Just because you don’t have access to a gym, or don’t own any weights and other exercising equipment at home, doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to build muscle and get stronger. Coming up with a way to work out without weights might seem challenging at first, but there are actually many exercises you can perform that require little to no equipment and yet are extremely effective at developing strength.
In this post, I’ll share with you some of the best exercises you can do that don’t require any additional weights besides your own body. In addition, I’ll discuss how they can all be performed with the help of items found in most households or at least equipment that most people have much easier access to.
Push-Ups
You’re likely very familiar with this exercise already, and have probably done them before. However, despite the push-up being a simple exercise, it’s importance can’t be understated.
Doing push-ups is one of the best ways, and honestly one of the few effective ways, to develop your chest without the use of weights. It’s also effective for strengthening the triceps and front delts, making it a great option for overall upper body strength. It’s an excellent exercise for everyone, but it’s especially appealing for those who don’t have access to fitness equipment. First and foremost, you can do them just about anywhere. You don’t need any extra equipment or even much floorspace to do them.
But I’m not here just to tell you what you already know. Another major advantage of push-ups is that they’re incredibly versatile. Using some common household items, you can actually create different variations of the movement to put more emphasis on your upper and lower chest muscles.
For example, if you put your feet up on a chair so that your body is angled towards the ground, this is similar to doing an incline bench press, which focuses on the upper chest. On the other hand, if your feet are on the ground but you put each of your hands on a stack of books so your body is now angled upwards, this is like doing a decline bench press where the focus now shifts to the lower chest. As you can see, with just this one basic motion, you can create a comprehensive chest and upper body routine.
Pull-Ups
Another exercise you should definitely incorporate is the pull-up. Pull-ups are very challenging for most people who are new to working out, and as such make for a great exercise to improve overall strength.
More specifically, pull-ups and push-ups complement each other very well for developing your upper body. Pull-ups target many major back muscles, as well as the biceps, forearms, and core, and they even train your grip strength.
To do a pull-up, you just need a bar that’s strong enough and stable enough to support your weight. If there aren’t any suitable options at home, many parks and playgrounds do have pull-up bars, which can be helpful if you live close to one.
You can also buy a pull-up bar, which you can hang on a door frame and use whenever you want. Although this would require purchasing additional equipment, most are pretty inexpensive.
Dips
In my post Key Muscle Groups to Target for Building a Good Physique, I listed the chest as being a critical area to develop if you want to look and be strong. Therefore, to fully round out your chest workout, I’d also recommend doing dips.
Dips strengthen muscles in a variety of areas. They primarily focus on the lower chest, and similar to push-ups, they also target the triceps. Furthermore, the need to constantly stabilize your body during the exercise is very good for improving core strength over time.
Like with pull-ups, you can buy dip bars, which are made specifically for this exercise. They’re not that expensive and don’t take up much space. However, you also might be able to create an easy alternative with the furniture in your house. If you have stools, countertops, or tables that are sufficiently tall, of even height, and can be put next to each other, you can use these as platforms to support yourself while doing dips. Again though, for your safety it’s important to make sure that whatever you use is sturdy enough and capable of supporting your weight before you attempt this.
Leg Exercises
We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how you can train the upper body without weights, but how about the lower body? Without any weights or fitness equipment, is it possible to work out your legs effectively?
I’ll admit that without the use of weights, it can difficult to build significant volume in the legs. Nevertheless, there are plenty of leg exercises you can do without fitness equipment to build your leg strength and increase your explosivity.
Jump squats are an easy exercise to perform, and you can either do these in place or on a staircase. Box jumps are a great exercise for training your explosivity and improving your vertical jump, and you can do these on outdoor ledges if there are any near you. In addition, movements that work on your strength and balance, such as walking lunges, single leg deadlifts, and pistol squats, can all be done anywhere that you have a bit of flat ground.
It’s also helpful to remember that many cardio exercises heavily recruit the lower body, and are therefore very effective at gradually strengthening the leg muscles. Activities such as running, cycling, and even just climbing stairs can be great for this purpose.
Ab Exercises
Similar to leg exercises, I’ve grouped abdominal exercises together because there isn’t one specific exercise that I recommend you do. There are endless workouts you can do to train your abs without any additional equipment besides maybe an exercise mat.
It would be hard to recommend just one specific exercise, but I do have some personal favorites. These include sit-ups, Russian twists, mountain climbers, deadbugs, and bicycle crunches. However, if you look up ab exercises online, you’ll find that there are so many more to choose from.
You’re also not limited to floor exercises. There are ab workouts that you can do from a standing position, and if you were to have a pull-up bar as previously discussed, you’d be able to hang from that and do several different variations of hanging leg raises.
Weights Aren’t the Only Way
A common belief is that access to weights or a gym is required in order to grow your muscles and become stronger. While I personally enjoy and prefer incorporating weights into my routine, this doesn’t mean you can’t achieve the same or better results with only calisthenics exercises, or exercises that primarily rely on body weight, like the ones I’ve discussed above.
In fact, since one must be able to constantly support their own body weight during these kinds of exercises, those who specialize in calisthenics can become incredibly strong and often look much leaner than bodybuilders.
While the goal of this post isn’t necessarily to make everyone become obsessed with calisthenics, the benefits of performing some of these exercises doesn’t only apply to people who don’t own any weights or live too far away from a gym.
For example, this can be a helpful reference for when you temporarily don’t have access to a gym, such as when you’re away on vacation or business, and still want to find ways to get some exercise in. Even for those of you who do regularly work out at a gym, you might be inspired to mix some of these exercises in with your weight training. After all, calisthenics and weightlifting aren’t mutually exclusive, and can be combined in any way if that means helping you better reach your fitness goals.
