Can you build muscle at home?

Very few people own their own home gym. If you don't want to invest several thousand dollars in good training equipment, you have to get creative.

Effective hypertrophy training without a gym is really not optimal, but we can make the best of it. Look at it positively: if you train at home, you save the trip to the gym and thus have more time to train or more time for other things.

As for nutrition: only eat in a calorie deficit or surplus if you have a really well-equipped home gym and can train effectively.

If you can't train effectively, the training stimulus will be too low to maintain your muscle mass during the dieting phase or to build muscle during the bulking phase. Be sure to go on maintenance calories.

Go to maintenance calories if you can not train effectively!

Equipment and improvisation for training at home

Ideally, you'll have some equipment at home. If you want to buy equipment, then an adjustable dumbbell set of e.g. 5-30 lbs would be a good option. You can get them for less than $50.

With it you can already do many exercises for the arms, shoulders, and possibly also for larger muscle groups, if you are not yet that strong.

In addition, a flat bench would be a great purchase. If necessary, you can also build one yourself - for example, by tying 3 six-packs of 1.5-liter water bottles together and then laying them on the floor so that the sides of the bottles face up.

Just have a look at our Alpha Progression Facebook group. Someone has recently built such a construction.

It would be great if you also have 1-2 heavy pairs of dumbbells. The problem is that these dumbbells above 45 lbs are simply ENORMOUSLY expensive. For ONE 80 lbs dumbbell you can pay more than $100. Most people will probably not want to invest that much money for an interim solution.

But what is affordable is a pull-up bar for the door frame. You can get such a bar for as low as $30-40. A sling trainer would also be a reasonably cheap investment.

Yes, and then there are of course also resistance bands. They are super cheap, they take up very little space, and you can use them for many different exercises.

Even if you don't want to or can't buy any equipment, all is not lost. You can load a backpack or grocery bags with weights like water bottles, use water jugs as dumbbells or kettlebells, and of course use your own body weight.

This is how you can build muscle at home without having to invest vast sums of money.

Building muscle at home? No problem with the right training plan!

In the following we assume that you don't have typical gym equipment like dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, machines, benches, etc. at home. So let's go through all the muscle groups and discuss how you can train them as effectively as possible at home.

We're really only going to discuss exercises that are suitable for muscle building - no jumping jacks, burpees, mountain climbers, or similar. These are exercises for the cardiovascular system and not for the muscles.

Also, especially with the exercises where you can use relatively little weight, make sure that you make the sets REALLY strenuous. It is now a scientific consensus that you must go very close or even really to muscular failure in sets with many reps to set a good muscle building stimulus.

This is pretty brutal with a lot of reps, but force yourself to do it. If you've done 30 reps and want to stop because it burns, you can usually do another 10 reps if you pull yourself together (and another 10 after that - but only with good technique, of course!)

Get out of your comfort zone! Especially with low weights it is important that you go close to muscular failure! This is how you can effectively build muscle at home!

Intensity techniques like supersets for the same muscle group are of course also a great thing to achieve a stronger muscle building stimulus - even with low weights.

For example, if you do front raises and shoulder presses with a backpack in one superset, then you don't have to do hundreds of reps on the shoulder press to make the set challenging. After all, your front shoulder is already pre-fatigued from the front raises.

Let's start with the upper body and then move to the lower body after.

Chest

Here you can do all kinds of push-ups. If you're not that strong, try kneeling push-ups or push-ups with your feet on the floor and your hands on a chair or table.

Normal push-ups are a bit more challenging, but still relatively easy for advanced athletes.

If you want to increase the difficulty, put a resistance band around your upper back and press it against the floor with your palms.

Instead of or in addition to the resistance band, you can also put on a loaded backpack. With this variant, you can build muscle at home, even if the chest is usually accustomed to greater loads.

You can also do the push-ups with your feet on a chair and your hands on the floor. This is more strenuous than the normal push-up variation, because you then have to move a greater proportion of your body weight.

To make the exercise even more difficult, you can also additionally raise your hands using e.g. 2 chairs, so that you come down farther.

Another good exercise for the chest are chest dips. Take 2 tables of the same height and do dips between them. Bend your upper body forward so that the exercise hits the chest more than the triceps.

Here you can also put on a backpack to make the exercise more challenging. Alternatively, you can stretch a band under your knees and between your palms and the tables, making the exercise easier.

Apart from push-ups and chest dips, you can also train your chest in isolation by doing flys. For example, lie on the long edge of a sofa and perform one-armed flys with a loaded bag or backpack. You do this on the sofa and not on the floor, so that you can keep going down and the bag won't hit the floor.

Alternatively, you can do the exercise with a band that you wrap around a table leg, for example.

The variant with the bag has the advantage of giving you a high stimulus on the chest in the lowest position, and the variant with the resistance band has the advantage of giving you a high stimulus on the chest in the highest position.

You can also use the bag and the band at the same time. This way you simulate the resistance curve of the cable fly: at the bottom you have a high stimulus due to the bag and at the top you have a high stimulus because the band is carrying a lot of tension.

Back

Let's move on to the back. Of course, it would be ideal if you had a pull-up bar. Then you could perform all the different pull-up variations: Narrow, wide, underhand grip, overhand grip, etc.

If you don't have a pull-up bar, see if you can find another place to do pull-ups - maybe the stairwell, the attic, the basement, or a tree.

You can do the pull-ups with your bodyweight only or additionally with a backpack on your back. If pull-ups are too difficult for you, jump on the bar and lower your body slowly or wrap a band around your knees and around the bar to support you. This will give your back muscles a good workout.

This way you can build muscle at home without having to invest in a lat pulldown.

Another exercise you can do is rowing at a table. Lie under a table facing up so that your arms can clasp the edge of the table. Then pull yourself up.

If you want to increase the difficulty, you can also do the exercise with your feet on a chair and a backpack on your hips. The farther you extend your reach in the exercise, the more it goes into your upper back.

Another good back exercise is the single-arm row with a backpack in hand. For example, place 2 chairs next to each other and use them as a flat bench. Then do single-arm rows exactly as you would in the gym - only now with the backpack as a dumbbell.

You can also imitate machine cable rows with a resistance band. Sit on the floor with your legs straight, tighten the band around your feet, and pull it towards you with your hands.

You can do the exercise with the upper arms close to the body or with the upper arms spread out. The more splayed the arms are, the more it stimulates the upper back and the less it stimulates the lats.

An isolation exercise for the back that you can do is pullovers with a backpack. Lie with your head on the edge of a sofa and bring the backpack as far back as you can with your arms extended and then bring it forward again until your arms are at a 90° angle to the floor.

Triceps

What can you do for your triceps? Clearly, all the push-up variations we just discussed for the chest, only now with the upper arms close to the torso.

You can also do dips on a chair or - the more strenuous version - dips on a chair with your feet elevated on another chair and with a backpack on your hips.

Analogous to the chest dips that you can do between 2 tables, you can of course also do normal dips for the triceps between the same tables. Keep your upper body as upright as possible during the execution, so that it stimulates mainly the triceps and not the chest.

A nice isolation exercise for the triceps is the triceps overhead press. Take either a backpack or a band for this. For the band version, hold the band at one end with your hand and place your feet on the other end.

Another isolation exercise is the triceps kickback with a band. Hang the band, for example, on a radiator (if it is stable) and kneel with your face towards the radiator.

If you don't have a band, then do triceps kickbacks with a backpack. For this, kneel with one leg on a sofa and the other leg slightly bent on the floor.

Biceps

What are the biceps exercises you can do without gym equipment? Curls! All kinds of curls with a bag, band or backpack.

For example, you can do hammer curls, curls with outward rotation, or curls with an overhand grip.

You can also do overhead curls. Hang the band on a radiator and kneel sideways next to the radiator. Alternatively, you can do curls behind your back by standing with your back facing the radiator and then curling with your upper arm behind your back.

Anterior deltoids

Let's move on to the anterior deltoids. In the gym, you train these the best with shoulder press variations. At home, without proper equipment, we have to get a little creative. What works really well is the Pike Press: Keep your legs slightly bent, put your hands on the floor, and stretch your butt as high as possible towards the ceiling.

Now push your upper body up with your arms - a sort of shoulder press. To increase the effort level, you can perform the exercise with your feet on a chair and/or raise your hands with e.g. 2 more chairs, so that you come farther down.

Another very challenging exercise for the anterior delts is handstand pushups. Do a handstand on a wall and then push yourself up with your arms. If this is too easy for you (which is very unlikely), then elevate your hands with, for example, two chairs so that you can get down farther. This is VERY strenuous.

What you can also do is the shoulder press with a band or backpack. If that is too easy for you, then do the shoulder press with one arm. But this is best done with a band and not with a backpack.

There is one other option as well. It's not the best exercise when you're in the gym, but due to the limited exercise selection at home, you can do it once in a while - namely the front raise. Just use a band, bag or backpack as a dumbbell substitute for this.

Lateral and posterior deltoids

Let's move on to the lateral and posterior delts. These muscle groups are actually not that difficult to train at home without gym equipment. That's because you don't need that much weight for the relevant exercises to put a lot of stress on these muscle groups.

The usual suspects are, of course, lateral raises for the lateral delts and bent-over lateral raises for the posterior delts. You can do these exercises with a resistance band, a bag, or a backpack. If you only have a backpack or bag, you can do them with one arm.

What also works well at home is upright rows with bands or a backpack, or face pulls with bands. For the face pulls you sit on the floor with your legs stretched out, wrap the band around your feet, and then do face pulls like you would do them on the cable pulley with the rope.

Neck

What about the neck? If you absolutely want to train the neck muscles in isolation, then do neck lifts with bands, bags, or bands and bags. However, if you have a well-trained, strong neck, then you can spare it at home, because you lack the weight.

Abominals

The abs are certainly the muscle group that is easiest to train at home. Sit-ups, side sit-ups, crunches, side crunches, jackknives, leg raises on the floor, side leg raises on the floor, etc.

Just check out the abdominal exercises in our Alpha Progression App and get inspired. If you use a dumbbell or a plate as a weight in the gym for crunches, for example, you can use a backpack at home instead.

Let's move on to the lower body. Especially with the lower body you can be glad if you are not yet so strong, because at home it is really difficult to do lower body exercises strenuously without having a lot of weight at your disposal. But we make the best of it, because even with the lower body you can build muscles at home.

Quadriceps

First muscle group: the quads. As a beginner you can do squats with bands, a backpack, or both. The band you clamp under your feet and put around your neck. However, this really only works well as a beginner.

If you are on the stronger end, you would have to do a few hundred reps to even come close to muscular failure.

A much more difficult variation is the single leg squat - also called pistol squats. It's best to hold on to the back of a sofa with one hand so you don't fall over. Body weight is enough here, by the way, for almost everyone to have reached muscular failure after a few reps. This is a great way to build muscle at home.

You can also do one-legged squats with your back leaning against a door frame. This is similar in movement to the hack squat machine.

If you have healthy knees, you can also hold onto a sofa back and do sissy squats. These are squats where you push your knees far over your toes and stand on the tips of your feet.

You'll get a good stretch on your quads. Just take a look at the video that Benjamin has posted or will post on Instagram in the Quad Story Highlight.

But please only do sissy squats if you've done a few normal squats beforehand to warm up, and really only if you have healthy knees. For additional weight you can put on a backpack. You don't need to put much weight in it. Performed correctly, the exercise is really strenuous - even with very little weight.

Glutes

What can you do for the glutes? The exercise we all love: Bulgarian split squats! Put your back foot on a sofa and your front foot on the floor and you can do them like in the gym!

For weight, you can put on a backpack, put a band under your front foot and hang it around your neck, or use a backpack and a band.

The Bulgarian split squat should definitely be an exercise you focus on when you are already a little stronger. Why? Because it is very strenuous even with very little weight! This way you can build your glutes even at home.

If you're not that strong yet, you can do other lunge variations: Walking lunges, forward, reverse, or side lunges, or split squats. You can also take a sturdy wooden chair and do step-ups on it. As always, you can put on a backpack for weight.

Smaller glute exercises are single leg glute bridges with a backpack on your hips, single leg hip thrusts with a backpack on your hips and your upper back on a sofa, or kickbacks with bands. You can do these little exercises IN ADDITION. But don't shirk the Bulgarian split squats!

Hamstrings

For the hamstrings, as a beginner you can perform the Romanian deadlift with a backpack in your hands, or with a band, or with both. Place the band under your feet and hold it with your hands. Grip far down on the band so that the band has enough tension.

If you are stronger, do the single leg Romanian deadlift - also with a backpack, bands, or both. This is much more strenuous than the regular Romanian deadlift with both legs. With this you can effectively build muscle at home, including the hamstrings.

A very good isolation exercise for the hamstrings is the lying leg curl with a band that you wrap around your foot and around e.g. a radiator. You can then do the exercise with the band providing resistance, similar to a leg curl machine.

If you can hook your feet somewhere in your home, try glute-ham raises - slowly dropping forward and then pushing back up with a push-up.

Calves

Calves are pretty easy to work out at home. Put on a backpack and do one-legged standing calf raises on any stair step, stabilizing yourself with one hand on the railing.