Building Muscles

Building Muscles - Train Without Weights – Number of different movements

I went to Wikipedia and got this information. I have been training and building muscles for some time now, but I never dreamed there were this many exercises that could be done where you train without weights. Many of them I did when I was a child in school, and they certainly bring back memories.

• Burpees
• Crunch
• Dip
• Jumping Jack
• Press up, or push up
  • Diamond Pushups
    Similar to traditional pushups, only placing hands together so a diamond is formed between joined thumbs and index fingers.
  • Hindu Pushups
  • Planche Pushups
    Similar to traditional pushups, except during the entire duration of a set, the hands alone touch the ground, arms straight, legs elevated off the ground straight and together in line with your shoulders, horizontal to the ground
  • One Arm Pushups
  • Plyometric Pushups
    Similar to traditional pushups, only launching up as fast as possible, so that hands coming off the ground.
• Pull up, or chin up
  • One Arm Chin up
• Sit up
• Russian Twist
  Secure your feet either by placing them under something or by having a partner hold them. Begin doing situps but when you're in the "up" position, clasp your hands in front of you. Moving only at the trunk, rotate to one side. At the end of your range of motion, quickly reverse the movement and rotate to the opposite side. Repeat in a rapid fashion for the full number of reps.
• Squat
  • Squat Thrusts
    Stand with feet together. Squat down and place your hands on the floor next to your feet. In an explosive movement, jump feet backwards into a push-up position, jump feet back between hands and stand up. Add intensity by adding a jump after you stand up.
  • Pistol, or one-legged squat
• Handstand Pushup
  • Face wall then do a handstand, facing away from wall, feet resting against the wall. Bend your arms so your body drops halfway, then straighten back up. Repeat for 10 sets.
    Alternately, drop your body down halfway then hold for 30 seconds in stress position.
• Lying Hip Swing
  • Lie on your back with the legs pointed up, arms on the ground extended to each side, Maintain straight legs and swing your legs all the way to the left and then all the way to the right. Stop just short of touching the ground with the feet.
• Leg Lifts
  • Lie on your back with your hands under your buttocks. Lift your feet about six inches off the ground, legs held together. Spread your legs as wide as possible, while keeping legs off the ground. Move legs back together. Return to rest position. Repeat for 20 reps.
    As an alternate, keep feet off ground in stress position for 30 or 60 seconds
• Mountain Climbers
  • Assume push up position, with hands on floor with shoulders over hands. Tuck one leg under torso with other leg fully extended. Keeping weight on balls of feet, as quickly as possible, "climb" alternating legs back and forth in a jogging-type motion.
• Grasshoppers
• Side Bends
• Box Jumps
• Roman Chair
  • Stand against wall. Slide halfway down wall, as though you were sitting down, if there were a chair. Thighs should be parallel with ground with knees bent 90-degrees. Hold your arms out, straight, so they're also parallel with floor. Hold position for 60 seconds.
• Pike Press
• Reverse Bridge
  • Lie on floor, face up, arms extended over head. Make a bridge so your back is arched and your body supported by arms and legs. Maintain in stress position for 60 seconds.
    An alternate is to assume same position, then gently balance on head so that body weight is supported by head and legs. Maintain in stress position for 30 seconds.
• Front Levers
• Back Levers
• Planche
• Reverse Planche
• Iron Cross variations (including inverted, Maltese, and Victorian)
• Rainbows: move the body from a reverse planche through a hand stand to a planche or the reverse.

I will not do all of these, but as we go along but I will try to show you the various ways to train without weights and build a fantastic body.

Building Muscles - Train Without Weights – Massive Shoulders

One of the exercises that train and build your shoulders is the normal push-up. In addition, this will train the triceps and also the chest.

I have found that if I raise my legs up high, it does concentrate more on the shoulders. I also don't use the press-up stands I have, but rather just the floor. As you get stronger, you can raise you legs higher and higher which will work the deltoid (shoulder) muscles more than the others. I use the same number of sets and reps as for my other body parts.

I would do the following for a training session -

• 1 set of 12 reps warm up. 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 10 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 8 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 6 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 12 reps with a 2 minute rest before the next exercise.

This training will help you to train and build up healthy looking shoulders.

Building Muscles - Train Without Weights – Huge Calves

Calves are one of the most stubborn muscles to train and build. Some people are lucky and some are not. That does not mean you should not train them on the days you have set aside to exercise. The idea of training is to get the blood to flow to the muscle. This is done with the movement of that muscle. I do a very simple calf-raise exercise. If you do the exercises slowly, and with sufficient repetitions, you will get a lot of blood to the calf muscle area and it will get a great training.

The best way to get the most from your calf-training is to tense the muscle at the top of the movement. This action really stimulates the muscle. Results in life take effort, consistent effort, and when you want to train and build up your calves it is the same.

Building Muscles - Train Without Weights – Big Thighs (Quads)

I hear many people tell me they do not really need to train because they walk the dog, or they do a lot of walking at work. I would like to point out here that this is walkercise and not exercise. Exercise is different, and is necessary for us to be at our best. If you are fit in your body you will perform much better in your general life.

One-legged Squats

To have really fantastic legs it is necessary to do some squats. I certainly would not waste my time doing two-legged squats without weights. I would definitely do only one-legged squats. They work very well. When you start, choose which leg you want to squat with, and put the other one in front so it cannot help in the squat. Then lower yourself down until the thigh is parallel to the ground, as you can see in the photo. Do a full set of reps, and then change to the other leg. If you want more advanced squats, put one leg up on the seat of a chair and squat.

Squats without Weights

My training would consist of -

• 1 set of 15 reps warm up. 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 12 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 10 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 8 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 6 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 12 reps with a 2 minute rest before the next exercise.

I train my legs – thighs (Quadriceps) on Wednesday and again on Saturday of each week.

Building Muscles – How to Train Without Weights – Killer Six Pack Abs

Of all the muscles I talk to people about, training Abs rates among the top. Almost every one, both male and female, wants a six-pack. When you look around at people, you will see some rather large mid-sections. The reason for this is - not because they do not have abdominal muscles - but because the have let them relax and have got lazy. You can be grossly overweight, but if you have always held in your abdominal muscles, you will look slimmer and better.

As we get older, we relax more - especially our abdominals. Holding them in is very tiresome to start with. It will feel like you are fighting a losing battle. You have to persist. Every time you think about it, hold in your stomach. It will not take too long and it will become a habit. Before you know it, you will feel quite normal holding in your abdominals. Eating too big a meal in one sitting can cause a big problem with holding in your abs. Eat more regularly and much smaller meals so you are not trying to fit a football into the space of a tennis ball.

Training abs is very simple and you only need to do normal sit-ups in your training programme. I would always train my abs at least 2 x a week. My normal training time for abs is a Tuesday and a Friday. Train abs to get a really good burn. I do around 4 sets of 20 reps with straight forward sit-ups. You will have to work out what is the best for you. If you find that you are able to do them easily, then hold a heavy book to your chest when you are doing them. You do not want to spend hours training. 4 sets should be more than enough if you do them right.

Remember, you will only show abs if you do not have any fat on your stomach area. There is no miracle six-pack training. Ordinary sit-ups and diet will give you a six pack.

Building Muscles – Train Without Weights - How to build and train Big Biceps

The best way to train your Biceps without weights is with good old fashioned Pull-ups. This can be rather difficult if you are not very strong because you have to lift your whole body weight. You can help the exercise by putting the pull-up bar low enough in the door frame so you can assist with your legs. If you use your legs too much, you will defeat the whole object. Learn to do pull-ups without any help from the legs.

I have also used my own body resistance to do biceps. I hold my hands together and then do a bicep curl movement while trying to stop the movement with the other arm. This does give a good workout.

I would do the following for a training session -

• 1 set of 12 reps warm up. (Quite a bit of leg assistance) 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 10 reps (Less leg assistance) 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 8 reps (Less leg assistance) 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 6 reps (No leg assistance) 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 12 reps with a 2 minute rest before the next exercise. (Limited leg assistance)

Having a big bicep is a nice feeling and you will often see people looking at you. Ladies - these exercises will give you a lovely toned arm that will look good. You will not really see much of a muscle. As you get older you start to get lemon peel skin. Training keeps the skin young and you do not see this.

Building Muscles – Train Without Weights - How to build and train great Triceps

The triceps muscles are the ones that complete the arm. They give you that full big arm look - and when the muscle is well developed it can be quite appealing. It affects the whole look of your upper body. I find many people do not give enough attention to training this muscle. There are some very simple ways of training your triceps without weights.

The most common way is doing dips. Depending on how strong you are, you might have to keep your feet on the floor. Place your hands on the seat of a chair and lower your bottom toward the floor. Push up until your arms are fully extended. You can see what I mean from the photo. 

As you get stronger you can raise your feet to the seat of another chair. The higher you raise your legs the more effort it takes to do dips. When you are really strong you can place a bag of groceries or similar on your lap and do the exercise.

I would do the following for a training session -

• 1 set of 12 reps warm up. 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 10 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 8 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 6 reps 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 12 reps with a 2 minute rest before the next exercise.

I would work Triceps after I have trained my chest. Never train triceps before you train chest. The reason is, the chest muscles are big muscles, and you will use triceps to a degree when you train your chest. If you train triceps first, you will not have the strength to train your chest properly. Train triceps on Mondays and Thursdays every week. 

Building Muscles - Train Without Weights – Big Chest

Training without Weights

This is the simple Push-up exercise. Doing push-ups works a bit more than the chest. This exercise also works the triceps and shoulders. Using the stands for push-ups enables you to lower yourself a bit more than if you had your hands were on the ground. As a result, you have a bigger movement and this works the chest really well.

At the top of the movement you can tense the chest muscles and get a good contraction. All of this works toward being able to train and build a good size chest. This is what the ladies will really enjoy - it tones the chest area. It will also help tone the arms.

The great part of this exercise is you can work from the knees up if you are not very strong in the upper body. As you get stronger you will eventually be able to have a straight body and lift the whole body off the ground from the toes. You can see the two examples from the photos.

I would be doing the same reps as for the resistance training with weights. In other words do the following.

• 1 set of 12 reps warm up
• 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 10 reps
• 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 8 reps
• 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 6 reps
• 1 minute rest
• 1 set of 12 reps with a
• 2 minute rest before the next exercise.
• I would work chest Mondays and Thursdays every week.

Building Muscles - Training Without Weights – Getting Started

Just because you do not use weights doesn't mean you can't train and build up your muscles and have a great looking body.

What we are going to do is - use our own body weight to do the training. You must remember - this is still resistance training. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of resistance training. It is this that makes you strong, and helps the muscles to support joints bone and ligaments. When muscles support your joint and bones etc. you will find you will have very little pain. I found this with my back. I suffered a lot of back-ache. I thought, at one stage, I would have to have an operation. A very young physiotherapist was working with me and she gave me some advice many years ago that has made a major change to the pain I was suffering. She said I had to strengthen my back muscles. To this day, when I stop training and do nothing I get back-ache. While I train the back-ache goes away and I am almost totally free of pain in every area. That should in itself be a good reason to want to train and build up your muscles.

The equipment you will need (and you do need some equipment) is seen in the photos.

• The bar is for putting across the door frame for doing exercises like pull-ups.
• The two hand stands are for doing push-ups.
• The other gadget is for putting under the door so you can hook your feet under it and do sit-ups.
• The ball is for a lot of exercises you would use a bench for.

These few pieces of equipment are very inexpensive. Most sports shops will have them in stock.

Building Muscles - Train Without Weights - Aerobics

There are many people who would like to train, but they don't have any weights, so they don't even start. There are many ladies, who, no matter how much you tell them that weights will not cause big muscles, will not want to train with weights. There are also a lot of youngsters under the age of 16/17 who badly want to train. I do not agree with youngsters lifting heavy weights until they are a bit older. They often believe that they can lift the whole gym and every weight in it - which is not healthy.

So how do all these people train ?

Over the next while, I will be sharing exercises for people to reshape their body without the use of conventional weights. They will be using their own bodies to workout. I guess, for them, we will call this training without training. My aim, however, is to get you to enjoy training with weights - but I can be patient.

The first thing you need to do is get an aerobic training plan.

Start your training programme with just 30 minutes of exercise per day. It must become a habit - like brushing your teeth.

• You walk jog for just 15 minutes. You then turn around and return to the starting point in 15 minutes. Try never to take longer on the return than the 15 minutes. This is important - pace yourself on the first 15 minutes.
• Each time you go out,try to go just a little bit further - but in the same time - 15 minutes. It is not necessary to think "the fitter I get the longer I will run and train". Just stick to the 30 minutes training. You will get faster and faster and go further.
• You can use a tread mill, a stationary bicycle, a cross trainer or an ordinary bicycle. Remember, just 30 minutes and speed up each time. Have some way of measuring this so you can see the improvement.

In a very short space of time you will start feeling the benefits of training. This will immediately have an impact on your life - you will be removing stress. I can assure you will start to feel good about yourself. You will find a confidence that has been hiding and a self-image that is equal to the very best.