If you’re taking your workouts outdoors and want a simple way to upgrade your bodyweight training, this is worth your attention. According to coach Adam Sinicki, muscle growth in calisthenics often comes down to execution rather than exercise selection.

‘It’s not about the exercises you’re doing or the type of training,’ he explains. ‘It’s more about how you do it and how effective you make it.’ His recommendation: partial reps. This method shortens the range of motion so you repeatedly work through the most demanding portion of a movement.

‘If I’m doing a push-up, I’m locking out at the top. I’m not using any muscle at that point – I’m resting on my joints and bones,’ he says. Using partial reps, instead of full range of motion, you’d focus on the bottom half of the push-up and repeat that portion.

Recent evidence suggests that long-length partial reps can be as effective as full range of motion, while other research indicates that training in the stretched position may be particularly beneficial for muscle growth.

By staying within the most challenging part of the rep, you remove natural rest points. ‘By focusing on the hard part, you’re going to grow more muscle,’ he says.

This approach also affects how muscle fibres are recruited. ‘The slow cadence combined with my lighter body weight means I’m not recruiting my largest, fastest muscle fibres,’ Sinicki explains. With partials, however, reps are often performed with a slightly faster, more explosive cadence. ‘You need to send the neural drive to move quickly and powerfully,’ he says – helping to recruit fast-twitch fibres more effectively.

Maintaining continuous tension also limits opportunities for the muscle to relax, increasing local fatigue. ‘Because it’s staying contracted for so long, you’re essentially pooling blood in that area – it can’t escape,’ he says.

This combination of sustained tension and reduced rest can improve muscular endurance and hypertrophy, particularly when working with lighter loads. As Sinicki puts it, ‘If you’re not getting the results you want, it’s probably because you’re not feeling the tension.’

To use bodyweight partials effectively, shorten the range of movement to the most challenging portion of the rep and repeat it. In a push-up, that means working through the bottom half, where the chest and shoulders are under the most tension, rather than locking out at the top. In a pull-up, it means repeating the bottom portion at full stretch.

Use controlled but slightly faster reps, with a more explosive cadence to increase muscle recruitment. Aim for higher-rep sets (around 10–30 reps), maintaining constant tension and stopping short of form breakdown.

You can incorporate partials by finishing a set of full-range reps with them, or by dedicating entire sets to the method when load is limited. As with any technique, keep full range of motion in your programme for joint health and overall strength, but use partials strategically to increase stimulus when bodyweight alone stops feeling challenging.