How To Build Muscle Without Weights
How To Build Muscle Without Weights
Building muscle provides benefits to a person by helping control their weight, reduces their risk of injury, increases their balance, boosts stamina, sharpens mental focus and helps to control chronic conditions such as diabetes, depression, obesity and osteoporosis. Here are some examples of how to build muscle without weights by the use of isometric exercise, resistance bands, and swimming.
Isometric exercises do not require any special equipment and can be performed anywhere at anytime by anyone.
To build muscle in the chest, jamb crushes, praying hands and push-ups are effective. To perform the jamb crush, face a door jamb or a wall with feet spread shoulder width apart, press a palm on both sides of the door jamb or against the wall. Your palms should be chest high and in an L shape. Now press. Do not mimic a push up, just press. You will feel the contraction in the chest and pectoral muscles.
How To Build Muscle Without Weights
Praying hands are very easy. Stand or sit erect, put your two palms together as if praying. You can extend your arms straight out or keep them in an L shape. Press your two palms together as hard and as long as you can for several seconds, release and repeat.
The next exercise, push-ups, is very effective for building the chest, shoulder and deltoid muscles. If you can not perform a horizontal push-up, use a wall or a solid counter as an alternative. Face a wall in the same position as you did for the jamb crunch but mimic a push-up. You can also use a solid counter that is waist high, press your finger tips against the surface and lower your body toward the counter top then push back up the same way you would a regular push-up.
Bicep curls and wall presses can improve muscles in the arm. Isometric bicep curls mimic a regular bicep curl using a weight. Make a fist and place it on the opposite palm, press down while pushing up with the palm arm. Keep your elbows tight against your body just as you would if using weight, hold, then release and repeat with the other arm.
To complete a wall press, stand with one hip facing the wall, your arm straight down with your fist placed against the wall. Using your arm, move about twelve inches away from the wall and hold for as long as you can then repeat using the other side.
Crunches and leg lifts work great on the stomach muscles. Crunches may not be fun but will give you great abdominal muscles. Lie down, bend your knees with your feet flat on the floor and clasp your hands behind your head. Now lift your upper body toward the ceiling, hold for seven seconds, lower back to floor and repeat. Leg lifts are much easier. Simply lie down flat on back, with body straight, lift both legs up, and hold as long as you can then slowly lower back to floor and repeat.
To build muscle in the legs, use squats and a calf raise. To squat, stand with feet apart, stretch your arms out in front of you and very slowly lower yourself down as low as possible without pulling your hamstring or feeling any pain or burn in your knees, then slowly return to standing position and repeat. For a calf raise, simply stand up on tiptoes, hold the position, lower yourself and repeat. If you feel off balance, use the back of a chair or countertop to steady yourself.
How To Build Muscle Without Weights The Easy Way
Another way to build muscle without lifting weights is the use of resistance bands. Resistance bands are similar to giant very strong rubber bands. They are portable and inexpensive while allowing a full body workout on the road or at home. Much like a cable machine, resistance bands have the ability to create resistance from all directions, working different muscle groups, increase coordination, and be utilized by all fitness levels.
Another excellent way to build muscle without using weights is swimming. While swimming you exert constant movement due to the ever-present resistance of the water. An all-over workout is the result of swimming laps. There is also no injury to your joints from swimming.
Isometric exercises, resistance bands or swimming all use a different form of resistance and are all examples of how to build muscle without weights. The benefits are you do not have to join a gym, there is no cost or very little cost and the possibilities of injuries are nonexistent or minimal.
How to build muscle without weights.
