Starting your muscle-building journey and you do not want to burden your pocket with a crazy expensive gym fee? Bodyweight exercises can build muscles as fast as weighted ones, and you can scale up and down with different postures and forms. You can even add weight to your bodyweight exercises when need be.
Bodyweight exercises work up all major muscle groups, so your strength gains are equally distributed. However, bodyweight exercises are more effective for beginners and not for those who have already achieved their muscle goals.
Read on to get a complete workout plan if you are a beginner and aspire to build muscles without a gym membership.
Workout Summary
|
Main Goal |
General Fitness |
|
Workout Type |
Full Body |
|
Training Level |
Beginner |
|
Program Duration |
9 Weeks |
|
Days Per Week |
3 |
|
Time Per Workout |
45-75 Minutes |
|
Equipment Required |
Bodyweight, Other |
|
Target Gender |
Male & Female |
| Recommended Supplements |
Can Bodyweight Exercises Build Muscle Mass?
The answer to this question is that it depends! It depends where you stand in your fitness journey. If you are a beginner, this is the perfect chance for you.
For a regular bodybuilder who has already reached his maximum muscle limit, then the answer is no. A hardcore bodybuilder with a massive body will struggle to maintain muscle mass if they switch to bodyweight exercises suddenly (having started and remained with free weights for long). Bodyweight exercises are not for bodybuilders who have achieved their muscle goals already.
Bodyweight exercises will do the magic for lean and skinny guys looking for a way to beef up. If you are a slim guy trying to muscle up and this is your first attempt at strength training, then a bodyweight workout is just the right thing.
To be precise, you will build muscles and build them fast- as fast as with free weight exercises. Bodyweight exercises build muscles for intermediate guys too - being a newbie is not a condition.
Related Article: Must-Read Workout Tips for Beginner
Bodyweight exercises do not just build muscles; they increase your overall functional strength. You are not just the guy who can deadlift, squat, and bench press impressively, but the strength you gain with bodyweight exercises will show everywhere in life.
You will be more flexible, easy with weight and strenuous work, endure more, and stay healthy. Bodyweight exercises improve your general health alongside building bigger muscles.
The general rule for muscle building is to keep increasing the challenge with increasing muscle strength. With every ascending step, you have to add to the intensity of the exercises. This is the sure-fire way to avoid workout plateaus. When building muscles with bodyweight exercises, you can keep challenging your muscles by including posture variations and intensive reps.
Workout Description
Bodyweight exercises are gaining fame for all the right reasons. They help you build muscle while strengthening every inch of the body along the way. You can include them in your isolation strength regimes or adopt them solely - they will give spectacular results with surety.
You are not just building strong muscles and sculpting your body into a dream shape in this nine weeks bodyweight workout plan, but you are also becoming a strong person overall.
This plan will bring any joints with a low range of motion to the surface. You will easily enhance your joints' flexibility, which works wonders for functional strength.
The bodyweight exercises work all of your muscles at once: so most of those supporting muscles that were missing the show with isolated workouts will also join in. Muscle gains will be equally distributed all over the body.
Core strength is one of the chief features of this workout plan.
Related Article: 10 Signs You Have a Weak Core Strength and How to Fix It
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Things You Should Know Before You Start
Challenge Yourself
Constant and continuous challenge is the only way to build muscle mass. Your muscle needs to feel the difficulty in doing an exercise: the difficulty pushes the muscle to move and gain strength and size.
This workout is based on this solid fact too. It keeps on increasing the intensity of the exercises at every stage (there are three stages of three weeks each) so that you can avoid the exercise plateau and keep adding to the muscle mass.
The first thing you need to know is that nine weeks is enough time to build muscles.
Keep your belief firm in this fact. Muscle building is indeed a lengthy and gradual process. You can't expect to see bulging muscles in days, but nine weeks is enough to change you from a skinny guy to a hefty hunk. You can even hit exercise plateaus in 9 weeks, so it's imperative to keep increasing the intensity of the exercises to challenge your muscles harder.
Stay Efficient
Bodyweight exercises are a great mix of cardio and strength training: they torch up calories and burn fat with the cardio exercises while building muscle mass with their strength effect.
This feature is adding to the popularity of bodyweight muscle-building workouts. They are efficient, easy, convenient, and perfect. They do not just build muscles: bodyweight exercises increase your functional strength, beef up your core, and increase the body's overall range of motion.
Keep it Interesting
As humans, we tend to get bored with repetitive moves. If you are making the same moves repeatedly for a long time, you may start losing interest in the workout altogether. Alternating workouts and changing the exercises can be great for you.
Like any other workout plan for beginners, this workout allows you to change your exercises, forms, postures, styles, and intensity. Do your exercises differently to engage muscles more and give a new life to your workout.
Adding to Your Arsenal is Easy
Although this is a bodyweight workout plan for muscle mass, adding free weights for a more significant challenge is not prohibited. While you wouldn't need any weights like dumbbells, kettlebells, benches, blocks, steps, etc., in the beginning, you may need them to keep on building more. If it comes to this, go ahead fortifying yourself with a few pieces of gym equipment: it does not kill.
9-Week Progressive Bodyweight Workout
Phase 1: Weeks 1 – 3
|
Week 1 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
10 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
10 |
|
|
3 |
10 |
|
|
3 |
10 |
|
Week 2 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
Week 3 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
4 |
AMRAP |
|
|
4 |
AMRAP |
|
|
4 |
20 |
|
|
4 |
AMRAP |
|
|
4 |
20 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
Phase 2: Weeks 4 – 6
|
Week 1 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
|
4 |
10 |
|
Week 2 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
Week 3 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
4 |
AMRAP |
|
|
4 |
AMRAP |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
|
|
4 |
15 |
Phase 3: Weeks 7– 9
|
Week 1 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
15-20 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
20 |
|
|
3 |
20 |
|
Week 2 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
15-20 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
20 |
|
|
3 |
20 |
|
Week 3 |
Sets |
Reps |
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
AMRAP |
|
|
3 |
20 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
|
|
3 |
20 |
|
|
3 |
15 |
Conclusion
Bodyweight exercises are perfect for muscle building. They are easy to do as they do not require any gym equipment. You can do them anywhere which frees you from hefty gym bills and time restrictions too. Follow this full-body workout plan consisting of bodyweight exercises for perfectly toned and strong muscles.
