UCL Club Spotlight: Calisthenics

Image Credit: UCL Calisthenics Club

Calisthenics is often tied to the “street-crew” aesthetic: clips of people swinging, balancing, and hanging from bars. But that picture is only a fraction of the sport’s newfound life. At UCL, the Calisthenics Club has reshaped how students think about strength. 

Simply, calisthenics relies entirely on bodyweight movement and building your body strength using bars, parallettes, or even just the floor. Yet, mastering calisthenics demands a control over every muscle that separates it from traditional strength training. 

What immediately stands out is the club’s culture of encouragement. Every Wednesday afternoon in CrossFit Farringdon, that culture comes alive. Students can take a break from their studies to get fitter, exchange advice, and applaud each other in moments of breakthrough. 

For Bella King, who wandered into the club as a first year with no experience, the playfulness hooked her in. “It’s glorified playground time… but as an adult,” she joked. 

But the community kept her coming back.

Before joining, Bella assumed she would work independently through banded pull-ups, quietly ticking off the reps by herself. Instead, she found a group eager to involve her and celebrate every small win, saying “we're all trying to figure it out together.” When asking another girl for help with her form, a crowd gathered naturally, curious to learn beside her. As a woman coming into a traditionally male-dominated sport, the openness of the environment mattered to her. 

Each session begins with a group warm-up to get the energy high and prepare key muscle groups like the scapular and wrist joints for movement. Members can then choose between doing a led workout or exploring what interests them, with the training officers moving around the room to offer feedback and motivation. 

After speaking with Matthias, one of the club’s training officers, the dynamic of the group became clear. The mixture of abilities facilitates peer mentoring as a natural part of the session’s structure. 

“There are people who are more advanced, and quite a few people who are less advanced, who can benefit from each other,” he explained. So, helping others becomes part of refining your own technique.

In a recent session, he worked with some beginners on freestanding handstands. Whilst wall practice is useful, learning to fall safely is what unlocks confidence. Teaching students to fall out of an inversion like a cartwheel makes it feel easier and prevents injury. Calisthenics demands body awareness above all. That is why the fundamentals matter: push-up variations, dips, and pull-ups sit at the centre of every athlete’s development.

Advanced members can experiment with higher-level skills like muscle-ups or front and back levers. Others focus on endurance, add weighted progressions, or pursue personal goals. A planche or one-arm handstand might look almost unattainable at first but the consistent practice it requires becomes a confidence builder itself, proving just how much progress and dedication can achieve. The real momentum can come from the hours spent trying and failing. 

The club maintains a culture where progression feels possible. Matthias reflected on his own growth: “When I started, I never believed I could do a muscle-up in a few months... but spending time practising makes it intuitive, and you build confidence.” Mistakes are embraced as part of the learning process. There is always someone there to help you if you fall down. 

To understand how that culture evolved, I sat down with Demi Alvanis, a UCL alumnus, former club president and now, inspiringly, a professional coach. ‘Calisthenics gives you energy, purpose, something to look forward to,’ he said. In 2022, he saw the potential of the club and revamped it. He secured a regular training space, built and trained a coaching team as well as raising investment. 

So, what difference did those changes make? Demi’s answer cuts to the heart of its appeal. 

“Community is power,” he said. “I had a big community of people through creating a sense of belonging at the club and a recognisable one as well, including social investment.”

Watching UCL Calisthenics Club train feels like something between sport and theatre. The ability to break out of rigorous pre-planned workouts and simply experiment with what your body can do is what makes training so fun for members, who often end up shocking themselves with the result. 

At a university where competitive sports or solitary training often dictate the rhythm, UCL Calisthenics offers an alternative, allowing members to share a creative experience and leave stronger in every sense.