No weight room but want to bulk...help!!!

Interested in what others have to say

Yes, bodyweight exercises will work fine. That's pretty much all I do and I bulk just fine.

To do so though you want to stick to low reps, the hardest exercises you can do. If you are doing 10+ reps of anything, move on to a harder variation of the exercise.

good advice. leg stuff might be challenging to find stuff that you truly reach failure at ten reps, even one legged stuff.

might have to get creative, or just go extreamly deep into the movements

Yes, bodyweight exercises will work fine. That's pretty much all I do and I bulk just fine.

To do so though you want to stick to low reps, the hardest exercises you can do. If you are doing 10+ reps of anything, move on to a harder variation of the exercise.

good advice. leg stuff might be challenging to find stuff that you truly reach failure at ten reps, even one legged stuff.

might have to get creative, or just go extreamly deep into the movements

The more upright you do single leg squats, the harder they become (the issue can be forced with hand position and nonworking leg position). Full pistol squats are ultra deep squats.

Working up to 10 pistol squats will keep most people busy for a while (you can also magnify the effectiveness of higher rep work using rest-pause techniques, which works especially well in the legs when bulking, though that is a topic way beyond the question at hand).

Other squatting variations like shrimp squats are harder. Done with the working leg elevated to allow for full squat depth, they are very challenging.

With all BW squatting forms though, beyond basic pistol squats they become more quad dominant as they get harder.

Pistol squats are very easy to weight; due to being single leg work it doesn't take much weight to greatly increase the difficulty (plus weight position makes a big difference). Weight vests, KB's, or DB's will help keep the difficulty up. Someone who can do a single pistol holding 50% of their body weight in DB's on their shoulders (DB front rack) is really, really frickin strong.

OTOH natural hamstring curls offer an extreme level of difficulty for the posterior chain. RARE is a person strong enough to do 10 good form unassisted reps with their hands held overhead (the hardest variation). Due to the way the force transfer is, the exercise big time transfers to sprinting speed (I know the Green Bay Packers use them in offseason strength and conditioning program).

You lost me at body weight exercise!

I strength trained at home for over a year with great results. I only joined a gym because I got into heavy lifting and wanted to use the squat rack lol

I think you are being a little hard on yourself but that can be a good thing. By definition you are not clinically overweight. I can appreciate you wanting to be better than you are, that is the drive inside of you that will propel you to do things you never thought possible. We are all capable of so much more than most of us will ever know. Channel that energy. Great advice from these guys too. Body weight exercises are awesome and much more dynamic than lifting weights. One thing though, the word bulk refers to fat not muscle at least from the scientific perspective. There is lean body mass and there is bulk. Progression is vital as well as 100% effort, focus, discipline, consistency and commitment. Vary your workouts to constantly challenge your muscles and keep them guessing.


Tom
Exercise Physiologist
ACSM, NASM certified instructor
NSCA CSCS
Army Ranger

Waldo56: good list of exercises there. I'm wondering if you know of anyone who has built up a decent amount of quad/glute mass doing pistol squats? I know they are very tough but I'm yet to see anyone with decent quad mass from just doing them and no traditional heavy weights. Theory says it should be possible though!

Well, my quads aren't huge, but they certainly aren't small (still have a ways to go though). Anything less than loose fit pants aren't happening.

I've never touched a barbell or set foot in a gym. My legs are 100% built from pistol squats (DB weighted and unweighted), natural hamstring curls, DB weighted step ups, shrimp squats, and hill sprints. Mostly pistols though.



Unfortunately there are very few BW people that go far with the legs. BW people generally fall into 4 categories:
- People doing BW work to work up to doing weights or as a temporary fill-in
- Bar bros that don't do legs
- People that buy into the dogma perpetuated by many of today's BW gurus (Steven Low esp) that legs can't be built without barbells
- Skinny people afraid of gaining any weight (many of the gymnast types) for fear of a performance hit.

None of these types would be expected to build big legs with pistols.

There is an information vacuum at the highest levels, hardly anyone can do the hard stuff, the few that can don't write about or make youtube videos. I mean find a natural hamstring curl tutorial or video even of someone doing full good form unassisted reps (Layne Norton is freaky strong at them and has a few videos). Natural leg extensions are more or less mythical, yet I know they are possible, I've seen a short lived video of someone doing a good one. Of the 7 possible support-free major single leg squat variations (nonworking leg forward, side, back, both straight and bent, and leg crossed), only 4 have names that I'm aware of.

incline wide leg one arm pushups -> wide leg one arm pushups -> narrow leg one arm pushups

incline one arm is really supposed to be easier then flat?

I suspect that you have your inclines and declines backwards.

Incline = hands elevated. Decline = feet elevated.

yes thats right i was thinking like bench press.

find it very refreshing that you are living proof that one can build that kind of physique without necessairly needing heavy weights.

I mean its essentially the same principals at work. I just hate the whole 'this is the only way' or even 'this is definetly the best way' mentality.

makes me want to puke

Waldo56: good list of exercises there. I'm wondering if you know of anyone who has built up a decent amount of quad/glute mass doing pistol squats? I know they are very tough but I'm yet to see anyone with decent quad mass from just doing them and no traditional heavy weights. Theory says it should be possible though!

Well, my quads aren't huge, but they certainly aren't small (still have a ways to go though). Anything less than loose fit pants aren't happening.

I've never touched a barbell or set foot in a gym. My legs are 100% built from pistol squats (DB weighted and unweighted), natural hamstring curls, DB weighted step ups, shrimp squats, and hill sprints. Mostly pistols though.

Unfortunately there are very few BW people that go far with the legs. BW people generally fall into 4 categories:
- People doing BW work to work up to doing weights or as a temporary fill-in
- Bar bros that don't do legs
- People that buy into the dogma perpetuated by many of today's BW gurus (Steven Low esp) that legs can't be built without barbells
- Skinny people afraid of gaining any weight (many of the gymnast types) for fear of a performance hit.

None of these types would be expected to build big legs with pistols.

There is an information vacuum at the highest levels, hardly anyone can do the hard stuff, the few that can don't write about or make youtube videos. I mean find a natural hamstring curl tutorial or video even of someone doing full good form unassisted reps (Layne Norton is freaky strong at them and has a few videos). Natural leg extensions are more or less mythical, yet I know they are possible, I've seen a short lived video of someone doing a good one. Of the 7 possible support-free major single leg squat variations (nonworking leg forward, side, back, both straight and bent, and leg crossed), only 4 have names that I'm aware of.

Thanks for that mate Looks like you've built a decent set of quads! And as I suspected, progressive overload is progressive overload. Your quads don't know if there is a barbell on your back or what, they just have to do work.

I love BW exercises and in particular the bar stuff so that is mainly what I've seen. Hence the question