Building muscle without weights could be a lot easier than you were thinking?
You can always expect increasing muscle size to take time and effort, but it could be just as fast without using weights.
Not everyone is interested in a gym membership or owning their own weights. To go along with that, everyone isn’t interested in getting ripped with bodybuilding.
There are plenty of people who would like to merely gain a muscular and lean look without using weights.
If that’s you, you are in luck. These techniques are simple ways to build, define, and tone muscle primarily with your own body weight.
How To Build Muscle Without Weights
Muscle mass is increased by first stressing the muscle fibers to the point of making small tears. When these micro tears heal, the fiber is stronger and larger.
Doing this over and over with time in between for proper healing builds muscle. Here’s 6 exercises that will stress and manipulate muscles to grow.
1. Push Ups
Push ups build arms, shoulders, and chest. There are several variations of pushups, but if you are a beginner to workouts, just start out with standard push ups.
Like all workouts, you will see the best results with regular sessions and keeping a log of exactly what you do each time. This is important when it comes to building muscle so that you can know how many you did last time.
On the first day do as many as possible. Even if that’s only one, try to add one to it the next day. Adding one pushup each day will naturally increase your strength, muscle, and endurance little by little until you are looking for new ways to do push ups.
2. Pull Ups
This is a super effective way to build muscles without the use of weights, other than your own body weight. Pull ups build arms, back, and core.
Purchase a doorway pullup bar, use a swing set at home or in a park, a tree limb, or build something. Don’t be surprised if you can’t even do one. Most people find pullups to be the hardest exercise to do and don’t try more than once.
The best way to start, if you’re having trouble, is by standing on something. Even if you are only kneeling and lifting part of your own bodyweight, you are building muscle and strength. Journal the reps you can do, and keep adding to them until you are strong enough to do them without a box or chair.
3. Squats
Squats are an exercise that many people underestimate for building muscle and body strength. Even though the primary purpose of squats is for building leg muscle, they also strengthen your core and lower back.
I like to do squats with my hands clasped behind my neck. Doing them like this stretches out all my upper back muscles while building legs and lower back muscles.
There are a lot of variations, but you might try squatting while holding your back and head against a wall. This is a more intense version and harder to accomplish.
Check out these workout tips for better results.
4. Planks
I think anyone with any interest in a stronger body should do planks. Everything we do physically from walking to turning over in bed depends on the strength of your core.
There isn’t a faster or better way to strengthen and maintain the all important core muscles than a few minutes a day doing planks.
Re-shape your body, arms, abs, and back with 3-5 minutes a day in the plank position. This is the building block to keep you strong and mobile throughout your life.
5. Martial Arts
If you’re looking for extreme muscle mass to show off in competitions, martial arts won’t do the job. On the other hand, martial arts is one of the best ways to build, tone, and strengthen usable muscle.
The simplicity, discipline, and full body workout associate with the martial arts represents one of the best ways to develop muscle without weights. In addition, if you are not interested in martial arts training, you can still use Tai Chi on a daily basis for meditation as well as increasing physical strength.
6. Pilates
You might be in a situation where it is not advisable to go to a gym or to lift heavy weights? In these cases, Pilates exercises can be immensely beneficial. These stretching exercises will provide resistance to each muscle to a point where you will truly be amazed at how fast your muscles will tone and develop. No matter whether you are dealing with health challenges or a tight budget, you can still make use of Pilates to help develop strong and well defined muscles.
Summary
Depending on your goals, how far you want to go into building muscle, or exercising to lose weight, doing it without weights can work extremely well with the techniques listed above.
I don’t know that it necessarily takes any longer, depending on how you go about it either? Whether you are using weights or not, expect to workout for several weeks before you see the results. In fact building muscle should never be on a timetable, but rather a long term endeavor.