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Bodyweight exercise are extremely convenient if you do not have access to equipment or can not afford a gym membership. Many people equate bodyweight exercises to being a fat loss tool, but they can also help you gain muscle mass.
The key to gaining lean muscle mass with bodyweight movements is to choose movements that recruit the most muscle possible. Make sure that the movements you choose are challenging.
Lets go over 9 of the best bodyweight muscle building movements:
Back
Pullups are hands-down the best muscle building movement you can do with just your bodyweight. The movement is very simple:
- Grab onto a pullup bar with your palms facing away from you.
- Pull yourself up to the bar so that your chin clears the bar.
- Now lower yourself to starting position.
One of the best ways to pack on muscle using pullups is something known as Density Training. Check out this video:
When you perform the pullup, hold the position at the top. This isometric hold places greater tension on the muscle, tearing the muscle tissue down, so that it grows back stronger. Isometric holds are also great for beginners who are unable to perform full pullups.
Chest
Elevated Wall Pushups
There are a lot of pushup variations out there. The one pushup movement that will help you put on a lot of muscle mass is the planche pushup. However, very few people can perform this exercise, which is why I have chosen two variations that are similar to the planche pushup.
To perform an elevated wall pushup:
- Get into pushup position with your feet near a wall. Place you feet up against the wall, and your hands on the floor.
- Contract your abs, and perform the pushup. This is what it should look like:
The hip pushups is an advanced pushup variation that involves placing your hands near your hips while perform the pushup. Make sure that you can perform lots of regular pushups before attempting this movement. Also make sure you have adequate deltoid strength, as this movement demands a lot from the shoulders.
- To begin, get into pushup position with your hands by your hips. From her, lift your body up off the floor, and then lower back down until your chest is an inch off the floor.
- Hold this position for a second, then lift back up.
Here is a video to help you:
Abs
The dragon flag was invented by Bruce Lee, and is one of the best abdominal movements you can perform if you want to build strong and hard abs. Due to the difficulty of the movement, complete beginners should not attempt this exercise.
There are many different progressions you can take before mastering the true dragon flag movement.
Level One
- Lie with your back flat against a bench, your arms behind your head and your hands gripping the edge of the bench.
- Bring your knees in to your waist so that your thighs are at 90 degrees and in one coordinated effort pull up with your hands keeping your whole body rigid until it rises up and your torso points directly towards the ceiling.
- Hold this positiong for a second or two and then lower your body back down under control until your buttocks are just a couple of inches from the bench.
Level Two
- Once you can achieve the bent knee version, then you slowly straighten out your legs to perform the straight leg version.
Dragon Flag Video:
Triceps
Dips are another tough movement. Some people use them for the chest, and others use them for triceps. If you are performing both of the pushup variations presented earlier in the post, then you do not need to perform dips.
There are 5 steps to performing the full dip:
Step 1 – Bench Dip
- Grab a bench or chair and place it behind you. Place your palms on the end of the bench, with your fingers point towards you.
- Place your feet on the floor, with your legs straight and toes pointing the ceiling. Lower your body until you feel a slight stretch in your chest and triceps.
- Push yourself up back to starting position.
Step 2 – Isometric Dip Hold
- This is similar technique we learned with the pullups. Get on a dipping station or between two parallel bars. Lower your body until your arms are at a 90 degree angle, and hold that position for 10 seconds.
- Press your body back up. Rest as needed, and then repeat.
Step 3 – Eccentric Dips
- Get on a dipping station or parallel bars. Slowly lower yourself down, and then push up quickly. The eccentric portion means the lowering portion. Make sure you lower yourself as slowly as possible.
Step 4 – Assisted Dips
- Assisted dips are best down with a machine. But, if you do not have a machine and are working with parallel bars, then simply place a chair behind you when do your dips.
- Place your feet at the edge of the chair. Lower yourself down, and then press back up.
- Keeping your feet on the edge of the chair lower the amount of bodyweight that you are lifting.
Step 5 – Dips
- To perform dips, grab the handles of a gripping station, or parallel grip bars. Lower your body until your elbows are bent at 90 degree angle. Press back up and repeat.
Here is a video to help you:
Shoulders
Handstand pushups are another tough bodyweight movement. Just like the dragon flag, handstand pushups have a lot of progressions you can perform.
The first progression is handstand hold against a wall:
- Stand about 1-2 feet away, facing a sturdy wall.
- Bend forwards, and place your palms on the ground close to the wall, but not touching the wall. You want to place them roughly shoulder width apart. A good idea is to put them wherever it feels the most comfortable for your body.
- Bend your right leg slightly. This will be your push-off leg.
- Raise your other leg up towards the wall. Keep this other leg relatively straight.
- Push off with your right leg and swing it towards the wall. Bring it close to your left leg.
- Complete the movement by placing your feet together and resting them against the wall.
- If your body is not straight, then you will fall over. Hold this position for as long as you can, rest, then repeat.
The second progression is the handstand pushups against a wall.
- From the handstand hold position, lower your body to the ground until your head is just an inch off the ground.
- You may want to place a pillow or some sort of cusion to prevent hurting the top of your head, just in case you touch the floor.
- Press your body back up to starting position, and repeat.
I have a full guide to help you with your handstand pushups. This guide will teach you easier variations of the handstand pushup, and more difficult versions. Click here to read the F.REE guide.
Legs
The one-leg squat is clearly the BEST lower body bodyweight movement you can perform to develop big and strong legs. The one-leg squat (pistol) is easy in concept, but difficult to master.
The idea is to stand on one leg, squat down all the way, and press your body back up to starting position.
The execution of this movement is extremely difficult, so lets break the pistol up in to progressions:
In the first progression, we will get our body used to performing a single-limb movement while at the same time strengthening out quadriceps muscles to handle the load.
- Get yourself a step that is the height of your knee. Place one leg on the step. Lift yourself up so that the other leg is off the ground.
- Lower yourself back, but do not let the other leg touch the ground. Your entire body weight should be shifted on the step.
- Lift up and hold the the toes of the dangling leg at the start of the exercise. In a regular step-up, you would instinctivelly press the ball of this foot into the ground as you flex your calf and ankle to help lift your body up. By lifting up the toe and keeping them off the ground, the calf can no longer help lift you up.
Once you are able to perform this variation, use the following F.REE video to help you build yourself up to a full pistol squat. Click here to watch this video.
Biceps
Chinups
If you are doing pullups, then you do not need to add chinups into your program. Vice versa, if you are doing chinups, then you do not need pullups in your program. Only include both of these movements into your program if you are able to recover from each workout properly.
To perform a chinup, grab a pullup bar with your palms facing towards you. Lift your body up towards the bar, pause, and lower yourself down slowly. Repeat.
I personally like chinups over pullups when it comes to building up your biceps. Getting bigger arms is tough, even if you have access to weights. The key to really building your arms with bodyweight movements is to make your body believe it’s lifting more weight then it actually is. The following techniques will help:
The Grip Manipulation
Start off with close-grip chinups. Make sure your hands are as close together as possible. Perform 3-5 repetitions. Stop, and separate your hands slightly. Perform another 3-5 repetitions.
Keep going in this manner until you are performing regular grip chinups, or where your hands are at shoulder-width. From here, switch your hands around so that you are doing pullups. (Remember, chinups are where you use an underhand grip (palms facing you) and pullups are where you use an overhand grip (palms facing away)).
Continue your pullups. Keep pulling your hands farther and farther apart after every few repetitions until you are doing wide-grip pullups. Manipulating your grip in this manner will give you more work out of your biceps.
Chinups on a Dip Station
Grab the parallel bars, or the handles on a dip station and perform you chinups from there. This technique works your biceps from a different angle, giving it a different stimulation.
Finish off with Isometric Holds
These are the isometric holds we talked about earlier. I don’t like doing isometric holds in the beginning of a workout. Do them at the end of the workout, when your muscles are already fatigued, and you’ll get more use out of isometric holds.
If you are looking for a full program to help you gain lean muscle mass with bodyweight movements alone, then I recommend checking out Bodyweight Bodybuilding 2.0. Click here to learn more!
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