Rico Mesa - Calisthenics Trainer & Athlete

Biography

Rico Mesa

About…

Originally I am from Colombia and I am practising calisthenics for about 5 years now. Before that I played soccer at a high level and I was always very athletic. For instance I did skateboarding, kitesurfing, climbing etc. When I first noticed Calisthenics in Colombia, I thought it would be cool to do that aswell, but I just wasn’t able to do it. I wanted to be able to do it, so I started practising. Right now I have done multiple educations and kept on developing. I wanted to teach people that didn’t have any clue what they had to do. One of the most important thing I want to tell people about, is to become aware of your body and that all begins with your breathing.

What makes Calisthenics such a beautiful sport

I usually train outside, for instance in my backyard I have a gym, but there are enough possibilities to workout in the neighborhood.

It stimulates your frontal cortex, something you couldn’t do before, you can do now. In fact you are making the impossible possible. When it comes to fitness, quickly you will hit a wall, in fact with all kind of sports actually. With Calisthenics you will train your stamina, flexibility, anything really.

Calisthenics talent in Holland

In the Netherlands we have some great talents, I mean really great. For instance if you compare the age category from 13 untill 17 to England or Germany, we score fairly higher. And we’re only doing it for about a year, so can you imagine in about 4 years? I just think there aren’t enough possibilities for talent development.

We do have enough talent, but it still has to be stimulated a lot more. There really have to get more gyms, I think we now only have about 2 that are really focussed on Calisthenics and with 1 of them I think a lot of people go there because Melanie works out there.

Why Calisthenics

Because every sport that you are practising, next to Calisthenics, will immensely improve. That’s because you workout with your own bodyweight. For instance with running, athletics, iceskating, boxing, soccer, actually just any sport.

Calisthenics Like an Olympic Sport

No, not right now. But it definitely will come. De judging system isn’t nearly good enough and a lot has to change before this can happen.

It is coming though, we are now at about 60 % I think and we definitely need a lot more money to get this sport at a more professional level. So as far as I’m concerned, not right now, but definitely somewhere in the future.