How To Build Muscle Without Weights

To build muscle without weights you first need to understand the fundamentals of stimulating muscle growth. Muscle can be built using a variety of methods, but regardless of the method(s) a person chooses, the ‘laws’ behind muscle building remain the same and certain criteria must be fulfilled or you won’t get the results you want. Building muscle without weights isn’t done by hammering out endless push-ups or sit-ups every day, like most people initially think. There is a rhyme and a reason behind everything and this article will tell you everything you need to know about the ‘laws’ of stimulating muscle growth (with and without weights), plus the dietary tweaks you will probably have to make to facilitate the growth of extra muscle mass.

The ‘laws’ of muscle growth:

1: Stimulate the muscles – and the right muscle fibers…

The body has different muscle fibers which are configured to respond to different types of stimuli. Some muscle fibers are fast twitch (explosive) and some are slow twitch (endurance). Fast twitch fibers run mostly anaerobically (without oxygen) and are explosive in nature. When you throw a punch or jump or sprint or lift heavy weights you are using fast twitch muscle fibers. When you walk or jog or swim slowly you are using mostly slow twitch fibers which work aerobically (with oxygen).

It’s the fast twitch fibers which have the most capacity for growth, and it’s those which you must target and you do so by avoiding aerobic workouts and focusing on anaerobic-targeted exercises – which require maximum muscle exertion and generally don’t last longer than a few seconds.

What makes the fast twitch fibers work and not the slow twitch depends upon your fitness levels. In the context of push-ups, a fit and strong person will probably not get enough immediate fast-twitch stimulation because the resistance of their bodyweight isn’t enough to optimize it as a fast twitch exercise. On the other hand, someone who is an absolute novice and finds doing one push up challenging, the fast twitch muscle fibers will be used immediately.

However you choose to exercise, if you want to gain substantial muscle the idea is to engage the fast twitch muscle fibers quickly by using sufficient resistance (an exercise which is challenging enough to do just once) and to repeat it one after the other (repetitions) until the muscles fail, which should happen within a matter of seconds if you’re training optimally, anaerobically.

As you get stronger and fitter, the resistance will be easier to overcome and will lose its effectiveness as an anaerobic exercise – hence it’ll no longer be an efficient way to reach the fast twitch muscle fibers. The solution is to increase the resistance as often as possible. For instance, if you do pushups, placing a heavy book on your back or even switching to one hand push-ups.

How to progressively add resistance…

If you’re going to build muscle without weights you still need to progressively add resistance, so aside from making use of household objects such as heavy books or whatever else you can think of, I highly recommend purchasing a set of resistance bands to make this practical and possible. Resistance bands are just giant elastic bands of varying resistance which you can wrap around household objects, or your own body in various ways to pull on and stretch for added resistance, so you can increase the resistance gradually.

The best way to build muscle size is to work the muscles through the full range of motion – that is, the full movement they can perform. This works the most muscle fibers and builds strength throughout the full range movement. This is why resistance bands are so good, which can also be used in conjunction with bodyweight exercises. Alternatively, you can use static holds – holding a sufficiently heavy object or position statically for a short period of time to induce muscle failure (again, adding resistance is a must in order to progress) or using isometrics – all out contractions of 6-15 seconds to failure against immovable objects, or pulling against a heavy duty strap or your own body parts.

Static holds and isometrics must be done in multiple positions to satisfy the full range of a muscles movement or the results will be subpar – you won’t gain muscle strength beyond the position exercised and you won’t have reached enough different motor units (bunches/teams of muscle fibers) to achieve much growth.

For building muscle and strength I rate isometrics far more than static holds. But, full range movements will tend to work best for most people, so you would be best off spending most of your time trying to gain muscle with bodyweight exercises and utilizing resistance bands when you need more resistance.

How much volume, or to use exercise parlance, how many repetitions or sets (a collection of consecutive movements (reps) split by a period of rest) you do in a workout to build muscle is a grey area. Everyone has their own opinion but the fact is everyone is different. Some people respond better to higher volume whilst others respond best to low volume. Do some testing on yourself and see what you think. If you respond best to low volume you’re lucky – who wouldn’t want more for less?

Just remember to keep it anaerobic. Muscles need enough time under tension (significant enough resistance) to cause significant protein breakdown of the fast twitch fibers or you won’t see much growth. Just be aware that huge one off lifts (one rep max sets) may build strength through neural adaptation but not significant muscle because there hasn’t been enough time under tension to cause muscle protein breakdown. The flip side is the set goes on too long and it’s obviously not optimally anaerobic, thus not engaging the fast twitch fibers and also not causing fast twitch muscle protein breakdown. Any exercise set which feels like it could go on for minutes is definitely not anaerobic, but aerobic, and you need far more resistance. As a starting point, if your muscles don’t give out (fail) within 45 seconds in a set, it’s probably too light. To build significant muscle, the ideal timeframe for muscles to fail in during each set for full range movements is between the 6^th and 10^th repetition with 8 being pretty much ideal.

2: Eat enough of the right foods to accommodate extra muscle mass…

Without eating enough calories – and calories from good nutrients – your muscles building efforts are doomed to fail. For a short while you may be able to get away with not significantly changing your diet if you’re a bog standard beginner as your body will maximize its muscle mass on the nutrients you’re currently taking in. However, a time will come – and come quickly – when you need to eat more calories (energy) and those calories have to come from good sources of complete protein (eggs, fish, tuna, beef, chicken, whey protein, milk, etc.) plus good complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. How much to eat depends on your body and your lifestyle. Trial and error is the only way to fine tune it. Simply start by eating a little more than you do now – maybe 200-500 calories per day more, that should suffice, and if it doesn’t then adjust it upwards.

3: Rest long enough to allow your muscles to fully recuperate so you can exert more muscle power than last time…

The biggest mistake people make when trying to build muscle without weights is they seem to think the way you do it is to work the same muscles every single day. You will not gain muscle this way as your fast twitch muscles need time to recover and grow. Give at least 72 hours before hitting the same muscles and change exercises every 3-4 weeks or vary it somehow – different tempo or different stance or hand position, and so forth, or your nervous system adapts to the movement and protocols and prevents the muscles responding properly with strength and growth increases.

How often you work out each week depends on what you choose to do. Some people do grueling full-body workouts in one session and maybe do this 2x a week. Most people split their routine up to cover the entire body over different days in the week, trying to avoid as much as possible hitting the same muscles again in that 72 hours period. For instance, a person might do triceps, chest and shoulders on Mondays, do Biceps and the back muscles on Wednesdays and do the leg muscles and abdominals on Fridays. Decide which muscles you want to work and formulate a plan.

It’s not recommended you work out longer than 2 days consecutively without a day off, though if you’re only doing maybe 1-2 muscles per workout you could possibly fare ok by doing this. Definitely don’t work out any more than 5x per week however you split it up – your body needs full rest!

Conclusion:

Now you know the basics of how to build muscle without weights and see it’s all very possible. Most exercises you can do with weights you can find some way of imitating without weights using your bodyweight and possibly utilizing resistance bands as advised – you absolutely need some way of progressively adding resistance, after all. Also don’t neglect the idea of static holds or especially isometrics. Especially for people who are new to resistance training, isometrics in particular are very good at building strength and significant muscle mass. In time, you may wish to progress to using some form of weights to continue your training or add a new dimension to it, though you can certainly purchase very strong resistance bands if you wish to proceed this way.