Can I Build Muscle with Bodyweight Exercises?
"Can I build muscle with bodyweight exercises?" Yes, you can. But you'll need to make a few adjustments to the way you train. Find out more here.

Delta, omicron, BA.2 â two years on, and the COVID-19 virus is still a real threat đŚ
So, if you've tried heading back to the gym but found yourself uncomfortable with throngs of people huffing and puffing in your face when youâre stuck in a tight, confined, and oft-poorly ventilated space, well, thatâs only understandable.
And even if you arenât afraid of contracting the virus yourself, you may be worried about people close to you (e.g., elderly loved ones or those with underlying medical conditions).
So, you have no choice but to stay away from the gym.
Although this raises another concern: ensuring the safety of your closest and dearest is great and all, what about your gains? With only bodyweight exercises at your disposal, are you doomed to lose your gains?
Can I build muscle with bodyweight exercises?
Well, as weâve established in a past article (covering the effectiveness of home workouts), not necessarily.
Give the article a read, and youâll realize that so long as youâre progressively overloading and pushing near failure, you can experience the same degree of muscle growth â regardless of the load youâre using (i.e., be it lighter loads or heavier weights).
Meaning? Yes, bodyweight exercises do build muscle. (Sidenote: they can help you lose weight, too.)
But hereâs the thing. While our past article highlighted the need to push to failure every working set, it didnât provide much more guidance beyond that (oops!)
More specifically: how, exactly, do you âwork harderâ on bodyweight exercises to stimulate muscle growth?
Well, not to worry. You can think of this article as an âexpansion packâ to the previous. Find actionable tips on how you can build â and continue building â muscle mass through bodyweight training at home.
How to build muscle with bodyweight exercises
#1: Increase reps
We all know that training volume is a key determinant of hypertrophy.
In general, the higher your volume, the better your muscle growth. So, since bodyweight exercises make it challenging (note: itâs not entirely impossible) for you to manipulate load lifted, the easiest way for you to increase volume â and, in turn, push near failure â would be through upping your rep counts.
To illustrate, letâs say youâre 60 kg â and performing bodyweight squats:
- Week 1: 4 sets of 10 reps, equating to 2,400 kg lifted (math: 41060)
- Week 3: 4 sets of 15 reps, equating to 3,600 kg lifted (math: 41560)
But wait. Thereâs a catch.
You canât keep increasing the number of reps you do per set; thereâs an upper limit where youâll begin noticing diminishing returns (or worse, increased muscle loss). So, whatâs this limit?
According to this 2017 meta-analysis, itâs 30 reps.
#2: Increase sets
Right. So, youâve brought your rep count to 30.
Now what? Well, itâs time for you to look at the other side of the equation: the number of sets youâre performing. Once again, letâs examine how thatâd work in your training (assuming youâre 60 kg and performing bodyweight squats):
- Week 1: 4 sets of 30 reps, equating to 7,200 kg lifted (math: 43060)
- Week 3: 5 sets of 30 reps, equating to 9,000 kg lifted (math: 43060)
See how simply adding one more set to your exercise significantly increases your training volume?
That said, the same limitation applies; you canât keep increasing the number of sets you perform and expect to see improvements in muscle growth infinitely.
The point of diminishing returns kicks in when you surpass 30 working sets per muscle group weekly. What does that mean?
Well, we know that weâd see optimal muscle growth by training a particular muscle group twice to thrice weekly. Hereâs what a typical bodyweight training program for glutes would look like, for example:
- Day 1: Bodyweight squats and Bulgarian split squats
- Day 2: Hip thrusts and lunges
- Day 3: Nordic curls and side-lying hip abductions
Imagine if you did 4 working sets for each exercise. That tallies up to a total of 24 working sets already, which means you wouldnât have much wriggle room left to increase the number of sets youâre doing. How now, brown cow?
#3: Try overcoming isometrics
One thing you could try is overcoming isometrics.
For those unimitated, the idea of overcoming isometrics is simply for you to try to move an immovable object with maximum effort. It essentially tires out your target muscle group âprematurelyâ before you move on to your actual working sets â âpre-shiftingâ your needle closer to the failure point.
Okay, sounds good. But how would you go about doing it without equipment?
Answer: get yourself a (long) towel. Because I know youâre sick of hearing about bodyweight squats, letâs switch up the example exercise.
So, letâs assume youâre doing pike pushups to target the front delts. What youâre going to do is step on one end of the towel and do a âfront raiseâ while holding the other hand. Really engage your front delts â and activate them to the best of your ability against this immovable resistance. Keep this up for 20 to 30 seconds.
Then, once youâre sweating, shaking, and in absolute misery, head right into your pike pushups. The accumulated fatigue and metabolic stress mean that you wonât need to perform nearly as many reps (or sets) before youâre close to failure.
#4: Invest in home workout equipment
Finally: we know we said that you could build muscle with just bodyweight exercises. But, well, why not consider investing in home workout equipment?
Note that you donât necessarily have to shell out âBig Moneyâ for power racks or fully decked-out cable machines.
Instead, even resistance bands would go a long way in adding load to your exercises. Plus, they can even change up the resistance profiles of your exercises, so you experience more well-rounded muscle growth, too!
Start building serious muscle with GymStreak
Hopefully, this article has addressed your questions of, âCan I build muscle with bodyweight exercises?â and âDo bodyweight exercises build muscle?â once and for all. You can, and they do. And weâve even gone through all the bodyweight training techniques you could leverage for maximum muscle growth.
The only problem? Youâre not entirely sure how you could adapt loaded exercises to their bodyweight versions (e.g., bodyweight bicep curls?)
Donât worry. Thatâs where GymStreak comes in. Find a ton of bodyweight exercises in GymStreakâs exercise library thatâll cover your muscle growth from head to toe. Better still: we even show you how to perform them correctly! So let's go; it's time to get your muscle on.
References
NĂłbrega, S. R., Ugrinowitsch, C., Pintanel, L., Barcelos, C., & Libardi, C. A. (2018). Effect of Resistance Training to Muscle Failure vs. Volitional Interruption at High- and Low-Intensities on Muscle Mass and Strength. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 32(1), 162â169. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000001787
SCHOENFELD, B. J., CONTRERAS, B., KRIEGER, J., GRGIC, J., DELCASTILLO, K., BELLIARD, R., & ALTO, A. (2019). Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy but Not Strength in Trained Men. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 51(1), 94â103. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000001764
Schoenfeld, B. J., Grgic, J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 31(12), 3508â3523. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002200
Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). The doseâresponse relationship between resistance training volume and muscle hypertrophy: Are there really still any doubts? Journal of Sports Sciences, 35(20), 1985â1987. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2016.1243800