Exercises for Home: What do you need and how to train at home to build serious muscle mass? Read it here.
Building Muscle Mass at Home or Without a Gym
Training at home for muscle mass presents some challenges alongside the usual ones. The most obvious disadvantages compared to the gym are the lack of equipment and space. So, the challenge is to find the right equipment that takes up as little space as possible and allows for a wide range of exercises. The material must meet the following criteria:
- You should be able to train all muscle groups you want to target
- For these muscle groups, at least one but preferably three or more exercises should be possible
- There should be sufficient and variable resistance for all these muscle groups to progress
- It must be safe enough
- Does not take up too much space
For clarity: You won’t achieve the above with a Tell sell product that you can shove under your bed after ten minutes of training. The fastest way to “serious” muscle mass is through bodybuilding techniques, and we don’t see bodybuilders using abtronics or thousandth gadgets for crunches.
Although there are exercises that require nothing but body weight as resistance, you can’t avoid purchasing some dumbbells and weight plates if you want to build muscle mass. I will advise based on my own situation below, where I really can’t claim more than half a room for my equipment. Do you have a barn available? Even then, you can consider the following as a handy basis to start with until you have set up your complete private gym.
Easier Training for Small Muscle Groups at Home
The extent to which you can achieve results with limited equipment varies per muscle group. In principle, the smaller the muscle group, the easier it is to train at home. Large muscle groups require more resistance and therefore enough weight plates and equipment to use them.
Legs, besides containing large muscles, are also more challenging to train than arms because we are not apes and cannot hold dumbbells with our feet. Ever wondered why leg curls are much more popular as hamstring exercises than a bicep curl machine for the biceps? Not if you have no idea what exercises I’m referring to, but let’s just say they are essentially the same movement. However, machines had to be designed specifically for hamstrings to move the weight correctly, whereas for biceps, we simply hold dumbbells or a barbell with our hands. An elaborate way to explain that legs cannot be trained as effectively at home unless you have sufficient equipment and space.
The Minimum Requirement for Training at Home
- A proper weight bench (no frills, but with adjustable seat/backrest angle) on which you can sit and lie securely when carrying heavy weights.
- Two dumbbells and enough (and different) weight plates. The weight depends on yourself, but it’s handy to start with, for example, 4×10 kg, 4×5 kg, and 4×2.5 kg. If you have more experience with strength training, you could also purchase 4×20 kg additionally, but I find that too heavy for home, especially in terms of safety (see further).
- Another recommendation is a so-called EZ-bar. This is a curved barbell that is shorter than the long barbell. With this, you can do most exercises that you also do with a long barbell while taking up less space. If you have enough space, then additionally
- Ensure you have a screw system to secure the weight plates instead of a system that you tighten with an allen key. The latter is not suitable if you need to replace the weight plates frequently.
If You Have the Space:
- Squat rack. Not only useful for safely and heavily training legs but also for, for example, (other variations of) bench presses.
- A long barbell (barbell)
- An extra pair of dumbbells. You will realize how convenient it is to have all those different dumbbells lying in the gym when you have to replace the weight plates on the dumbbells at home between sets. One pair of dumbbells with 2×10 (for example, for chest and back) and a pair with 2×5 for shoulders and arms saves a lot of time. You can of course supplement these to the exact weight you need.
Of course, there are countless fantastic devices for home use. These often limit themselves to one muscle group or can be used for various exercises but with limited weight. Given the space they take up, they are not practical/efficient for home use.
Safety
Another important point is safety. You sometimes see videos on Funniest Homevideos where you see people attempting a record bench press on a household bench. This invariably ends in a bench collapsing or someone having to roll the barbell from their neck to their abdomen to get up.
In a gym, you can ask someone to assist you with heavy exercises. This is not always the case at home (unless you are training with a partner at home). The exercises I list below take into account that you perform these alone. This translates, for example, into bench presses and squats being done only with dumbbells in the overview instead of with a barbell (long bar) that you place on your neck.
The squat rack I show above as an example in case you have space for it also has a horizontal bar that you can use as safety. With this, you could also do bench presses with a barbell besides squats without fearing to end up on YouTube because you let your daughter film your “record attempt”.
Of course, check beforehand what maximum load your equipment is rated for!
Motivation and Instruction
Finally, motivation plays an important role. It can be very motivating to see others train vigorously or to have role models around you. Training under watchful eyes can make you give those few extra repetitions that you wouldn’t make at home anymore.
In addition, there is always help available in the gym. Not only to rescue you from under that barbell if things go wrong, but also to help you with technique. Whether it’s help from an instructor or another more experienced member of the gym.
The company in the gym can also have a downside. Many especially novice guys look at ‘the big guys’ in the gym and want to immediately measure themselves with them. However, they focus too much on the weight of the weight plates and not on technique. These are the so-called swing monkeys or ego lifters. They do everything to show that they can lift that heavy plate by using the whole body and momentum. At home, this wrong reason is not there to tackle more than you can handle.
In the overview below, I show exercises for each muscle group and what you need for them. I start with the muscle groups that are best suited for home training because the required equipment is limited.
Exercises for Home to Build Muscle Mass
Training Shoulders at Home
- Dumbbell shoulder press
- Dumbbell side laterals
- Incline dumbbell laterals (tip)
- Football side laterals
- Barbell front raises
- Dumbbell front raises
- Arnold press
- Barbell upright rows
- Dumbbell bent-over lateral raises
- Military press
- Seated rear dumbbell raises
Training Trapezius at Home
- Barbell shrugs behind the back
- Barbell shrugs in front
- Dumbbell shrugs
Training Biceps at Home
- Pull-ups (with palms facing you)
- Dumbbell curl
- 21s (good warm-up exercise)
- Barbell curl
- Spider curls
- Dumbbell Hammer curl
- Preacher curls**
- Hammer Preacher curls*
- Concentration curls
- Incline dumbbell curls *
For example, on a door frame. There are also bars that you can clamp between a door frame. Do this properly**
For example, use the backrest of a chair.
Training Triceps at Home
- Pushups*** narrow stance
- Pushups on fists
- Pushups on 1 hand
- Superman pushups (heavy/explosive)
- Pushups with clap behind the back (heavy/explosive)
- Pushups on 1 hand with clap to the chest (very heavy and explosive)
- Bench dip
- Bar dip****
- Skullcrusher
- Dumbbell 2-arm extension
- Dumbbell 1-arm extension
- Kickbacks
***With pushups, you train many muscle groups including the chest, shoulders, triceps, and abdomen. By adopting a narrower stance (hands close together), you emphasize the triceps instead of the chest. Here also applies the same as for abdominal exercises: For building muscle mass, do relatively few repetitions with more weight. So, make the pushups heavy enough that you can do a maximum of 10-12 repetitions by adding extra weight or doing heavier variants like pushups on 1 hand (possibly while holding a weight plate with the other hand).
****Between two (sturdy!) chair armrests, for example.
Training Chest at Home
- Pushups (normal and wide stance)
- Dumbbell pullovers
- Dumbbell bench press
- Dumbbell Flyes
- Incline dumbbell bench press
Training Back at Home
- Chin-ups
- 1-arm dumbbell row
- Bent-over barbell rows
- Barbell ‘good morning‘
Training Hamstrings at Home
- Deadlift
- Stiff-legged barbell deadlift
- Stiff-legged dumbbell deadlift
- Barbell ‘good morning‘
Training Quadriceps at Home
- Dumbbell squat
- Dumbbell lunges
- Deadlift
Training Abdominals at Home
- Crunches with extra weight
- Leg raises with extra weight
