How To Build Muscle Without Weights – Four Exercises Teach You

Hand-stand push ups. Take the basic push-ups to the next level with a hand stand push-up. Where the flat push-up tends to focus more on the chest muscles, the handstand pushup has more of a focus on the shoulder muscles. To carry out this exercise perform a handstand against a wall and support your self by leaning your legs up against the wall. Look forward as you slowly lower you chin a few inches towards the ground, pause, and return to the starting position. It is a very small movement but is actually really hard to do. Some people will even struggle to do just one rep of this exercise, and if this is the case you can just hold the handstand in place for a static hold and over a number of days work yourself up to being able to do a few reps.

Seated Tricep Dips. Tricep dips are a great way to build your arm muscles. They tend to be more powerful than many bodyweight exercises and as a result many bodybuilders integrate dips into their weight lifting schedule. To do a seated tricep dip you just need a chair. Sit on the chair with your legs fully extender in front of yourself. Place your palms on the bench and slide your body forward and off the bench. Support yourself with your arms that are facing palm down on the bench. Slowly lower yourself down to the ground until your arms form a right angles. Raise yourself back off the floor until your arms are fully extended again. Repeat this motion for however many reps you want to do. To make tricep dips even harder you can raise your feet off the ground by placing them on a second chair that is placed in front of you. Then when you repeat the exercise you can place a heavy object in your lap such as a weight plate or some books. If this exercise is done correctly you should really feel a nice burn in your triceps.

Basic crunches. This the most well known exercise for developing the abs. You basically lay on your back with your knees raised and feet on the floor. Put your hands behind your head and raise your shoulders a few inches off the floor. Hold. And repeat. The key to cruches is to go slowly and to really pause and squeeze the abdominial muscles at the top of the exercise. Make sure you do not lift your shoulders to far off the floor otherwise it will become more like a sit-up, which is for endurance and not muscle. To make basic crunches harder try really slowing down the speed on really squeezing those abs for a few more seconds during each rep. Try to go slowly enough so that you cannot physically do more than 25 reps or so. A good way to help you feel the squeeze in your abs is to rest an object such as a book onto your abs. It will then become more obvious when you contract your ab muscles and it gives you something to focus on.

Shoulder stretch. The classic shoulder stretch exercises looks a bit like a ballerina pose! You basically stand upright and outstretch both your arms to the ceiling and interlink your fingers of both hands and turn your palms over so that they are both facing up towards the ceiling, directly above your head. Push your palms to the ceiling and really feel the stretch in your shoulders. Hold the stretch for 8-10 seconds and then rest and repeat 1 or 2 more times.

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