How to gain arm strength and muscle without weights?

I want to gain some muscle. All of my life I never built any sort of muscle aside from dancing which is at my abdomen and my legs. I need help to strengthen my arms. I can't even do a push up, it's that bad. Any exercises for me to do and for how much a week?

Replies

  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,457 Member
    Pushups and inverted rows. Get good at those and you'll get strong. To gain muscle, you need to eat enough calories to encourage hypertrophy. That means a small surplus.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

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  • pauladuke0
    pauladuke0 Posts: 1 Member
    yoga!
  • Mezzie1024
    Mezzie1024 Posts: 380 Member
    I second yoga. It's a great compliment to dancing, and there's a lot of upper body work involved.
  • gearhead426hemi
    gearhead426hemi Posts: 919 Member
    edited August 2017
    I am a HUGE advocate for bodyweight workouts. Pushups, pull ups, dips, reverse pull ups. Your body is all the resistance you need. Once you start building up your strength swap the bar for rings. I added rings into my circuits and its made a world of a difference in hand strength and core as well.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,285 Member
    Planking, too.
  • TeethOfTheHydra
    TeethOfTheHydra Posts: 63 Member
    Vinyasa yoga 4 times a week and within 2 - 3 months, I believe you'll see/feel the difference. Several other benefits as well that just doing some pushups won't deliver.
    Good luck!
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    OP, I agree with the suggestions above for bodyweight exercises. However, I also wanted to ask--why no weights? Is it because you do not have access to them, or cannot afford them?

    If so I just wanted to point out that you can get a lot done even with 5- and 10-lb dumbbells for lifts like bicep or hammer curls, triceps kickbacks, flies, lat raises, rows, plank rows, floor presses, overhead presses, etc. You probably also have a bunch of functional stuff around the house that you can lift--cans of soup, bottles of wine, bags of flour, etc.

    Another very useful (and generally not terribly expensive) piece of equipment is a resistance band--you can do a lot of the same lifts with a band, and you can adjust the tension to be appropriate for the lift by moving where you grip it. This would complement a bodyweight program nicely, and would allow you to progress to heavier lifts once your muscles adapt to the current lifts.

    Regarding push-ups, you can do push ups with your knees on the ground, or do push-ups against a counter--the easier they get, the more lateral you go until you have developed the muscle you need to start doing classic push-ups.

    I am making the assumption that you are not currently at a point where you can start busting out pull-ups--if you don't have access to an assisted machine, a higher-tension resistance band would be helpful in doing lat pull-downs do start building those muscles, then you can graduate to negative pull-ups, or just hang from the monkey bars at the play ground and lift your knees to your chest and lower them.

    Regarding your question on how often you should do it, a good general recommendation would be 2-3 times a week, maybe for 20 minutes to a half hour (depending on the exercises you want to do, you can do 3-5 sets, and 10-15 reps in each set). Of course this also depends on how much you are dancing, although I don't think that arm-oriented lifts would do anything but complement your dancing.

    As recommended above, you need to eat enough calories to fuel your lifts and build muscle, and you also need to ensure you are getting an adequate amount of protein. One generally accepted rule of thumb is .8 grams per lb of body weight. Getting that protein is very important, and it is something I did not understand at all till I started lifting under the guidance of a trainer about a year and a half ago.

  • DamienAngelica
    DamienAngelica Posts: 281 Member
    I know I'm echoing other recs, but yoga and planks - both straight arm and bent - will help. For push-ups, try doing them on your knees until you build up more strength.
  • VeggieBarbells
    VeggieBarbells Posts: 175 Member
    edited August 2017
    pauladuke0 wrote: »
    yoga!

    This is a great idea. Yoga sounds light weight, all I know, it kicks my *kitten* everytime I go. @pauladuke0 is spot on :D
  • Graelwyn75
    Graelwyn75 Posts: 4,404 Member
    Boxing did it for me. Boxing training, to be precise.
  • accidentalpancake
    accidentalpancake Posts: 484 Member
    YAYOG
  • ryenday
    ryenday Posts: 1,540 Member
    I started YAYOG ( the body by you version) and I also recommend it. The nicest thing is if I am away from home and my gym I don't have to miss a day or scramble to find a gym. The app is perfect for me also.
  • AshlynnHH
    AshlynnHH Posts: 27 Member
    OP, I agree with the suggestions above for bodyweight exercises. However, I also wanted to ask--why no weights? Is it because you do not have access to them, or cannot afford them?

    Both, exactly. All I have are one lb weights and resistance bands at home.
  • AshlynnHH
    AshlynnHH Posts: 27 Member
    The reason why I'm doing this is because I want to start learning dance moves that require body and arm muscle strength in the future. I'm still in the process of losing weight and want to gain some muscle as I lose the appropriate amount. All of your replies are a big help to me!
  • jennybearlv
    jennybearlv Posts: 1,519 Member
    ninerbuff wrote: »
    Pushups and inverted rows. Get good at those and you'll get strong. To gain muscle, you need to eat enough calories to encourage hypertrophy. That means a small surplus.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    9285851.png


    These are good suggestions. I can't do a proper push up either, but bodyweight exercises can be adjusted in difficulty. I'm currently doing pushups from my knees to work on strength for a regular pushup. If you can't do that make the angle steeper by putting your hands on a chair, table, or counter. When I did inverted rows I kept my knees bent to make it easier.
  • VeronicaA76
    VeronicaA76 Posts: 1,116 Member
    Calisthenics. Basically, body weight workouts.