My Favorite Ways to Build Muscle Without Weights

Here are my favorite ways to build muscle without weights.

There are a lot of reasons why you might want to build muscle without weights. Sometimes it is your only option to hit your goal to gain mass while working out at home or when you are traveling without access to gyms.

The great news is that the principles stay the same to gain mass quickly.

Sleep builds muscle and you gain mass when you tear those muscles up through effective training, whether you use weights or not.

Exercises to build muscle without weights

Using weights helps you achieve progressive overload, where you make your workout more intense and challenging for your body to stimulate growth. Also, this allows you to use the natural positions of your arms and your legs to train all of your muscle groups from a variety of angles.

Without weights, we just need to be thoughtful to ensure progressive overload, and allow gravity and bodyweight to help us.

Here are my favorite bodyweight exercises, using minimal equipment.

A quick note about variations

When training to build muscle without weights, you need to ensure your body is challenged and your muscles have a reason to grow. So, there a couple of things you can do to change up any of the exercises below to ensure muscle growth is happening.

You can vary the position of your hands, like wider vs narrower pushups to target outer chest vs inner chest, or recruit more secondary muscles like the shoulders.

You can also change the tile of your torso to lean forward slightly or stay straight up, which again changes the emphasized muscle.

A common choice is to increase your reps so you are doing more work. This isn’t my favorite choice when training for massive gains. I like to stay in that 10 rep and 10 set range to build muscle.

Tempo is the best change to build muscle without weights

Instead, I would rather rely on changing the tempo of each rep or the rest periods. If you are resting 90 seconds between sets, shorten that to 60 seconds. I don’t recommend going below that, because you want to give your body a bit of a breather so you can come energized to the next set.

With tempo, instead of 1-0-1 (see the link above about training if this doesn’t make sense to you), consider adding a pause and squeeze in the middle of each rep. Otherwise, extend the 1 second time on each side to 2 seconds. In particular, extending the eccentric phase of an exercise (the second half where you are getting back to the starting position), is one of the best ways to build muscle without weights.

Pushups

This has to be at the top of my list. Pushups are my go-to exercise in all situations. Especially if I am short on time or just tired, but I want to make sure I don’t skip a day to work out, I rely on pushups.

Most people think of pushups as just a chest exercise, but they really work a ton of your upper body. Pushups involve your pecs, triceps, shoulders and engage your core. What I love about the exercise is how it pumps your chest and arms for a rewarding feeling.

Some variations that can help you keep your training fresh and challenging include doing incline or decline pushups. You can use a table or couch to get your body angle right.

Another variation I learned recently is the animal style pushup. This combines the benefits of a traditional pushup with leg training as well.

Lunges

This exercise is a fantastic and powerful way to make sure you don’t skip leg day. Lunges will recruit muscles throughout your legs, including glutes, hamstrings and quads. Lean forward slight to engage your hamstrings and glutes more. Keep your torso straight up to emphasize your quads.

You can also mix this exercise up by standing in place or walking in a straight line during the lunge. I personally prefer to walk, as this creates a more athletic and functional exercise.

Reverse Lunges

Just like the standard lunge above, the reverse lunge is a great way to build muscle without weights. The reverse lunge really fires the glutes and hamstrings.

If you are new to lunges, you may prefer to heavily include reverse lunges in your routine or even just start there. Due to the way the exercise is performed, reverse lunges may be easier and feel more stable.

In a standard lunge, the effort is carried by the front leg that you move forward and back. This shifting weight can make you feel a little off balance. That’s great for training and developing, but might feel uncomfortable at first. The reverse lunge keeps the weight on the stationary leg, helping. you feel grounded the entire time. This improvement in stability means you stay focused to build muscle without weights, instead of worrying about toppling over!

Squats

Squats are the king of all exercises, so they have to be on this list, even without added weights. Just use your bodyweight and feel the burn with proper form. Squats are often performed incorrectly, so getting the movement perfected before adding the pressure of a bar and plates can be a really great decision for your progress.

Of course, just like lunges, squats can really help you develop your quads, hamstrings and glutes.

Don’t skip leg day!

Pull-ups

This one doesn’t require any weights, but you will need some type of equipment to do this. The pull-up is a workout that is definitely worth adding to your routine to build muscle. Done properly, they build your biceps, back, and core. Just like the pushup, pull-ups are an overall growth trigger for your upper body.

I recommend getting a portable pull-up bar that you can use in doorways. Alternatively, you can use a supported bar at the gym or even one at a local park.

Dips

Just like pull-ups, you’ll need more than yourself and the ground to do this exercise, but its a great way to build muscle without weights.

Often times, the same portable pull-up bar you use above will work to perform dips. Otherwise, look to local parks or gyms with space to do this. You can also try using a table or couch as an elevated surface for dips, but only do so if the furniture is completely stable and will not move or break under your weight.

Dips help you build muscle in your chest, triceps, and shoulders. Lean forward to emphasize the chest, but keep your torso vertical to emphasize the triceps instead.

Thoughts or questions? Leave me a comment!