body weight exercises to gain weight?

[Haemon90]

Little bit about myself. Currently I'm sitting at 110lbs and I'm looking to start gaining weight but I'm extremely self concious about my size, not very strong so when I've tried to bench I've only been able to do like 55lbs. So im not really wanting to join a gym by myself

I'm looking to try and gain weight but was wondering if it was possible with just body weight exercises and if so what would be the best routine. If any one can help it would be much appreciated. Thanks

[Buttfear]

Don't be self-conscious about your size, even Arnold was tiny at some point.

Best thing to do is hit the gym with a good routine:

http://www.projectswole.com/weight-t...ngth-training/

[skrump]

Would buy some of the weight gain powder athletes use to increase their body mass from walmart.

Little Asian guy I work with has been drinking the crap for 2 years now and went from being a stringbean to looking like a midget on steroids.
Dunno what his daily excersize routine is but by looking at him I would assume its purely weight training.

[Haemon90]

So then probably wouldn't gain weight through body weight exercises?

- - - Updated - - -

I've tried the weoght gaining stuff from places like GNC and just can't find any good tasting ones lol.

[joppas]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdzasJklxw
Only way to change the way you feel and look is to do something about it. You will gain weight from doing body weight exercises, the more you work out the hungrier you get. But you shouldnt focus on cardio, lifting is a great way to gain weight.

I'v been using gainers and protein shakes for years and i'v never found one i think tastes great, just tolerable.

[Moonfaxx]

Speaking as someone with academic knowledge of nutrition and fitness, and many years experience in the gym... Don't buy the hype. Weight gain of any kind, be it fat or lean body mass, is founded on one core principal -- calories in versus calories out. That is the equation. If you bring in more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you bring in fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. That is it.

Since you want to gain weight, you'll need to bring in more calories than you burn. If you don't care whether it's lean body mass or fat, then gorge yourself like a pig day in and day out -- note that I didn't say eat whatever you want; your body still requires certain nutrients for optimal health. If you're primarily interested in packing on muscle, you'll need a much more calculated and slow approach, and you'll need to hit the weights. Hard work, patience, and dedication are key. Body weight exercises are possible, and you may find that you get some decent benefit from them as a beginner, but if you're serious, then you need a gym (home or otherwise).

An excellent beginner resource for finding your calorie and macronutrient needs is this thread on the Bodybuilding.com forums. Learn it backwards and forwards.

As for body weight or other exercises, you can find plenty just by browsing around online. If you find that you like Bodybuilding.com, they have an exercise database that you can search through. If you want to see what they've got for body weight exercises, filter it down by selecting "Body Only" in the "Equipment Type" section.

Finally, remember to always, ALWAYS use proper form when exercising. You're asking for all kinds of problems if you don't.

Nutrition + Exercise = Everything you want. Anyone that tells you anything different is either trying to sell you something or doesn't know what they're talking about. Best of luck to you.

Edit: After reviewing my post, I feel I should amend the following. With regard to exercise you need to determine specifically what your goals are. "Gain weight" and "lose weight" are not specific goals. A goal I had sounded more like, "I'd like to transform my body by weighing in at 170 pounds and 8% body fat." Then you can start discovering how to achieve it, establishing realistic time frames, and pushing yourself daily so that you can go to bed at night thinking just how bad ass you were in knocking out your goals for that one day.

One tip -- regardless of your goals, cardiovascular health is important. If your program requires you to limit cardiovascular exercise (for example, because you're attempting to gain weight), don't skip it completely. Minimize it. Every able-bodied human being on planet earth should be doing 20-30 minutes of heart-pumping cardio three times a week.

Before undergoing any big change in diet and exercise, I would recommend you speak with your doctor. If you don't have one, get one. Have him give you a physical, and have him order a blood panel and urine analysis. This helps to establish a baseline, and it helps your doctor know how feasible what you're aiming to achieve is. He may have recommendations for you. I discovered a major cholesterol issue many years ago that my doctor helped me to overcome by having me meet with a dietician. The dietician is a good friend of mine to this day.

Finally, enjoy the experience. It is addictive in the best way. You'll find me at the gym six day a week, and I live for the feeling that comes from walking out of there knowing I just took the best possible care of my body that I possibly could. You'll also find that people at the gym tend to be happier, healthier, and much more friendly than the average human being. Make some friends if it suits you.

[iggie]

Little bit about myself. Currently I'm sitting at 110lbs and I'm looking to start gaining weight but I'm extremely self concious about my size, not very strong so when I've tried to bench I've only been able to do like 55lbs. So im not really wanting to join a gym by myself

I'm looking to try and gain weight but was wondering if it was possible with just body weight exercises and if so what would be the best routine. If any one can help it would be much appreciated. Thanks

You will fail. You're already making excuses. Get a membership to a gym and start a program like Starting Strength or SL 5x5. Eat well and eat often. Track your calories: http://www.myfitnesspal.com

[Deleted]

You can buy a second hand set of weights for cheaper than 2 months gym membership, cut back on the luxuries for a while and save the money for some.

[Dtloweca]

Look up routines by the bar brothers they give a lot of things you can do at home. Don't need to do them all if you cant. Just make sure you eat enough that will probably be harder for you then actually working out.

[pucGG]

Don't be self-conscious about your size, even Arnold was tiny at some point.

15 yo arnie says hi
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tUZvWZRf8H...257B4%257D.jpg

[Deleted]

Bodyweight exercises can help a lot, esp for beginners, but consider getting some decent resistance bands if you dont want to go to the gym or fork out on free weights. They can be used for most free weight exercises, cost a fraction of the amount and are much more convenient as they allow a much wider range of resistances.

But if you want bodyweight exercises then squats, lunges, pushups, planks, chin/pull ups and similar will do the job, and you can increase it with more complex version (inclined pressups, side planks, one leg squats) if you want.

Gyms can be a pain, the free weights tend to attract steroid pumping blokes who hog the weights, never put them back in the right place, grunt in a totally uncessarry manner, and generally be annoying for "regular" people to use the weights.
So if you cant be arsed by the hassle, consider resistance bands.

[Auggers]

Everyone starts somewhere.

The greatest piece of advice a person can get about building muscle is that building muscle doesn't happen at the gym, it happens in the Kitchen. You can do whatever exercises you want, but if you don't eat enough calories you will not gain weight or muscle.

For exercises for a beginner, I recommend pull-ups, press ups, crunches, body weighted squats, burpees, leg raises (knee raises if you can't raise your legs), dips if you can a good chair to do them on. This will give you good sore muscles for a few days. Give yourself a few days to get over the soreness and repeat. From there you can get yourself into a gym and start with the weights. Nobody will laugh at you, everyone had to start somewhere. I started with 50-60 pound bench, and now I can easily take that one weight in each arm with dumbell press.

Good luck!

[Deleted]

Dont worry about it and keep it clean dont stuff yourself with suppliments, slow progress is the best progress. take it easy and slowly increase your caloric intake combined with strength exercises

[Deleted]

Before reading below I strongly suggest you lookup your diet, calorie and protein intake. I use USN hyperbolic mass to meet my desired targets and works wonders. Remember you can ONLY gain if you eat, <A LOT>.

This is my routine :
It is important to do at least these exercises as they work all parts of your core muscles. Feel free to add exercises, always good to add more .


Firstly for most of the exercises I aim for set of 8-10 reps, with a total of 3 set per exercise. It doesn't matter how many you do, but if you can't do more than 5 reps on 1st set, drop the weights a bit. If you can go to 12 or above, increase it. The most important of all is that you do these till you fail, not until you've had enough but until your body physically just can't do no more, if you can do half a rep DO IT.

Monday (Chest and triceps)
These two areas work great together, working chest works the triceps alone so its great to throw in exercises for them alone as well.

-Dumbbell chest press
-Chest fly with dumbbells
-Inclined dumbbell chest press
-Dips
-Triceps extensions
-Triceps pushdown
-Triceps pulldown with rope

Tuesday (Back and biceps)
I prefer doing back first as it tires your biceps before doing biceps alone, you will struggle a bit on biceps but more pain means more gain .
-Pullups
-Lat pull-downs
-Dumbell rows
-Hammer curls
-Bar curls
-Cable curls

Thursday (Legs)
Legs usually wear me down quickly. Squats work your entire body so you'll be doing 5 set instead of your typical 3.
-Squats
-MORE SQUATS
-Calf raise
-Leg curls
-Leg extensions

Friday (Shoulders and forearms)
-Military press
-Upright row
-Standing dumbbell side laterals (make sure you do these, ladies love the results)
-Shoulder crunches
-Wrist curls
-Finger curls
-Dumbbell reverse wrist curls


Every couple days I'll do some ab workouts and swim. I'll often do supersets as well (eg. do pushups immediately after a chest set)

Went from 59 kg to 75kg (1m85) this year, (I'll let you do the conversion, from the UK).

pm me if you need any tips

I'm extremely self concious about my size, not very strong so when I've tried to bench I've only been able to do like 55lbs. So im not really wanting to join a gym by myself

I was in the very same boat (do the conversions, probably very similar to you). I'd suggest you get a PT session at a gym. It may seem daunting at first, HOWEVER you do very quickly realise that every one is there for the same reason and only there for their own personal targets. People tend not to give a fuck what you look like or what you are doing. When I go I do my thing, put my music on and do what I got to do. Not once in a year have I ever judged a person at the gym, unless they are destroying the facilities -.-. Actually I think it's pretty cool when overweight or skinny people go to the gym, it just shows they are eager to improve themselves. I started benching 15 kgs, after 1 months I was doing 35kg. The start is always small weights, because your body doesn't know wtf is going on. But trust me it catches on very quickly.... provided you read my opening statement .

[Deleted]

People tend not to give a fuck what you look like or what you are doing. When I go I do my thing, put my music on and do what I got to do. Not once in a year have I ever judged a person at the gym, unless they are destroying the facilities -.-. Actually I think it's pretty cool when overweight or skinny people go to the gym, it just shows they are eager to improve themselves.

Thats very true. No one really looks at other people in the gym. Most people are in their own little private world of agony.

The only people that really attact attention are those with stupidly loud headphones....and those that just make a spectacle of themselves, by things like excessive grunting, slamming weights down and all that kind of bollocks.

Most people wont be checking other people out, in fact most will hardly pay any attention to anyone and really wont care about who else is in there.

I can appreciate its a bit intimidating to go the first few times, but all sorts of people use gyms, not just super fit people, but people at all levels.

[Deleted]

The only people that really attact attention are those with stupidly loud headphones....and those that just make a spectacle of themselves, by things like excessive grunting, slamming weights down and all that kind of bollocks.

:< I can't help my grunting, especially on that last rep. It's usually just for chest and squats though.

[Cyrops]

One thing I want to ask, what is OPs height?
I'm 6.4 foot and 176lbs. When I was a kid, at the age of 14 I was like 5.5foot and 105lbs.
I started exercising using only my body weight, but you can't train certain muscles using only your weight. Unless you have a pull-up bar. Besides you will run to a point where using your body weight you will have to do more and more sets as your muscle gets stronger.That will consume more and more time. With weights you can keep the set number low by adding more weight, keeping exercise time to your liking.
Also remember it is better to exercise daily for low-medium periods of time (depends on how 'serious' you are, ofcourse) as opposed to hitting a gym a every few days. Spending 30mins each day every day is better than spending 4 hours three times a week exercising.

[bthatch]

You will definitely need to add weight to your exercises to gain a significant amount of weight...body weight exercises are usually best for toning. But if you choose to just do body weight exercises I suggest adding protein powder into your diet.

[gamingmuscle]

Before reading below I strongly suggest you lookup your diet, calorie and protein intake. I use USN hyperbolic mass to meet my desired targets and works wonders. Remember you can ONLY gain if you eat, <A LOT>.

This is my routine :
It is important to do at least these exercises as they work all parts of your core muscles. Feel free to add exercises, always good to add more .


Firstly for most of the exercises I aim for set of 8-10 reps, with a total of 3 set per exercise. It doesn't matter how many you do, but if you can't do more than 5 reps on 1st set, drop the weights a bit. If you can go to 12 or above, increase it. The most important of all is that you do these till you fail, not until you've had enough but until your body physically just can't do no more, if you can do half a rep DO IT.

Monday (Chest and triceps)
These two areas work great together, working chest works the triceps alone so its great to throw in exercises for them alone as well.

-Dumbbell chest press
-Chest fly with dumbbells
-Inclined dumbbell chest press
-Dips
-Triceps extensions
-Triceps pushdown
-Triceps pulldown with rope

Tuesday (Back and biceps)
I prefer doing back first as it tires your biceps before doing biceps alone, you will struggle a bit on biceps but more pain means more gain .
-Pullups
-Lat pull-downs
-Dumbell rows
-Hammer curls
-Bar curls
-Cable curls

Thursday (Legs)
Legs usually wear me down quickly. Squats work your entire body so you'll be doing 5 set instead of your typical 3.
-Squats
-MORE SQUATS
-Calf raise
-Leg curls
-Leg extensions

Friday (Shoulders and forearms)
-Military press
-Upright row
-Standing dumbbell side laterals (make sure you do these, ladies love the results)
-Shoulder crunches
-Wrist curls
-Finger curls
-Dumbbell reverse wrist curls


Every couple days I'll do some ab workouts and swim. I'll often do supersets as well (eg. do pushups immediately after a chest set)

Went from 59 kg to 75kg (1m85) this year, (I'll let you do the conversion, from the UK).

pm me if you need any tips



I was in the very same boat (do the conversions, probably very similar to you). I'd suggest you get a PT session at a gym. It may seem daunting at first, HOWEVER you do very quickly realise that every one is there for the same reason and only there for their own personal targets. People tend not to give a fuck what you look like or what you are doing. When I go I do my thing, put my music on and do what I got to do. Not once in a year have I ever judged a person at the gym, unless they are destroying the facilities -.-. Actually I think it's pretty cool when overweight or skinny people go to the gym, it just shows they are eager to improve themselves. I started benching 15 kgs, after 1 months I was doing 35kg. The start is always small weights, because your body doesn't know wtf is going on. But trust me it catches on very quickly.... provided you read my opening statement .

What no deads? Do you even lift? LOL

But more seriously, the OP needs to evaluate his diet and then couple a surplus diet with a basic exercise plan (your is to much, and to much unnecessary stuff)

At his level he can stick with just basic push ups, chin up, sit ups, and squats or lunges (body weight, or goblets/db), at least until he builds up his confidence a little.

[OhpUldum]

Little bit about myself. Currently I'm sitting at 110lbs and I'm looking to start gaining weight but I'm extremely self concious about my size, not very strong so when I've tried to bench I've only been able to do like 55lbs. So im not really wanting to join a gym by myself

If you feel self concious right now that is OK. Unfortunately its part of the process. But the best piece of advice that anyone can give you is that we all start from somewhere. You might be benching 55lbs now and its straining you're muscles but if you want to be pushing 115lbs there is no quick fix. You have to overcome the feelings of self conciousness and realize you might look this way now but in 1 month, 2 months, 6 months, a year, you'll never look the same again.

Also it's pretty easy to go on Kijijji or browse garage sales for used free weights and a bench. Even without a bench there is such a variety of exercises you can do with bodyweight or free weights while standing or using the floor. As for gaining weight while doing bodyweight exercises, its possible but I guarantee you're diet right now will have a larger impact on your weight in general than purely exercise alone.