Calisthenics are the bodyweight movements that require little to no equipment outside of a pullup bar. If you're interested in getting much stronger, you'll need to invest in a pair of gymnastic rings and work up to the front, back, and side levers along with the planche. That shit takes years to build up to though. I have no idea what kind of strength level you're at, so your mileage may vary.
Can you build muscle with calisthenics? Yes.
Can you progressively make the exercises harder? Yes.
Is it nearly as convenient as adding a fractional plate to the bar? No.
Are you going to be as well developed in the lower body as a guy who deadlifts and squats on the regular? No.
Are you going to be as big as a guy who trains with weights? No.
Here's a couple options if you're serious about bodyweight stuff.
If you just want to fool around with calisthenics, get a copy of al kavadlos books Raising the Bar and Pushing the Limits and then just work through the progressions and see how far you get. Convict Conditioning follows a similar vein to this form of training.
If you're already pretty strong, I'd just pick up a copy of Building the Gymnastic Body (get the ebook off the website, it's cheaper), do the Killroy70 template (it's all over the forums over there), and work through the progressions.
If you have any joint problems and you don't want to accidentally fuck up your shoulders, do Foundation One through Four. The Foundation series will hammer out any postural problems or "weak links" in the chain.
And no, I don't get paid to advertise it.
https://zp130.infusionsoft.com/app/store...roductId=2
You'll need equipment after a while, but if you buy the programs off the website, there is a subforum full of dudes who are more than happy to answer your questions. For the earlier programs, there's a lot of guys who figured out equipment substitutes for some of the exercises. Stall bars are expensive, but they're not terribly hard to work around.
Also, the reason why so many gymnasts are small has to do with the sport itself. Shorter, well built gymnasts have been the only people who ever pull off things like an iron to maltese cross. A larger and heavier athlete would feasibly peak in strength with the earlier movements (such as the iron cross or the high v sit), whereas the shorter gymnasts consider moves such as the iron cross to be an intermediate exercise and the full mana to be hard, but not impossible. If a bigger athlete mastered the same movement as a smaller one, he'd be immensely more powerful.
This guy is 6 foot 6 and he's under the success stories in the gymnastic forum. He's not exactly going to turn heads when he's walking down the street, but he's pretty damn strong. Weights are a better one size fits all approach, but you can still get strong from bodyweight type training.
https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/pa...-erik-r125