Build Muscle Without Weights
There are many ways to build muscle, you most certainly can build muscle without weights – and large amounts of muscle too, I might add. In this article, I’d like to set out some ideas for you which can get you on the path to weight-free muscle building.
Progressive Resistance
Building muscle, with, or without weights, has a primary universal principle: progressive resistance. All this means is, for the muscles to grow, they must continue to be stimulated by being pushed beyond their usual means. Progressive resistance simply means the progressive addition of more resistance (weight.)
Weight can be anything. It can be books, chairs with 1, 2, 3, and eventually 20 pairs of shoes tied to them – anything! But, the resistance must progress or your muscle gains will stop.
There are an absolute multitude of bodyweight exercises a person can use to build muscle, but bare in mind that the muscle will only grow to a certain point before more weight must somehow be added. This is totally unavoidable.
Diet
The second universal principle which still applies to anyone trying to build muscle in any fashion, is they must eat sufficient amounts of calories to sustain muscle growth.
‘Sufficient’ varies widely from person to person, and it will take your own testing to determine the amount you need. As a rough guide, it tends to be between 10-20 calories per pound of bodyweight.
Don’t just eat anything, mind. The total calories should be made up of good macronutrients, in good ratios, such as 40-50% protein, 30-40% carbs, 20-30% fats.
Protein is the most important macronutrient for muscle growth. The idea is to keep your bodies nitrogen balance in a positive anabolic (growth) state. Eating between 0.7 and 2g of protein per pound of bodyweight ought to suffice. Again, test for yourself.
Good proteins are eggs, milk, whey, beef, fish, chicken, cheese and nuts.
Carbohydrates are very useful in pre-workout meals to give you energy to work out, post workout meals to give your body a boost to quickly begin the repair process, and throughout the day in smaller amounts to continue to give the body energy to continue repairs and growth. Always ensure you eat complex carbs such as brown rice, potatoes and pasta – and avoid simple carbs, as they are turned to energy so fast that unless they are burned almost immediately, they will be stored as fat.
Don’t overdo the complex carbs, though. They may absorb slower than simple carbs, but if you begin noticing excess fat gains, the first thing you should do is cut your overall calorie intake by lowering the carb ratio.
Fats really are your friend when it comes to building muscle. Not only do fats help to raise testosterone levels (critical for gaining muscle) but higher testosterone levels mean less fat storage. As part of a balanced diet, fats are very good for you. Don’t buy into the scare tactics. Good fats would be dietary fats gleaned from whole foods, and possibly supplements such as fish oils or flax seed oil rich in Omega 3.
Rest
You need rest to recover. Once you’ve worked out, you’ve broken down your muscles, and they need time to repair. Time you must give them. If you don’t give them time to repair (typically 72 hours) then you run the risk of losing muscle mass from overtraining. Also, physical activities such as sports will burn calories you need to repair the muscles, since you must always ensure you have a surplus to gain muscle, as a calorie deficit means muscle loss.
Rest also includes how often you train, how you train, and for how long. It’s a good idea to train no more than 3 times a week, with a full day of rest in between each session, and 2 days after the last session (which if done Monday, Wednesday and Friday would give you Saturday and Sunday off.)
How you train ties into the rest thing, too. Muscles need around 72 hours for full recovery, so any exercises you do you should take into account that muscles worked less than 72 hours beforehand shouldn’t be hit again, or if they are going to be hit by proxy, that it’s kept to a minimum.
Try to keep all sessions to no more than 1 hour. Marathon sessions are completely unnecessary.
Final Tips
For best results whilst trying to build muscle without weights, I still recommend you follow the basic bodybuilding principle of reps and sets. A repetition is an entire movement such as a full push up, start to finish, and a set is a collection of a set amount of repetitions.
For bodyweight exercises, I advocate doing between 3 – 5 sets, and the number of reps should be kept no higher than 20 but no lower than 10. Like I said, adding progressive resistance in order to progressively build muscle is unavoidable, so you should endeavour to always add just enough resistance with each session to keep it challenging, particularly on the last several reps of the last set of each exercise.
Conclusion
Truly, if you can do it, I do advocate building muscle with weights, for the simple reason that they are the most effective and efficient way to do so. For instance, your pectorals, triceps and anterior deltoids will only get so big with push ups unless you begin adding progressive resistance, such as gradually filling as a backpack with books and wearing it whilst doing push ups. But, that’s slightly inconvenient and certainly not sustainable for long, whereas the barbell and dumbbells have almost infinite capabilities when it comes to adding resistance.
