Getting Buff: Building Muscle with No Gym

by Russ Klettke

Applying principles of resistance training, it’s possible to build muscle with just your bodyweight and objects around the home. This may not make you a competitive bodybuilder, but it’s a very good start or a maintenance program for someone who lacks access to a traditional gym.

There are all kinds of reasons not to belong to a health club. This crappy economy is one. Maybe your work and commuting schedule don’t allow for it. Lack of a decent gym nearby is another. Perhaps you’re incarcerated in a prison that doesn’t have one (don’t laugh, prisoners are credited with some great innovations in this area). Or, you simply don’t feel comfortable in a public weight room.

Or maybe, you’re just smart enough to know a health club isn’t essential for a person to exercise. Because it isn’t. It’s quite possible to do a significant amount of exercise without rooms full of iron, cables and cardiovascular equipment.

Of course, you could purchase at-home equipment in price ranges from $20 to $20,000. If you’re going to invest the dollars and space at the upper end, let’s hope you know your own personal propensity for exercise discipline. Just buying something doesn’t make it happen.

Your investment can actually involve nothing more than dedicating a 10’ by 10’ space in your home. Your equipment is largely you, gravity, a.k.a. bodyweight exercises, and perhaps a towel. Calisthenics you learned in grade school, pushups and floor crunches are perhaps the most familiar exercises, but consider trying a few others:

Rope pulls/shoulders: You don’t even need a rope, just a twisted towel. Grab at both ends, with hands separated between 4 inches to 3 feet. Pull with the right arm, resist with the left, then reverse it (pull to the left, resist with the right). Cycle through this ten to twenty times before resting. You can do this with straight arms or bent elbows, overhead, in front of your nose or low, around the hip levels.

Rope pulls/biceps: With the same rope or twisted towel, grab both ends and loop the towel behind one thigh. Standing (advanced) or sitting, engage the leg to resist the efforts of your arms in curling the towel up. Every ten reps switch legs.

Star bursts: Squat down on feet, arms wrapped around legs. “Explode” up and out off the floor with arms outstretched, then fold back into the squat position. Repeat until fatigued. Do three or four cycles of this per workout, periodically raising the heart rate to boost your workout.

Standing supermans: Stand on one foot. Keeping that leg rigid, slowly lower your shoulders forward and raise the free leg in the back. Take that as far as your stability skills allow, then extend the arms out straight in front of you. Either hold that position for 20 seconds, or if you can, pulse the arms and leg up and down in unison. Repeat on opposite leg.

Okinawan old ladies: Written about in the “The Blue Zones” by Dan Buettner, among the longest-lived people on earth are Okinawans. The author visited the homes of female centenarians in Okinawa, and noticed they largely sit on floors and are frequently required to get up with no assistance. Try doing that ten, 15 or 20 times, simply starting on a floor and rising up to a standing position. You will probably roll off one hip; try alternating hips as you do. This works the legs, core and shoulder muscles – and might help you live to be 100.

The possibilities are endless. For visual ideas on bodyweight exercises, search online videos such as YouTube. This home fitness training video is terrific and is just a start.