Gain Mass and Muscle with Bodyweight Training
The major gripe people have with bodyweight training is that the conventional exercises are too easy and do not provide enough resistance for gaining muscle mass. Yet there are options for gaining mass with bodyweight training. The traditional option is just to substitute the conventional bodyweight exercises with more challenging variations. A list of such mass gaining bodyweight exercises can be found in an earlier article, Challenging Bodyweight Exercises for Gaining Muscle Mass.
Exercising using bodyweight exercises can not only help you gain muscle mass, but it builds tremendous functional strength. Functional strength is especially important if you are looking to gain mass for a particular sport, since all the muscle mass you gain will not only look good, but it will also work very well. Additionally, bodyweight training can increase your flexibility which helps prevent injuries.
Until recently this was the only option, but now Nick Nilsson has come up with what he calls Time Volume Training which makes it possible to build mass and muscle using bodyweight exercises.
Time Volume Training uses a high volume of work with short rest intervals which is vital for putting on muscle mass. This means performing a small number of reps of a bodyweight exercise followed by a short rest period and repeating. When you cannot complete the reps of the bodyweight exercise with the given rest period, extend the rest period 10 or so seconds until you can. Nilsson recommends 15 minutes per bodyweight exercise for large muscle groups (chest, back, glutes, quads for example) and 10 minutes for smaller muscle groups (calves, triceps, biceps for example).
Mass Building How to
Pick a bodyweight exercise (examples of good exercises are given below)
Complete as many sets of 3 reps with 10 seconds rest in between sets
When you cannot complete the reps with the 10 second rest period, extend the rest period 10 seconds
Continue this pattern for 10 or 15 minutes, depending on what muscle group you are targeting, adding 10 seconds rest when you get too fatigued
Suitable Bodyweight Exercises for Gaining Mass
Chest Bodyweight Exercises
Press-ups
Wide grip press-ups
Back Bodyweight Exercises
Wide grip Pull-ups
Inverted rowsShoulder Bodyweight Exercises
Hand stand press-ups
High incline press-ups
Biceps Bodyweight Exercises
Close grip pull-ups (reverse grip)
Triceps Bodyweight Exercises
Close grip press-ups
Abdominals Bodyweight Exercises
Russian twists
Sit-ups
Any sort of sit-up variation will work well
Glutes/Quads Bodyweight Exercises
Squat jumps
1 legged pistol squats
Calf Bodyweight Exercises
Calf raises
For more on Nillson's Time volume training, click here.
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