Is it Possible to Build Muscle doing only Body Weight Exercises?
It is known that lifting weights will help you build muscle and that heavy weights won’t make you bulky.
But if you are working out at home or somewhere with NO equipment and ONLY your body, you are thinking if you will see any gains?! OR lose some you worked hard to get previously.
THE ANSWER IS:
You certainly can build muscle without all those weight plates, barbells, and gym machines.
However, there is little more to this scenario. If you personally are used to lifting heavy weights at the gym, loading heavy plates, big barbells, moving weights onto machines, etc, replicating all that at home can prove somewhat difficult.
What this means is, with ONLY BODY WEIGHT EXERCISES you will have to tweak your training. You would have to upper the reps, sets or timing of each exercise or move.
REMEMBER! “In order to build muscle, you need to challenge the muscle”
So, whatever change it takes to challenge your muscles, that’s the goal!
With trial and error, you will find out exactly what you personally need to do.
The advantages of bodyweight exercises are that you’re doing functional, compound movements that allow you to focus on form without the added resistance. You will get stronger in daily life movement patterns and work multiple joints and muscles at one time with exercises like squats, push-ups, and lunges.
Above that, you will also be working the smaller muscles, especially when doing stabilising exercises, like planks, single-sided planks, single-legged deadlifts, and stability ball dead bugs. These types of exercises target your upper and lower body, together with your core, challenging muscles you don’t always work with weights.
Both weight lifting and bodyweight training have their respective pros and cons, it all depends on what you want to achieve.
My personal advice from training all sorts of people from all walks of life, Body weight training definitely is the healthier method which will benefit you in everyday life activities and ALL forms of sports.
3 True Ways of Building Muscle with Weights
Ways To Increase The Muscle Building Benefits Of Body Weight Exercise
- Increase reps, sets and decrease rest time
- Change the angle or tempo of the exercise
- Add some holds and half reps
- Do more plyometrics
- Perform single-sided exercises
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