Building mass at home without equipment?

[Delevicton]

Can it be done? Perhaps with a tonnn of pushups/crunches etc? I'm not very well off financially, so joining a gym is out of the question. I don't own any exercise equipment. Let's say for all intents and purposes; I can only use what's around the apartment. Can I still build up arm/upper body muscle and then tone it?

I have veryyyy little experience with working out. I'm like 5'9'', and only 135lbs. Arms are skinny as Hell, no abs, no upper body strength whatsoever. Anyone have any friendly and constructive advice? Googled a bit, but only found workouts involving a home gym.

[Kivimetsan]

Get a big stick, jam 2 bricks either end, you got some weights.
Get a big stick, stick it between a tree, you got a chin up bar.
Steal some kids bike, do some cardio around the block.

[Deleted]

Get a big stick, jam 2 bricks either end, you got some weights.
Get a big stick, stick it between a tree, you got a chin up bar.
Steal some kids bike, do some cardio around the block.

And if you get caught up by the kids' dad, free sparring match.

[Deleted]

And if you get caught up by the kids' dad, free sparring match.

Best suggestion ever.

On a more serious note.
There's loads of youtube videos where you can get inspiration on what to do at home without weights. And a weight can be practically anything. it does not have to be a nice looking steel thing with 2 round discs or blobs at either ends. Lift your couch. Or your bed. Or your wife.

[Deleted]

You can definitely do bodyweight exercises but going to a gym would be a lot more efficient.

[Delevicton]

Hrmm, was just thinking.. would wearing a backpack while doing pushups and adding more and more weight inside of it do the trick? Or is that dangerous?

[Deleted]

Hrmm, was just thinking.. would wearing a backpack while doing pushups and adding more and more weight inside of it do the trick? Or is that dangerous?

YOu would risk straining your muscles by having an unfixed weight on your back. The workout would be irregular which would make you
compensate while training and the end result would be more harm than award.

[Unorthodox]

Ideally you could approach it with making your own home made Gym Equipment. All you need is a scale to measure out the weight. A good trick that you can try is getting 2 Liter bottles from around the house and fill them with sand. Depending on how much you want to lift you can alter the levels of sand and or go for a heavier material inside the bottles. An easier method of doing it would be to purchase dumbbells and a few weights to make it easier to measure what you lift.

Just get your diet right with some protein and mix in push ups, pull ups (if you have somewhere you can mount a bar that is in the apartment), crunches, burpees, leg lifts and you should see a significant difference in muscle mass if you as you said have nothing at the moment. It will be a good start to get some basic results. If of course you want to intensify your regime just keep increasing the number of sets and you should continue to see results.

[Aldred]

You can definitely get stronger, and bigger, by working out at home without equipment. Ideally you wouldn't do it all with bodyweight exercises - free weights/machines would be nice, but sure if you don't have money to spend on those you can still do a lot.

For example you mentioned pushups and crunches. So all you really need for those is a floor (I'm going to assume your appartment has a floor! ), but rather than doing dozens of normal ones per set - which wouldn't do as much for strength and size - you could do the pushups with your feet up on a bench/chair so you can only manage 8-12 of them at a time. Maybe do three sets of those per workout.

Then instead of crunches - if you're finding you can do a lot of those - pick a harder exercise. One of the toughest and most effective ones is the Bicycle, or Bicycle Crunches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FGilxCbdz8

Here's a link about the study that put that top, if you're interested:

http://www.acefitness.org/getfit/stu...bexercises.pdf


Then you'll need something for your back - set up a pullup bar if you can - that's a great exercise, legs - youtube single leg squats (or use both legs + some kind of safe weight) or glute bridges, and so on.

If you can stretch to a book on the subject, something like "You are your own gym" by Mark Lauren isn't bad. It has a ton of exercises you can do with next to no equipment. Some of them are a bit whacky or not really practical, but you'd get enough ideas in there for a full workout. Only $10 on Amazon (I'm assuming you're in the US since you call them pushups rather than pressups):

http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Your-O...tit_11_rsrsrs0

[Projali]

Get your calories and macronutrients right or you won't build mass, period.

You can get a good workout with bodyweight exercises. If you can't afford the Craigslist discount for weights (people seem to always sell super cheap iron on there after they stop working out a week after they buy it), then there's some basic body weight stuff you can do to get more fit.

If there's a playground or outdoor park near you that has monkey bars, parallel bars, etc. then you have a great place to do calisthenics. Some of the guys in groups like Barstarzz have some pretty good strength and upper body size. Bar work doesn't do much of anything for lower body but it is really hard to beat pull up and chin up variations for back exercise.

Chest you can do dips (parallel bars), push up variations, and chest flies (fill up soda/wine bottles with sand).
Back you can do pull ups and chin ups.
Lower body you can do glute ham raises (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ioQCXUdEc), body weight squats, lunges, calf raises.
Core work you can do hanging leg raises, supermans, etc.

At your weight, probably any good body weight work you do along with a solid diet will get you gains. Will you have more options and capacity for growth if you get some weights to train with? Yes.

[Taiknee]

You can, but you will be limited. At the least, you could get some dumbbells to really stretch your muscles. The key to building muscle is really to stretch out the muscle fibers, so do the reps very slowly. Doing fast reps just uses momentum to power most of the rep and you're really not doing much more than cardio when you go too fast.

However, based on your height and weight, you are very skinny. Because of this, you need to focus on eating more. Eat more. And just in case this wasn't clear, eat more. Aim as close to 3k calories as you can - split into multiple meals. Try to eat every 2 - 3 hours and eat until you're full, do not only eat until you're satisfied, and stay away from cokes.

[TJ]

What equipment do you mean? none at all? the machines or what. Using free weights is much more effective than the machines in the gym and there's an exercise for pretty much every muscle, you can find tutorials on youtube. Buy some dumbells and you're sorted!

[Strah]

You won't build much without heavy lifting and proper dieting.
Body weight exercises mainly work for hypertrophy and there's will be plateaus that you won't be able to overcome without weights.

[Theil]

1. if you live somewhere near a YMCA see if you can join for free (they offer good discounts/free memberships but they require some paperwork)

2. Look into calisthenics. Not ideal for muscle mass but excellent for building lean muscle. You're going to have a hard time making weights or something like that, so I think this is your best option. Leverage your body weight in creative ways. Mass is overrated anyway. Find free places to do pull ups, do push ups at home. I'd suggest squatting heavy stuff but nothing safe actually comes to mind.

[Epiphanes]

You can definitely do bodyweight exercises but going to a gym would be a lot more efficient.

Instead of spending $20 a month (at the least) for a gym membership, you can visit your local Gander Mountain or Dick's Sporting Goods and purchase a complete 50 lbs dumbbell set (2 bars, 50 lbs of weight) for $60 and keep them for a lifetime.

Anywho, plyometric cardio can get you cut pretty fast. As far as building bulk goes, it can happen. Pushups, dips, pullups, one-leg squats, burpies, and a huge variety of compound exercises can give it to ya.

[Deleted]

Totally!

Most importantly - que up some dragon ball z while you're at it.

[Deleted]

Don't get Dumbbells, get a kettlebell.