If you want to build muscle, barbell exercises are the easiest way. The problem: you need weights. Not everyone can afford expensive gym memberships or buy a home gym. Maybe you don’t feel the need to get huge, but would still like to gain a little muscle and tone what you already have. Fortunately, there are some simple yet effective exercises you can use to sculpt your body.Here’s a muscle building workout you can do without weights:
Body-weight Exercises
Your body needs a reason to build muscle. That reason is stress. Exercising will stress your body & force it to build muscle. You don’t have access to weights, so you’ll use body-weight exercises:
- Pull-ups. Build back & arms muscles. Doorway pull-up bars or any surface where you can hang from work. If you can’t do one rep with correct pull-up technique: use momentum, ask someone to help you or use a resistance band to assist you on the way up.
- Push-ups. Build chest, shoulders & arm muscles. Use a full range of motion: arms locked on the way up, nose against the floor on the way down. Put your knees on the floor if you can’t do one push-up. Switch to regular push-ups when this gets easy.
- Squats. Build leg muscles. Put your hands behind your head & bend through your knees. Keep your heels on the floor, push your knees out, look forward & squeeze your glutes on the way up. Stretch your hamstrings 3 times a week if you can’t squat lower than parallel.
Training Program
SimpleFit.org has a 3 day a week routine based on the above exercises. It takes less than 90mins a week. Easy to mix with your work, business, relationship & hobbies. Click here for the program & the FAQ.
Progression
You must get stronger to build muscle. Doing 100 reps of an exercise builds endurance, not strength. Switch to more challenging exercises once you can do more than 20 pull-ups, push-ups or squats.
- Rings. Push-ups & pull-ups using rings are harder: you need to stabilize the rings while doing the exercises.
- One Arm Push-ups. Start with Incline One Arm Push-ups: one hand on a high box. Decrease the height as you get stronger until you can do them on the floor. Then switch to feet elevated One Arm Push-ups: feet on a box, gradually increasing the height.
- One Arm Pull-ups. Pull-ups with one arm. Tricky to master. Check the article on Beast Skills for their technique.
- One Leg Squats. Start with One Leg Box Squats: lower yourself on a box. Start with a high box & gradually decrease the height. Switch to One Leg Squats once you can do them from a very low box.
- External Resistance.You could consider this as weights but I’m adding it anyway. Wear a rucksack filled with water bottles or books while doing the exercises. Wear a weighted vest. Wrap some chains around your upper-body while doing the exercises. Use adjustable ankle/wrist weights. Use a belt, chain, carabiner & weights.
Nutrition
You need solid nutrition to build strength & muscle. Eat at least your body-weight in lbs x 18 kcal. Go for these foods:
- Protein. 1g/lbs daily. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, whey, etc.
- Fat. Balance your omega 3, 6 & 9 intake.
- Veggies. All kinds, especially green fibrous veggies.
- Fruit. Also all kinds. Eat veggies and/or fruits with every meal.
- Water. 1 liter per 1000 calories you expend.
- Whole Grain Carbs. Oats, rice, pasta, breads, Ö.
Mehdi is author of StrongLifts.com, a blog helping you build muscle & lose fat through strength training. Popular articles include the Beginner Strength Training Program and the Anabolic Diet.Image Credit: Sgt. Gooch
Your program appears to be very similar to the one advocated by Pavel Tsatsouline (of kettlebell fame) in his book, “The Naked Warrior.” The book focuses strictly on bodyweight-only exercises, centered around one-armed pushups and pistol squats (with progressions). More info available from:
http://www.dragondoor.com/b28.html?kbid=4468
The other factor that really catalyzes body-weight workouts is to perform the actions with intensity. Namely, performing circuits for time.
Also, check your health benefits. People often seem to pay little attention to what’s actually covered other than the basic medical things (at least, this seems to be true in Canada). Most of the places I’ve worked in the past years have included a $500 per year nutritionists allowance, one included $200 reimbursement on gym membership fees, and another had a corporate membership deal with a nearby gym.
I find pausing helps–for instance, in a push up, push slowly to raise your body, pause when your body is raised, hold, then slowly lower back down. Doing exercises slowly makes you really feel it.
What’s that girl in the pic’s name?
Hmm, I really wish I could do a pull-up… but I can’t. So do you know of any floor or swiss ball exercises I can do to strengthen the back?
Ok Monica, a couple of exercises you can do strengthen your back to get into pullups:
1) Upright Rows
2) Supine Rows
3) Pushups (there are many different types)
4) Shoulder Press
You can also do a “dead hang” from a pullup bar and see how long you can hold till your grip gives out. This gives the muscles utilized in a pullup a good stretch while also strengthening your grip and forearms, something that is also necessary to perform pullups. Additionally, You can try something called “negatives” until you can do a full pullup. This involved jumping int0 the “up” position on a pullup bar, and slowly lowering yourself down to the beginning position on the floor. Do this and soon enough you will be able to bust out a set of pullups easy.
a good way to strengthen the upper back, delts and work on flexibility all in one easy exercise is one called “stickups”. stand with your whole back of your body up against a wall as flat to it as possible. try to touch your elbows and back of your palms and hold flat against the wall at a 90degree angle with your elbows being straight out to the sides of your head. work on bringing the elbows down towards your side as far as possible and all the way up to a straight arm overhead position while making ocntact with the wall the whole time. if this was a bad explanation sorry just try to google it maybe they will have a pic for you to see
[...] the Brain just posted a strength-training workout that you can do at home without weights with a link to a training program. The workout is based [...]
Nice, concise post for anyone to apply…TODAY! Not tomorrow; not next week, or next month…TODAY!
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i used to be a bodybuilder at one time but quit because of daily life issues..my abs can still be seen though he he
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What’s the use of droping weights, if you still have to have a lot of other stuff. I want to have somwhere to do pullups, but I live in a rented place that I cannot alter.
NOTE!!: if you have NO PLACE TO DO PULLUPS you can :go to the local monkeybars at the local playground, you can also do them on a door (put a little piece of cloth on top, some doors really hurt your hands) and you can also put some books etc if your worried about breaking that flimsy door.
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[...] Muscle Building WorkoutNot everyone can afford expensive gym memberships or buy a home gym. Maybe you don’t feel the need to get huge, but would still like to gain a little muscle and tone what you [...]
Instead of having how to work out on your website you should have things saying how much that exercse helps you, what it works with and also how much you should do it. Well thank you and keep on keepin on!!
Hey Medhi,
I find that using a rep sequence of 1-3-1 works really well for muscle gain. For those of you that don’t know what a 1-3-1 rep sequence is, it’s when you use the negative part of the movement to increase muscle tension and therefore increase muscle gain.
The first part of the lift is done by lifting for 1 second and then lowering for 3 seconds, you then pause for 1 second and repeat.
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Calf raises are another good exercise you can do without weights (although I prefer to do them holding a dumbbell in my hand). Stand on a surface that is about 2-3 inches off the floor, with your toes and about 3 inches of your foot on the surface, and the rest of your foot off. Lift onto your toes as high as you can go and feel the stretch, then let yourself come back down slowly and feel the stretch again as your heel reaches the floor. You need to work your calves hard to stimulate growth, so go for high reps or add some weight by holding a dumbbell.
This has been a great program and has worked wonders for me and my busy lifestyle.
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Good article. I think people would like to know a variety of workouts that you can do without weights. Here are a few: http://hparea.com/article/3 . Feel free to add your own workouts to that list.
Люди в подобных случаях так говорят – Без косы сена не накосишь.
Depending on what you intended goal is physically will dictate the type of workout you should follow.
Using you own body weight is good to incorporate in any routine, and is great to loose weight and get some definition. And in the beginning you will build some muscle.
But if you are serious about building some endurance and strength with that muscle you need heavy weights at your disposal, and a variety of them.
The reason a lot of people think they can get similar results without weights is they never knew how to lift weights correctly in the first place.
And most important is what’s in the food you are eating, a proper diet is more than most people think.
[...] A Muscle Building Workout Without Weights [...]
hi, can some one tell me what is ment by “for time”
thank you
The above infomation informs people to preform 1 Arm push ups. I advise anybody who reads this not to do such an exercise. By doing a 1 arm push up you put your body at risk. Making the spine unbalanced can cause it to twist or trap a nerve. If you trap a nerve it can never 100% fully recover. Everything else seems to be ok from what ive read.
Regards
James
Просто замечательно – очень интересные мысли. Разжевано специально как будто для меня
Что то Автор почти совсем перестал писать новые сообщения и даже админить блог? Может чего случилось?
Thanks for sharing this information. I found it very informative as I have been researching a lot lately on practical matters such as you talk about…
This has been a great idea years. Bodyweight workouts are fantastic. If done the right way you can feel more pumped than a weight workout. When i cant get to the gym i do bodyweight movements mixed up with a band for more unconventional stuff. And guys should use this to, I can bench well over 300 but i get a better PUMP from this.
Nice idea, may try this out!
The Dr Max Powers Anabolic Stack is the most effective product ive tried, I used1 stack pack (pack of pills) per day for exactly 4 weeks.
For the first week nothing really different happened to me just felt jittery during the day but then week two rolled around and that was when things started to be noticed. So here I am at the end of the cycle, last pills were taken yesterday and im about 14lbs heavier and alot stronger.
I recommend this to anyone wanting a bit of a jolt with stuborn plateus. Ofcourse its not a miracle pill, you have to go hard when at the gym, get good recovery time and eat sensibly.
I plan on doing another cycle in a month or so. Unlike other pro-hormones, and testosterone boosters, that make you feel you’re just swallowing thin air packaged in plastic, this stuff actually works, from power to lift to mind aggression it works.
[...] A Muscle Building Workout Without Weights [...]
Hi
I am a former competive body builder an now a personal trainer online and offline.
For over a year I trained just using free hand exercises with no weights or machines and made great gains.
So I agree that you can get a amazing workout and results without weights.
Great info
[...] A Muscle Building Workout Without Weights [...]
[...] A Muscle Building Workout Without Weights [...]
CrossFit is also a great resource of finding body-weight and equipment-free exercises. Rings were mentioned in the article. I did a CrossFit session and did dips using rings, I was sore for almost two weeks. You can certainly target different muscles that you might not use in a conventional gym.
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