How To Build Muscle At Home (No Gym Needed)

Can You Still Build Muscle At Home?

Yes, you can continue to build muscle at home. However, the extent to which you are able to do this will vary on two main factors. 

Your experience level: 

If you are a newbie to strength training then it will be far easier for you to build muscle with no equipment and simply using bodyweight movements than it will for somebody with say 7+ years of training.

This is because the stimulus required to initiate muscle growth will be much smaller in untrained individuals than trained individuals. 

For those with greater experience or who have already built a substantial amount of muscle mass (trained individuals), you will need to create an external resistance so that you can continue to overload the muscles (or perform an unholy amount of bodyweight reps with still less success). 

Therefore it would be advisable for trained individuals to have some form of equipment such as dumbbells or kettlebells at home. There are other methods to do this without equipment (which we’ll get to) but those that have been training for some time are more likely to want to purchase equipment or already have some equipment that they can make use of at home.   

This brings us to our second factor.

What equipment is available to you: 

You don’t necessarily need home gym equipment to build muscle but it can certainly help. Your space and budget will determine what type of items you can buy but some good options are resistance bands, dumbbells or kettlebells, TRX, and a pull-up bar. 

If you have even one of these you will find your training options become much more board and it will be easier to adapt your workouts. 

But even you don’t have any fitness equipment you don’t need to start spending your money. You can always perform bodyweight exercises at higher repetitions or use household items that you already have as equipment. 

The degree to which you are successful at building muscle from home will depend largely on how much resistance you can induce relevant to your training age (how long you’ve been training for). The more trained, the harder it will be, but not impossible. 

Will I Lose My Current Muscle Mass?

If the news of your gym closing brings you fears of muscle wastage while you cannot train as you usually would then fear not. If you have built any amount of substantial muscle then you will know that it didn’t appear in a short space of time. And the good news for you is, just as muscle mass cannot be gained quickly it can also not be lost quickly. 

According to Sam Watson of Start Rowing, “it would take a substantial amount of inactivity for you to lose any noticeable muscle mass. This means that as long as you continue training at home then at the very least you should be able to maintain your current level of muscle mass and potentially continue to build more.”

You see the external stimulus needed to maintain muscle mass is far less than what is needed to increase it. 

Another plus to consider is that muscle mass is re-gained far quicker than when you initially built it. So even if you do end up losing a small amount of muscle mass all hope is not lost as you will build it back once you return to your normal training routine. 

Selecting Exercises Based On Movement Patterns

Now let’s take a look at what type of exercise movements you should be including within your home workouts. In fact even when not training at home, if the goal is to build muscle then your workouts should be built around the following 6 basic movement patterns (named as such for simplicity):

• Horizontal press – Muscle groups: Chest, triceps, deltoids
  • Example: DB Chest Press, Push-ups
• Horizontal pull – Muscle groups: Back, biceps
  • Example: DB Rows, Seated Rows
• Vertical press – Muscle groups: Deltoids, triples
  • Example: DB Overhead Press
• Vertical pull – Muscle groups: Back, biceps
  • Example: Chin-ups, Pull-ups
• Squat – Muscle groups: Quadriceps, glutes, adductors 
  • Example: DB Squat, Lunges
• Hip hinge – Muscle groups: Glutes, hamstrings, calves
  • Example: Romanian Deadlifts, Hip Thrusts

If you already have a workout program that you follow, then you should be able to identify which category above they fall into (ignoring any isolation movements such as bicep curls) and you can simply perform them at home or use a variant if possible.  

If it’s not possible, switch your current exercise for an exercise from the list (at the end of the article) in the same category that you are able to perform at home. 

Selecting a variety of movements that fit into all of these categories will ensure that you are hitting all of the muscles from various angles to help stimulate muscle growth and decrease the chances of muscular imbalances. 

Once you have all of these movement patterns covered in your workout, now would be a good time to add in any extra isolation movements should you wish to include any. These are exercises such as bicep curls, tricep extensions and calf raises. 

How To Apply Progressive Overload To Your Workouts

One key factor you need to consider if you wish to build muscle at home is progressive overload. We touched on this earlier but it’s so important that we’ll go a little deeper now. 

Progressive overload is one of the seven principles of fitness. It suggests that a continuous increase in overall workload (overload) is needed to stimulate continuous muscle growth. Without this overload, the muscle cannot grow. 

There are 4 ways to induce overload within your training. 

Frequency: You can create a progressive overload by increasing the frequency at which you train. This could be as simple as increasing your training session from 2x a week to 3x a week. 

Intensity: Increasing the intensity of your session can also be used for progressive overload. An example of increasing intensity could be increasing the resistance used for a specific exercise. 

Time: Increasing the amount of time you spend training can be used as a method for overloading. If we wanted to look at this even deeper, you could increase the tempo at which you perform an individual exercise. 

For example, instead of performing a regular push-up, you could lower yourself to a count of 4 and then hold for 1 before pushing back up to another count of 4. The overall time spent performing the exercise has increased which will make it significantly harder. 

Type: Changing the type of exercise you perform can also be a form of progressive overload. This will be the hardest to integrate at home but may also be the least necessary. One way you could do this is by adding supersets or adding some cardio to your workouts for variability. 

Depending on your schedule it may not be possible for you to increase the frequency or time of your workouts. Also, most people don’t want to workout for longer, even if they do have the time to. Therefore the best way for the majority of people to initiate progressive overload will be by increasing the intensity of their workouts. 

If you have equipment at home such as dumbbells then this is easy to do. You can increase the weight as you get stronger, or if you only have a limited amount of weight available, you can just increase the number of reps or sets you perform (increasing reps is the easiest option). 

This is also where a set of resistance bands will come in handy. They are cheap to purchase from somewhere like Amazon and you can get a set of varying resistance levels that will allow you to add a wide range of movements to your workouts. 

If you don’t have any equipment at home then you can still create resistance to increase intensity. You just need to be a little more creative. For example, you could fill a backpack with books and put it on your back to perform squats, pushups or calf raises off a step. 

You can use your bed frame or chairs to perform dips and rest the bag in your lap. You can also use your table to perform rows. Just make sure it’s sturdy enough!

Other things you can try include:

• Adding water or sand to a large container and using it as a weight
• Wear 2 backpacks, one on your front, one on your back to add even more resistance
• Use heavy items from your garden such as rocks
• Perform exercises with your child (or lighter adult) on your back. 

There are literally tons of exercises you can do without purchasing a single piece of equipment. It will just depend on what you already have available at home. 

The only thing you may struggle to do is pullups but even then I’ve seen people perform them off their doors. 

Note: This is not recommendable as this can be dangerous for obvious reasons. But if your frame is strong enough it has been done successfully. 

Example Exercises

Below are exercise examples that you can include within your home workouts. Examples of exercises using weights, resistance bands, household items, and bodyweight exercises have been included so there are plenty of options for all situations. 

The list is not definitive so feel free to add your own. For any exercise that you are unsure of, a quick YouTube search will do the trick. 

Horizontal Press 

• Dumbbell or Kettlebell Chest Press
• Resistance Band Chest Press
• Standard Push-up
• Push-up Variations
• Feet Elevated Push-up

Horizontal Pull 

• Single or Double Amr Dumbbell or Kettlebell Rows
• Single Arm Resistance Band Rows
• Inverted Rows Using a Table

Vertical Press 

• Dumbbell or Kettlebell Shoulder Press
• Resistance Band Overhead Press
• Handstand Push-up
• Pike Push-up

Vertical Pull

• Pull-ups
• Chine-ups
• Resistance Band Assisted Pull/Chin-ups
• Resistance Band Lat Pulldown
• Reverse Resistance Band Flys

Squat 

• Weighted Squat
• Resistance Band Squats
• Bodyweight Squat
• Goblet Squat
• Split Squats
• Pistol Squats

Hip Hinge 

• Dumbbell/Kettlebell deadlifts (+ single leg variations)
• Resistance Band Deadlifts
• Hip Thrusts