How To Build Muscle Without Weights

When you want to build muscle but can’t go to the gym regularly, have a really tight schedule or don’t want a clunky dumbbell rack at home the only option left to you would be to build muscle without weights.

You don’t have to give up on your fitness just because you don’t hit the gym regularly.

The gym does have it’s benefits but you can still build muscle with only your bodyweight and then later minimal equipment (if you desire to go that far)

Building Muscle Without Weights via Bodyweight Exercises

No one likes to be lied to, so I’ll come out with the truth. Weight training produces more superior results compared to bodyweight training {study}. So if you want to pack on sick amounts of muscle you might want to consider carving out time to go to the gym. If you are interested in that sort of thing or you intend to go to a gym anytime soon read my comprehensive guide to building muscle.

Now with that out of the way, bodyweight exercises do build a lot of muscle when they’re done right. {Study}

The only difference between bodyweight and weighted exercises is in the conditions required to make them effective.

Three Rules to Follow To Build Muscle Without Weights

Here are the only four rules you’ll need to follow to achieve your goal to build muscle without weights:

Eat what you need to grow
Do the right exercises
Exercise the right way
Apply progressive overload

And that’s it.

Eating What You Need to Build Muscle

It’s very common knowledge that to build muscle in the first place you need to have your diet on lock. However what isn’t common is how much protein or how many calories are necessary. I’ll start with protein because they’re the most important.

Protein

No protein, no muscle. It’s that simple.

You need to be eating at least 0.8g of protein per pound of bodyweight {study} and some recommendations go even higher than that.

So that implies that a 200 pound person would need 160g of protein. [200×0.8= 160]

Calories

There’s a lot of advice throw around about calorie needs for building muscle. Some of it says you can’t build muscle in a calorie deficit, which is false. You don’t need to be in a calorie surplus state to build muscle.

That being said to build muscle at the tastes possible rate you will need to eat slight more or at least exactly your calorie requirements.

Here’s how to calculate how many calories you need:

A bit of advice, don’t go overboard with the calories. You will probably build muscle even on a deficit as long as you’re getting enough protein but eating way more calories than you need will make you fat.

So don’t pay too much attention to calories, just make sure that you aren’t in a serious calorie deficit while trying to gain muscle.

Do The Right Exercises

If you are an absolute beginner it’s not a good idea to do extremely complex and scary looking exercises.

Yeah sure they look cool but after you’re through with day one which you probably didn’t finish you’ll get scared away or discouraged.

Why attempt decline push ups when you can’t even do normal ones right?

Beginners should start from the basics

The Big Four Exercises

These are the bodyweight exercises you should start with because they’re the easiest and most effective.

Push ups

These hit your chest, shoulders, triceps and your core.

Here’s how to do a push up:

Put your hands on the ground and spread them slightly more than shoulder width apart
Keep your body as straight and rigid as possible. Brace your glutes and abs till you resemble a plank of wood.
Lower yourself in a controlled manner until your chest almost touches the floor while keeping your elbows close to your body
Push off against the floor until your arms are back to the fully extended position.

If you didn’t get that, here’s a demonstration:

Squats

Squats are a great well-rounded exercise to build strength in your legs.

Here is how to do squats:

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms behind your head or straight in front of you
Descend slowly by pushing your hips back and bending at the knee
Keep your chest up and make sure your back stays flat. Keep this position throughout the exercise.
Squat down as low as you can (at least till your thighs are parallel to the floor or lower)
Push through your heels to spring back up quickly.

If you didn’t get that, here’s a demo:

Pull-ups

Pull-ups are a great upper body exercise. They are a bit difficult to do. Some people can’t even get in a single one. You can build up strength to do them by doing negatives

How to do a pull-up:

Suspend yourself from a horizontal bar with your arms fully extended and your hands about shoulder width apart
Pull yourself up towards the bar until your chin clears the bar.
Lower yourself back to your starting position and repeat.

If you didn’t get that, here’s a demonstration:

Plank

The plank is an awesome way to work your core muscles. I’ll talk about two variations.

The standard and the forearm plank

The standard straight arm plank is done like this:

Plant your hands underneath you slightly wider than shoulder-width apart
Squeeze your glutes and your abs until you are rigid
Hold the position for as long as you can.

The forearm plank is done like this:

Place your forearms on the floor with your elbows aligned below your shoulders and arms parallel to your body about shoulder width apart.
Squeeze your glutes and your abs until you are rigid
Hold the position for as long as possible

Here’s a demonstration to clarify:

Straight Arm Plank

Forearm Plank

Exercise the Right Way

Now you know the exercises that will be allowing you to build muscle, you need to understand the application.

The process of building muscle with Bodyweight exercises isn’t quite the same as with weighted exercises.

Here are the major differences:

First and most obviously the lack of resistance provided from an external source (weights)
The difference in rep count. Studies have shown that bodyweight exercises have to be done until absolute failure to build muscle effectively {study}. That means a really high number of reps with lots of sets.

So if you want to build muscle without weights effectively with bodyweight exercises, you’ll have to do a lot of sets and push yourself hard till failure on almost every set.

Apply Progressive Overload

Progressive overload is a concept used a lot in strength training. It means gradually increasing demands on muscles, and that is what stimulates them to grow and get stronger.

If it was in a gym, this would be applied by adding more weight to the bar on exercises you’re already doing. For example, adding 2.5 lbs to the bar every week.

But to build muscle without weights you need to challenge your muscles by doing increasingly difficult bodyweight exercises.

That means doing advanced exercises. Things like upgrading your push up to an inclined push up or one arm push up. Exercises like this put greater tension on muscles and lead to strength gains.

So Yes, You Can Build Muscle Without Weights

You can achieve a lot of muscle gain without equipment as well as strength gains. As long as you are consistent you can gain loads as well as keep fit and healthy.

If you want to a few more resources on gaining muscle here are a few:

If you have any questions or comments let me know in the comments section