Building muscle at a gym with equipment alone is a lot of work and takes tons of dedication, consistency, and commitment to both diet and exercise. But maybe you don’t have the luxury and access to fancy equipment to get you to the results you ultimately desire, or simply want to build muscle mass without having to spend money on gear or gym memberships.
Luckily for you, there are many athletes who achieve similar results by using their body weight alone in order to build muscle, and you can do the same!
So today, we are going to show you 8 practical tips on how to get ripped at home without equipment fast, so that you can be on your way to looking and feeling your best, right from the comfort of your own home.
Tip 1: Prioritize Your Diet
You can’t get ripped without a good diet – and it doesn’t have to be massively complicated.
The keys are to consume 200-500 fewer calories a day than your body uses, get plenty of protein, consume clean carbs, and focus on getting the right nutrients from vitamins and minerals.
If you get the diet portion wrong, it’s almost impossible to get into great shape. Prioritize the diet, on the other hand, and you’ll lose weight while getting in better shape without having to use gym equipment. Get this right, and you’ve won 80% of the muscle-building battle!
Tip 2: Get Plenty of Sleep
Want to get shredded? Then put you must ensure that your getting a sufficient amount of sleep.
It sounds counter-intuitive but getting into better shape relies on optimal recovery and that comes from getting plenty of rest. It’s definitely not the hardest part of getting stronger, more muscular, and leaner, and is necessary in order for your muscles to recover properly after an intense workout.
Pair exercise with great recovery – in the form of diet and sleep – and you’ll see accelerated your results.
Tip 3: Focus On Versatility
This is the key to great exercise at home: use exercises that do more than one thing for your body.
This sounds vague but look at an example: the side plank with a twist. Core exercises are great, and this is one of the best ways to target other areas of your body: it trains the obliques and abs, develops effective hip and core control, and trains rotational/anti-rotational strength.
It’s a single exercise that strengthens the core, protects the spine, and builds muscle all at once. Other examples of these high-value exercises include the Cossack squat, Bulgarian split squat, and the hand-release push-up.
If you prioritize this kind of exercise, you’ll see significant returns on the time and effort you put in, as long as you focus on quality when performing each exercise. Exercise selection varies with your particular bodyweight and fitness level when not using equipment to build muscle mass.
Tip 4: Ruthless Consistency
When you’re training at home without equipment, you can focus on consistency and frequency. You can train every day since you’re not likely to over-stress your body as you would without equipment – especially if you focus on different movements each day of the week.
For example, you could focus on movements such as these, and simply repeat them with a day to rest in between:
Day 1: push-ups and lunges
Day 2: core and Cossack squats
These are only 2 examples, but you could spend all of day 1 getting in push-ups and lunges when you get some spare time for targeting your upper body, and the other day for lower body workouts. Giving yourself 3-4 exercises to focus on and switch it up every 3 – 4 weeks so that you can avoid muscle plateau.
Since your load is lower without any weights, you can train more often, therefore increasing the consistency rate in which you train.
Tip 5: Focus on Progressions for Load/Challenge
When it comes to any gym and bodyweight exercises, progressions are king. You build up strength and control with simpler, easier movements, then you can start working on more difficult and advanced exercises. This is also important for breaking muscle plateaus and challenges your muscles in a new way.
For example, you can build strength with regular pushups and then advanced towards performing them at an incline, or with push up grips, which allows you to keep building strength and muscle. If you really want to challenge yourself and get ripped fast, you can perform super-sets, which is a combination of different exercises that are performed throughout each set.
You should aim to add more reps and sets as you progress until you reach a point where you find them easy, then keep stacking them while switching up your exercises. Typically, when you are able to perform 15-20 repetitions of each exercise without feeling challenged, it’s usually a good sign time to move onto something more difficult!
To give you a more clear picture, we’ll use our push up example. You can perform incline push-ups, diamond push-ups, or pseudo-planche push-ups. These are 3 options with different focuses (all-round, tricep, and chest respectively) and can be alternated or combined together for a more intense workout. It just goes to show the variety you’ve got without having to use equipment.
Tip 6: Establish Champion-Like Habits
One of the best ways to get your exercise in throughout the day is to form good habits, like a champions do! Something like performing a circuit every time you get into a certain room or taking regular exercise breaks can really help to keep your activity levels up.
These kinds of small yet simple activities can really add up over time– especially when you’re trying to lose body fat, improve joint health, as well as mobility. Keeping active throughout the day is great for your health but has been significantly underrated – it’s the main component of your calorie use when it comes to losing weight and building muscle mass!
Moreover, try to implement exercises that are challenging in smaller doses or that offer multiple benefits – like for example, the Cossack squat, Bulgarian split squat, or the side plank with a twist. You could even add cardio workouts such as cycling every day when you wake up before you do anything else for even better results.
Tip 7: Use Novel Systems (like Rest-Pause and Rep Goals)
The rest-pause and rep-goals method are how you can structure an exercise within a day to get the most out of lower-load exercises.
Rest- pause is simple: you perform a maximal set of an exercise, then stop for a set amount of time (5-10 seconds), and then go to failure again. This kind of training can really produce a ton of results while taking up very little time because it pushes your muscles to new heights while still applying a sufficient amount of rest in order to maintain consistency.
On the other hand, rep-goals are the opposite: you set out how many reps you’re going to do during a particular workout session and then try to perform them with as few sets as possible. Obviously, you can progress this easily by adding a few reps every day you focus on that exercise.
Both are effective for building muscle mass and fat loss, and it’s always best to alternate between both of these methods once you hit a ceiling or plateau in your progress.
Tip 8: Consider Supplementation
It can be difficult to obtain all the proper nutrition from whole foods alone, which is where supplementing comes in to play. You can get all your essential nutrients for building muscle, including protein, vitamins, and minerals, which are all key to getting ripped, whether your using weights or not.
Now, this being said, you don’t need to supplement in order to get optimal results. However, if you want to get to your desired fitness level faster and get ripped without having to use weights or machines, then meeting all of your requirements through supplementation can be a huge time saver.
Taking pre-workout supplements can also be a lifesaver if you work a physically demanding job, or if you find it difficult to find energy after a long day. Post-workout supplements can also expedite your healing process when at rest, which can reduce muscle soreness and help with recovery so that you’re ready to take on the next training session the following day.
Final thoughts
There’s no reason you can’t get ripped and build muscle at home without equipment. It takes some planning and some ingenuity, but it’s totally possible.
Get effective exercise by prioritizing your diet, amount of rest, while always challenging your muscles by getting creative with different exercises. Get tons of volume in using progressions, rest pauses, and rep goals – which all offer endless ways of working out without gym equipment.
You don’t need a gym to get in great shape – and you don’t need to overthink it either. Push yourself, stay challenged, and implement these tips consistently in order to get to your desired result!