In today's life, not everyone has time to get to the gym. You can build strength and muscle without going to the gym, buying expensive home exercise equipment or even lifting a single weight. When you engage in strength training, the exercises don’t just affect your muscles. It can also effect on your physical health, such as reducing blood pressure, improving cholesterol, and reducing your risk of diabetes. Better yet, it can also improve your ability to perform daily activities, such as lifting boxes or moving household items – all because it improves your strength, coordination, and flexibility. Few men believe it, but you don't need barbell, dumbbells, or machines to build muscle; in fact, weight-training equipment often inhibits the process. That's because it requires you to be in a specific location, which might explain why more men consider themselves runners than lifters. After all, running is the most accessible form of exercise. The key to gaining strength isn’t found in gaining muscle, although the key to gaining muscle is found in gaining strength.
- Dips
A dip to your workout routine is one of the fastest ways to build upper body strength. Dips using parallel bars target your chest and triceps. If you bring your knees up and keep your body more upright, you will focus more on your triceps. You can also use a chair or weight bench for triceps dips.
- Burpees
Burpees will help you to improve the overall strength of your body. The move targets the upper body, arms, chest and upper back throughout the pushup element, and hit the lower body. Stand straight, and then lower into a squat position with your hands on the floor in front of you. Kick your feet back into a push-up position and immediately drop your chest to the floor. Bow your chest up as you return your feet back to the squat position as fast as possible. Jump up into the air as high as you can.
- Calf Exercise
This is a classic exercise for toning and strengthening the calf muscles. This workout utilizes your own body weight instead of a weight machine to help build muscle mass. It strengthens both the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles. To start off, you will need to stand near a wall to balance yourself, if needed, and your feet should be hip-width apart with your ankles, knees and hips vertically aligned. Push your body upward on the balls of both feet. Make sure that your abdominal muscles are engaged so that your back remains straight instead of shifted forward or backward.
- Plyometrics
This is also the way to build or increase your strength. Plyometrics are explosive, powerful movements that increase strength by putting an intense demand on your muscles. Athletes that need to run fast or jump high often use plyometrics to build explosive strength. Plyometric exercises such as squat jumps, plyo-pushups, alternating lunge jumps and box drills to build strength without using weights.
- Taking Rest
When training for strength, increase your rest time. Performing one exercise after the other with no rest in between. Try to perform 10 reps of each exercise and taking rest for 1-2 minutes, then repeat for a total of four sets. Do this twice a week, allowing 3 days of rest between sessions. You'll need it.
- Sufficient Protein for muscles
Lifting weights makes your metabolism race as your body works to restore energy and repair muscle tissue. If you don't take in enough calories and protein, you won't have the resources you need to recover. Consuming 300 to 500 additional calories on workout days, and skewing those calories toward protein, the building block of muscle.
