So it would be thought that most ancients used calisthenics primarily and wrestled for resistance training?
No, "tumbling" aka "acrobatics" was a highly developed physical performance art that certainly predates the Greeks. The purpose was to entertain crowds.
At the end of a study I wrote a while back is a list of exercises written down in Ancient times as "the" exercises, by a physician:
http://judo4mma.com/greekwrestling/ancient greek submission wrestling.pdf
The descriptions are a bit brief but I can illuminate them for you if you are curious. The "bending repeatedly at the waist" for instance is probably the "burpee" pushup, which is in fact the "sprawl" defence used in wrestling and in fact critical for wrestling. They deadlifted heavy objects, and also lighter ones in an interesting way as you'll read. They played catch with what to us would seem like heavy balls (the origin of the medicine ball) etc... Wrestling exercises were considered normal exercises along with all the others. You didn't have to be a wrestler to do them. An interesting point that I didn't know about at the time was that the wrestling school was attended to learn self-defence. Plotinus makes mention of this in one of his "Enneads" (philosophical tracts). I didn't know about this at the time I wrote the study.
I copied and pasted the relevant section below for you but the formatting is ugly:
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Appendix: A List of Ancient Exercises from Galen’s De Sanitate Tuenda Philosotratus mentions that jumping weights are to be used by all athletes for strengthening the shoulders and hands, and round ones for the fingers as well29. The round ones are clearly harder to grip and thus afford better exercise for the fingers. The fact that he says the jumping weights are for the shoulders and hands is telling, since the jumping-weight exercises listed by Galen seem to exercise these parts and not the biceps, which is the target muscle area first coming to mind to many when they think of dumbbells. It may well be that the stone weights used by the athletes were normally too light or too off-balanced and awkward to use for bicep-curls. This is all Philostratus has to say about solo training outside of sport specific workouts such as hitting small and large punching bags for the boxers and pankratiasts respectively. Galen divides his exercises into three categories, which we may term ‘strong’, ‘rapid’ and ‘violent’, which is a combination of the preceding two30. Galen’s listing of the exercises gives us a fascinating glimpse into the everyday activities of the palaestrae, gymnasia and other more leisurely-areas of the ancient world. The affinities they have with the various sporting events can be made out: kicking of the legs for pankration, rope-climbing for wrestling, holding the arms up for boxing, Strong: 1)Digging 2)Picking up something heavy 3)Picking up something heavy and walking with it 4)Walking uphill 5)Climbing a rope using hands and feet: commonly done to train boys in the wrestling schools 6)Hanging-onto a rope or beam for as long as possible 7)Holding the arms straight out in front with fists closed 8)Holding the arms straight up with fists closed 9)Holding out the arms while a partner pulls them down 10)The preceding three exercises but while holding something heavy such asjumping-weights 11)Breaking loose from a wrestling waist-lock 12)Holding onto a person trying to escape from the waist-lock 13)Picking up a man who is bending over at the hips and lifting him up and swinging him around 14)Doing the same but bending oneself at the hips also when picking him up 15)Pushing chest to chest trying to force the opponent backwards 16)Hanging from another’s neck, attempting to drag him down Exercises requiring a wrestling-pit: a)Entwine your partner with both your legs around one of his and try to apply a choke or force his head backwards b)The same but using only one leg to entwine the opponent’s leg closest to yours
c)The same but using both legs to entwine both of the opponent’s legs Rapid 1)Running 2)Shadow-boxing 3)Boxing 4)Hitting punching bags 5)Throwing and catching a small ball while running 6)Running back and forth, reducing the length each time by a little until finished 7)Stand on the balls of the feet, put the arms up in the air and rapidly and alternately bringing them forward and back; stand near a wall if afraid oflosing one’s balance 8)Rolling on the wrestling-ground rapidly by oneself or with others 9)Rapidly changing places with people next to one in a tightly packed group 10)Jumping up and kicking both legs together backwards 11)Kicking the legs forward alternately 12)Move the arms up and down rapidly with open or closed fist, increasing in speed Violent: 1)Digging rapidly 2)Casting the discus 3)Jumping repeatedly with no rest 4)Throwing heavy spears and moving fast while wearing heavy armour 5)Any of the ‘strong’ exercises executed rapidly: presumably running uphill, swinging jumping-weights forward and back, and lifting them up and down, chin-ups and so on Other exercises: 1)Walking 2)Bending up and down repeatedly at the hips 3)Lifting a weight up from the ground 4)Holding up an object for a long time 5)Full and loud breathing 6)Placing two weights on the ground approximately six feet from each other, picking up the one on the left with the right hand and then the one on the right with the left hand, then in turn placing them back where they came from on the ground and doing this many times while keeping the feet stationary What do these exercises tell us about Ancient athletics? They tell us certainly which muscles were most prized. Clearly the back and shoulder muscles were considered of especial importance since so many of the exercises focus on these muscle-areas. The legs too get some attention with the jumping, kicking, walking and running. The focus on training for both applying and resisting chokes is apparent in the wrestling drills mentioned here. If we could only find push-ups, sit-ups, and benches, the list would seem to include quite everything a Twenty-First Century athlete could reasonably hope to find. But, push-ups, so good for the pectoral muscles, are not found here, nor are they alluded to. Exercises specifically for the stomach also seem to be lacking; in fact, bellies on ancient statuary protrude slightly. It may perhaps be too much to expect to find weight-lifting benches in ancient gymnasia, since they take up a lot of space that could be 34used for other activities. Certainly those exercises involving the picking up of weights involved the use of the biceps. We should of course not forget that wrestling is itself a form of weight-lifting and bodybuilding so wrestling would have developed many parts of the body not covered by these exercises.