What Happened When a Calisthenics Athlete Trained Like a Bodybuilder for 90 Days

At the beginning of the year, YouTuber Brandon William spent 30 days training like Athlean-X trainer Jeff Cavaliere, with the goal of building muscle mass and improving his strength in compound lifts. Pleased with the results that he achieved in just one month, he continued with his bodybuilder training for a total of 90 days.

In a recent video update, he shares how he stepped up his weightlifting and machine work, and eating at a caloric surplus, consuming 500 extra calories and 150 grams of protein every day.

“Calisthenics is my preferred way of training,” he says, “so I mixed it in with my weight training, so that I maintained my current calisthenic strength and endurance.”

William explains that he ate as clean as possible throughout the challenge, but that this often made it more difficult to reach the caloric surplus he was trying to maintain. His way around this was making calorie-packed smoothies with fruit, almond butter, and protein powder.

While the initial 30-day challenge had been a pretty big adjustment, as William continued with his strength training he found himself enjoying it more and more. “Prior to training with weights, leg day was always something I dreaded,” he says. “But now that I have the ability to increase weight, it gives me the motivation to try and out-lift myself every session, which made me start to really enjoy training legs.”

At the end of the 90 days, William tests his compound movements and has accomplished a considerable increase in his PR on each lift. His squat max has gone from 185 pounds to 235 pounds, his bench press max has gone from 185 pounds to 205 pounds, and most significantly, his deadlift max has gone from 175 pounds to 275 pounds; an improvement of 100 pounds.

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