How To Build Muscle Without Weights
So you want to know how build muscle without weights or machines and do it at home? You can with this workout plan and if you take care of your nutrition!
How To Build Muscle Without Weights
The basic incentive your muscles need to grow is resistance. They have to work against something difficult enough for them to figure “hey, I better get stronger for next time we’ll be doing this!”
They don’t care where that resistance comes from. At gyms it’s machines or barbells and dumbbells, but your body fulfills that role as well.
After you’ve given them that “do growing” incentive, your muscles need something else: the building blocks they use to make their fibers larger.
Let’s check how to do both with minimum fuss and maximum results.
The Weights-Free Workout Plan
When you’re just starting your body weight and a few exercises that train many muscles at once do the job.
This workout plan has just four exercises but trains your entire body. You’ll notice it mentions pull-ups, but you can do those without a bar. All you need is a place where you can do pull-ups.
| Body Part | Exercise | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Chest / Triceps | 3 sets of push-ups, as many as you can do, with 60 seconds rest between sets | Start with beginner push-ups if necessary and work up. Push-ups easily scale to your strength level. |
| Back / Biceps | 3 sets of pull-ups, as many as you can do, with 60 seconds rest between sets | Once more: you can do pull-ups without a pull-up bar. And don’t feel daunted by the idea of doing them. Here’s an explanation on how you manage to do your first pull-up and then more. |
| Legs | Three sets of lunges, as many as you can do, with 60 seconds rest between sets. | Check here for how you do lunges correctly. Start with body weight and later on use a backpack as additional resistance. Milk gallons filled with water and other objects work as well. |
| Abs | Three sets of crunches, 6-12 repetitions, with 60 seconds rest between sets | Do not pull on your head! Lie down and look straight above you. When your chin moves toward your chest, you are doing it wrong. |
Doing this plan 2 – 3 times per week should give you some really nice results. A rep, by the way, is doing the movements of an exercise one time. A set is how many reps you do before you take a break.
Nutrition For Building Muscle
Now about the workout nutrition part. Your muscles consist of protein and when you work out, they want to make their muscle fibers larger from the protein in the food you eat. No protein in your nutrition means no muscle growth.
Getting enough protein is simpler than many bodybuilding and workout websites make it sound. The basic rule is to get 1 g of protein per lb of body weight.
It doesn’t have to come from expensive protein powders. There’s no research saying those are superior to getting your protein from the food you eat.
To make getting enough protein easier for you I compiled a list of the cheapest protein sources out there. I sorted it by price and the amount of protein they give you.
Building Muscle After The Newbie Stage
After about six months the above exercises will become too easy for you, because you’ll be able to do 12 or more reps on each set. If you continue as before, you won’t train muscle strength or size, but endurance.
Which means you need to add resistance. That still doesn’t mean you need weights.
Ok, you’ll need weights, but a weight is anything that weighs something. Have a look at how I make pull-ups more difficult by strapping on a backpack:
Push-ups you can make more difficult by changing the width of your grip and / or using the backpack:
In similar fashion you can also make the lunges more difficult, but for those, as I hinted in the table, you can also fill two milk gallons with water, sand or scrap metal bits.
2 Comments
Great plan! I do body weight exercises as part of my overall fitness plan every week.
Yep, to me those body weight exercises have something “pure” about them that makes them feel very rewarding.