The vocabulary, without assuming you already know it

Compression

The active ability to bring the legs toward the torso. It is not the same as flexibility: you can touch your toes and still be unable to lift straight legs. It limits the L-sit, the manna and every entry into a lever.

L-sit

Kipping

Using hip and leg swing to generate momentum. It buys more reps or unlocks a move sooner, but it lowers the strength stimulus and raises shoulder risk. Useful as a rung, not as a destination.

Muscle up

Lever

The family of isometrics where the body is held horizontal with straight arms. Difficulty depends on the distance between the centre of mass and the grip: the further away, the more torque the shoulder has to produce.

Front leverBack lever

Street workout

The branch of calisthenics focused on skills and shapes on park bars, weighting dynamics and statics more heavily than volume on the basics.

Unilateral

An exercise done on one side only. It doubles the relative load with no equipment and exposes asymmetries that two-sided movements hide.

Progressive overload

Advanced tuck

Tuck with the hips opened until the back is flat and parallel to the floor, but the knees still bent. The rung between tuck and straddle.

TuckStraddle

Arch / superman

The opposite of hollow: spinal extension with chest and legs off the floor. Alternated with hollow to train pelvic control in both directions.

Hollow body

Full

The complete version of a lever, body fully extended and legs together. Longest lever arm and highest difficulty.

StraddleLever

Hollow body

A core position with the lower back pressed into the floor, pelvis tucked and ribs down. It is the neutral shape that the dragon flag, front lever and handstand are all built from.

Arch / supermanDragon flag

Straddle

Legs open and extended into a V. It keeps mass closer to the axis than the full position, so it is the last rung before full.

TuckFull

Tuck

The tucked position: knees to chest, hips closed. It shortens the lever arm, which makes it the first rung of almost every lever — front lever, back lever and planche all start in tuck.

Advanced tuckStraddleLever

Active hang

Hanging from the bar with the shoulder blades depressed and the core switched on, instead of dropping onto the joints. It is the start of any pull and one of the fastest ways to improve pull-up quality.

Scapular depression

False grip

Gripping with the wrist already over the bar or ring, so the forearm lines up with the support point. It removes the wrist rotation during the muscle up transition, at the cost of being very uncomfortable at first.

Muscle up

Scapular control

The ability to move the shoulder blades voluntarily and independently of the arm. It is the silent prerequisite for almost every skill: no L-sit without depression, no planche without protraction, no clean front lever without retraction.

Scapular depressionScapular protractionScapular retraction

Scapular depression

Pulling the shoulder blades down and away from the ears. It is what turns a passive hang into an active hang, and what holds an L-sit up.

Scapular controlActive hang

Scapular protraction

Spreading the shoulder blades forward, rounding the upper back. It is the planche position, and the top of a well-executed push-up.

Scapular controlPlanche

Scapular retraction

Drawing the shoulder blades toward the spine. It is the pulling position: without it, pull-ups are done with the arms and the lats barely join in.

Scapular control

Back lever

A lever with the body horizontal, facing the floor. Usually reached before the front lever, but it asks more of the shoulder in extension and of the biceps long head.

Front leverSkin the cat

Dragon flag

Lowering and raising the body plank-straight, supported only on the upper back. It is the most honest test of anti-extension core control there is.

Hollow body

Front lever

A lever with the body horizontal under the bar, facing up. Maximum work for the lats, teres major and anti-extension core.

Back leverLever

L-sit

A support hold with legs straight out in front forming an L. It combines scapular depression, hip flexor compression and knee extension.

Scapular depressionCompression

Muscle up

The transition from hanging to support above the bar in one movement: explosive pull, wrist rotation, dip. In the strict version there is no swing and no leg drive.

KippingFalse grip

Planche

Holding the body parallel to the floor on the hands alone, arms straight and shoulders well ahead of the wrists. It depends on scapular protraction and extreme shoulder lean.

Planche leanScapular protraction

Planche lean

A plank where you push the shoulders as far ahead of the hands as you can while keeping the body straight. It is the base conditioning drill for the planche and the safest way to load tendons and wrists.

Planche

Skin the cat

A full backward rotation while hanging from a bar or rings, passing the legs between the arms. It prepares the shoulder for the extreme range of the back lever.

Back lever

Deload

A reduced-load week — typically half the volume — to let fatigue fall without losing adaptations. Scheduled every 4-8 weeks, or whenever performance drops two sessions in a row.

Volume

Eccentric phase (negative)

The part of the movement where the muscle lengthens under tension: lowering from a pull-up, lowering from a dip. You can hold more load here than in the concentric, which is why slow negatives are the classic way to train a movement you cannot yet do in full.

Muscular failure

Grease the Groove (GTG)

Doing many sets far from failure spread across the day, instead of a few hard sets. It prioritises practising the pattern over accumulating fatigue; it works particularly well for pull-ups and push-ups.

RIR (reps in reserve)

Isometric

Contraction without movement: holding a position. Every lever and the handstand are isometrics, and they progress in seconds rather than reps.

Lever

Muscular failure

The point where you cannot complete another rep with good form. Going to failure on the last set of an exercise is useful; doing it on every set builds fatigue you pay for in the following sessions.

RIR (reps in reserve)

Progression

An ordered chain of variants of the same pattern, easiest to hardest. It is the mechanism calisthenics uses in place of kilos.

Progressive overload

Progressive overload

Increasing the demand over time. In calisthenics you do not do it by adding plates but by changing variant, reducing support, increasing range, slowing the eccentric or going unilateral.

ProgressionEccentric phase (negative)

RIR (reps in reserve)

How many more reps you could have done when the set ended. RIR 2 means two were left. It is the practical way to regulate intensity without 1RM percentages, which do not apply to bodyweight.

Muscular failureGrease the Groove (GTG)

Volume

The total amount of work in a session or a week, usually counted in effective sets per muscle group. In bodyweight training it is often counted as total reps per pattern.

Progressive overload