It’s the age-old question of whether weights are a necessary factor in building muscle and getting big. There are lots of articles out there from supposed experts. They all say that they have the secret to building muscle without weights.
Likewise, there are just as many out there saying that it’s impossible to get big without weights. So, what exactly is the truth? Is building muscle without weights possible? Well as always let’s look at it from a scientific point of view and try to answer this age-old question.
Before we can investigate whether or not building muscle without weights is achievable, we must first understand some things. How exactly do our muscles develop and grow as a result of training? To investigate this, lets look at what happens when we exercise.
How Does Training Build Muscle?
When we stress our muscles while working out, we damage our muscle fibres. Now, I don’t want to alarm anyone so I should explain in a little more detail.
The damage we cause is minute and is the result of tiny tears in the muscles. The damage isn’t permanent and is essential in building bigger and stronger muscles. When we rest and recover the body repairs this damage at a cellular level. This essentially stitches the muscle fibres back together by forming new muscle strands (known as myofibrils). This increase in muscle cells is what is known myofibrillar hypertrophy (hypertrophy meaning growth).
There is another way…
Another way in which skeletal muscle growth occurs is by a process known as sarcoplasmic growth. The main difference here is that the appearance of the muscle becomes larger due to metabolic stress. The cells around the muscles become swollen and increase in size, giving an overall appearance of growth in the muscle. This is the reason why you look like you’ve got bigger directly after a workout. This effect is the result of sarcoplasmic growth.
There are other factors that come in to play when we talk about muscle growth and development. Factors such as hormone levels and testosterone. It’s difficult to quantify the level to which these are major factors though. Most of us wouldn’t know the levels of these in our bodies off the top of our heads! Without an in depth study over a long period we cannot quantify the effect.
So Can It Be Done?
So now we know how skeletal muscles grow. With that information let’s go on to answer the question of whether it is possible to build muscle without weights. I will also state that we are going to focus on myofibrillar hypertrophy in answering this question. This is because it is the longer-term way in which muscles grow. It also adds to skeletal muscle strength and power, as well as size.
The most effective way to build muscle is to work out to exhaustion. Now, I don’t mean that I want you to be in a sweaty heap on the floor come the end of your workout. However, with every set of exercises you need to complete as many repetitions as you can. What this does is it adds more stress to the muscles being targeted and overloads them. This action is what causes the damage to muscle fibres and thus sets the process of hypertrophy in motion.
Push-ups hurt though right?
In theory you could cause this muscle fatigue by doing push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups or air squats. Or indeed, any form of bodyweight exercise. If you do 100 push-ups, you’re going to start feeling it in your arms and shoulders. This will cause hypertrophy, however there are some advantages to using weights that we need to be aware of.
The old train of thought was that for muscular size you did less reps with more weight. This was in contrast to lighter weights and more reps for muscular stamina. However, a recent study found evidence to suggest that both cause increases in muscle size.
The study showed that by working out without weights and utilising bodyweight, or by using lighter weights, actually caused an overall greater increase in muscle size than by working out with heavy weights.
In the study both groups worked out to exhaustion. The heavy group needing to complete less reps to reach exhaustion than the lighter group.
So Lift Heavy, Or Lift Light?
If lifting with lighter weights causes greater increase in muscle size, why do people insist on lifting heavy?
Well the same study concluded that although lifting lighter weights for more reps caused a greater increase in muscle size, it didn’t greatly add to an increase in muscle strength. Strength was developed far more by lifting heavier weights, in fact the difference was quite significant. This also shows why bigger muscles don’t always necessarily mean greater strength.
Finally…
It looks like we have reached an answer to our question. Whether we need to lift weights to build bigger muscles. The answer is indeed no, we don’t. However, if you want to develop muscular strength and density then lifting ever increasing weight is the best way to do this.
Also take in to account that nutrition and rest are just as important as lifting weights. When it comes to getting big and ripped diet is vital. Eating a balanced diet containing plenty of high protein foods and getting enough sleep are essential. This is true in all aspects of health and fitness.
Thanks for reading and I’m glad we got to the bottom of this age-old question.
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