularly when you have no gymnastics experience like us!
4) What does your typical workout/diet routine look like?
Typically train 3 times per week Calisthenics and it really varies depend on how busy work is but try to fit some strength work in with pushing and pulling basics like weighted pull ups and dips once a week and then work on some skill movements like hand balancing once a week and then some harder progressions for Human Flag, Planche and Levers once a week too. If there is any time like for a few pistol squats and a 5k run then that might get done at the weekend!
Diet or Nutrition is nothing fancy. Just stick to the basic of sensible eating in moderation... well try to anyway! Trying to get in good quality food that aren't processed is the main focus rather than counting calories or worrying about how much protein I’m eating these days… did enough of that when I played professional rugby and I’m actually in better shape now!
5) What new knowledge have you learned over this past year regarding training, lifestyle and nutrition?
Less is more! Too often I get excited and overtrain. I always have loved training and I’m sure I always will but I also need to learn to love resting! Resting is when the recovery and adoption takes place… that’s when you actually get better and improve!
6) Whats your favourite cheat/Treat meal?
I do love chocolate so I’d be lying if I said i don’t have a section box for breakfast at Christmas!
7) one supplement that you could not live without?
Don’t really use supplements that much if at all anymore. More than happy to just eat well and train hard, which is something I never thought would have been the case. Back in my rugby days I’d take protein for every session, pre workouts and creatine and never thought I’d say it but over last few years I’ve stopped with supplements and don’t feel the need for them now.
8) If you had to start out from scratch with your physique what would you do differently and why?
I’d have taken up gymnastics from a young age. I think I would have still played rugby as I loved it so much but I think the transferable skills, strength and flexibility that you get from gymnastics would help with any sport and I’ve really enjoyed that side of Calisthenics as an adult and think it would have been even more fun as a child!
9) Who do you look upto in the fitness industry and why?
In fitness I fell in love with Calisthenics after watching a Frank Medrano video on YouTube and said “I want to move like that”. Calisthenics comes form two greek words ‘Kalos’ and ‘Sthenos’ which mean beauty and strength… Frank certainly does that!
10) If you had to give one bit of advice to people starting out what would that be?
Get our FREE Beginners Guide to Calisthenics, follow the video coaching tutorials in it and if you have any questions just drop me an email to david@schoolofcalisthenics.com
FREE Beginners Guide here - https://schoolofcalisthenics.com/free-beginners-calisthenics/
11) What new goals are on the horizon?
Human Flag Pull ups and maybe an attempt at the Human Flag world record which is 1min 5s and my best is 34 second so I’ve got a bit of work to do but we’re in the business of ‘redefining impossible’!
12) Where can people find you? (website, social media accounts)
Our website is www.schoolofcalisthenics.com
