Building Muscle Without Weights

I get emails from people asking about building muscle without weights all the time. Yesterday’s post on Strength Training At Home touched on this topic a little bit because I recommended doing bodyweight exercises to get in shape at home (because most people don’t have a ton of equipment at home).

Workout Anywhere!

The great thing about not needing weights to build muscle is you can literally work out anywhere! At home? Check! On vacation? Check! Traveling, in a hotel room? Check! Locked up in prison with the keys thrown away? Check!

I hope you’re not locked up in prison reading this, but it should still help you all the same… speaking of prisoners…

Forgotten Prison Exercise Builds Muscle and Lung Strength

Want a total body blast? One exercise that works your entire body (not to mention your cardiovascular system)? It’s gotta be the Burpee! Prisoners apparently do these in the hundreds inside their jail cells because you don’t need more than a few feet of space. 3 simple steps:

1. Squat down from a standing position, and drop down into a pushup position, hands on the ground and kicking your legs back…
2. Do a push up…
3. Jump your legs forward to between your hands then jump up into the air bringing your knees to your chest and your hands into the air over your head…

Do this badboy 20 times and see if your heart isn’t pumping. Then we want to move onto some more “direct” but still compound exercises for the rest of our body…

Pullups RULE!

Pullups are the best upper body pulling exercise bar none, even in a gym. Forget lat pull downs. Forget rowing machines. Start pulling your bodyweight!

You work more muscle groups in your back, arms, etc… plus, it’s functional strength… the type of strength you might need to do something like escape your prison cell and pull yourself over a wall. So if you’re looking for an effective upper body muscle builder that requires no weights, look at pullups.

I know what you’re thinking: “I don’t have a pullup bar”. Not to worry, door pullups to the rescue!

• Find a sturdy door and open it…
• jump up and grab the top of the door frame (or just grab it you tall bastard)…
• bend your knees behind you and do pullups on it…

Sliding your body against the door creates a little resistance on the way up, and these are just all around great… and you can do them anywhere you can find a door. Or you could use a tree branch, a door frame (builds great finger strength for rock climbers, etc), or buy one of those pullup bars that go in your doorway (I have one!)

Squat For Muscle

The burpee is almost like a combined squat, pushup, explosive squat… but because your legs are such big muscle groups, it’s a good thing to stimulate them a lot when you’re wanting to build muscle (especially without the help of weights)… so you gotta squat.

Do bodyweight squats or hindu squats for reps. You could also grab a backpack, throw some books in it and use that for weight on your shoulders (if you want to add weight)… but doing 200 reps of bodyweight squats will get your legs burning big time.

You could also stack leg exercises to make it even harder like this:

• Do 5 bodyweight squats…
• Do 5 bodyweight lunges each leg…
• Do 5 step ups onto a chair with each leg…
• Repeat…

That way you’re doing multiple exercises and you’re sure to be giving your leg muscle enough stimulus for growth. Also, sprinting (hill sprints especially) are a GREAT leg exercise… and have tons of cardio and fat burning benefits.

I hope this article helped you on your quest of building muscle without weights.