Trying to build muscle without weights? Here’s what you need to know.

You can build muscle without weights, but you probably shouldn't eat for maximum muscle growth if you're training without weights.

I hope you're confused enough to keep reading.

In order to put what follows into perspective, you have to appreciate my theory of muscle growth, which goes a little something like:

You have to expose your body to supergravity stress.

If your body parts don't regularly resist and overcome Earth's gravity, they shrink. Muscle growth is driven primarily by making your body parts resist and overcome gravitational situations beyond their current level of adaptation.

My rule of thumb:

The gravity (resistance) has to be large enough to make you “sticky,” as opposed to “springy.”

You can scale gravity without weights.

You can work towards pistol squats. You can do Nordic hamstring curls. You work towards one-arm feet-elevated push-ups and handstand push-ups. And one-arm pull-ups, too.

Eventually, however, you'll hit a bottleneck. You'll be able to increase the difficulty, but not the gravity.

For instance, once you've mastered pistol squats, you can work towards shrimp squats and dragon squats. Shrimp and dragon squats are more difficult than pistol squats, but the level of gravity is the same, so, in my book — which is my book based on my theory — you won't be as likely to build muscle as compared to if you were scaling gravity.

This bottleneck is waaaayyyyyy down the road, though. Initially, you'll probably be able to scale gravity without weights, which means you can trigger muscle growth just fine without weights.

Unfortunately, “without weights” is different than “without equipment.”

When people ask if they can build muscle without weights, what they're really asking is if they can build muscle without equipment.

Building muscle without equipment is much tougher than building muscle without weights. For instance, if you don't have anywhere to do Nordic hamstring curls or pull-ups, then you'll struggle to adequately train your backside.

This is why you probably shouldn't eat for max muscle growth if you're training without weights. You probably won't cause the depth and breadth of muscular and metabolic stress required to justify loading up at the dinner table.

You're better off eating at maintenance (and eating plenty of protein).

I could be wrong, though…

Maybe you have enough equipment. And maybe you have enough creativity to scale gravity with household objects to work around bottlenecks.

Maybe you're doing one-arm feet-elevated push-ups and then handstand push-ups and then one million diamond push-ups, followed by one-arm chin-ups and then sternum chin-ups and then one million regular chin-ups, followed by pistol squats (while holding a full propane tank) and then dragon squats (while holding a duffel bag full of dirt) and then one million shrimp squats (while holding one million cocktail shrimp), followed by…

Maybe…

Or maybe you're doing three sets of push-ups followed by three sets of jump squats and calling it a day.

You tell me.