How to Do Full Body Workouts to Build Muscle Without Weights
In a time when many people are paying for expensive gym memberships or buying expensive home gym equipment, it is still possible to build muscle without all this expense, since it is possible to build muscle without weights.
You can use your own body to provide the necessary resistance to challenge your muscles to get bigger and stronger. There are plenty of bodyweight exercises that can be performed to help tone up your body and build muscle. In fact, they can all be done in your home, which make them not only cheaper, but also more convenient.
Instructions
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Perform push-ups to build your chest, shoulders and arms. Push-ups are a great way bodyweight exercise to add muscle to your chest and shoulders while also working the triceps of your upper arms. Begin in a prone position on the floor with both arms outstretched and holding up your body. Keep your body completely straight with your lower body resting on your toes. If you are a beginner, you can use your knees instead of your toes. Slowly bend your arms at the elbow and lower yourself until your nose touches the floor and then push yourself back up.
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Use pull-ups to build your back, shoulders and biceps. Pull-up devices can be cheaply purchased to slide into a doorway (see Resources below). Begin with your hands evenly apart and grasped around the pull-up bar. Pull your legs up until they are completely off the ground. Slowly pull your bodyweight up until your chin reaches the pull-up bar and then slowly lower yourself back down until your arms are outstretched.
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Alternate crunches and leg lifts for rock hard abs. Crunches work mainly the upper abdominals, while leg lifts focus on the lower abdominals. For crunches, begin by lying with your back on the floor and knees bent with your feet on the floor. Fold your arms across your chest and then slowly raise your upper body toward your knees about 6 inches before slowly lowering back to the floor. After one set, perform a set of leg lifts. Remain on your back but straighten out your legs until you have only a slight bend at your knees. Slowly raise both feet off the ground about 8 to 10 inches, keeping your knees slightly bent, and then slowly lower your feet until they touch the floor.
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Perform bodyweight dips to build upper body muscle. Parallel dip bars can be cheaply purchased and placed somewhere convenient in the home (see Resources below). Put yourself between the parallel bars and grab each bar with your hands with your arms straight. Lift your legs up so that you are supporting your entire bodyweight. Slowly lower your body down until your chest is in line with the dip bars and then slowly push yourself back up to the top position. This is an advanced bodyweight exercise that takes quite a bit of strength, so it may have to be worked up to.
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Use lunges to tone and build muscle in your thighs. Lunges work both the front of your thighs (the quadriceps) and the back of your thighs (the hamstrings). To perform, stand with your legs together and hands on your hips, then place one leg forward as if making a long first step. With your leg forward slowly bend your knee, lowering your body until the knee of your back leg lightly touches the floor, and then slowly push yourself back up. Once you have completed a set with one leg, switch to the other leg and perform the same number of repetitions with the opposite leg.
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Tips & Warnings
When performing push-ups, you can change the width of your stance and hand placement to change up your workout and hit your muscles from different angles. When performing pull-ups, you can change things up by changing your grip. You can use an overhand or underhand grip as well as change the width of your grip.
Always do light stretching and some light jogging before beginning your routine. The jogging should be done first in order to warm up the muscles and get the blood flowing throughout the body. Perform all of these exercises slowly so as to get the best possible muscle contraction and to prevent injury.
