Can You Build Muscle Effectively Using Calisthenics or Bodyweight Alone? A Look at the Science Surrounding Low-Load Resistance Training

[lucie_tsao]

Tl;dr:

Can you build muscle using just calisthenics?​

I’ve heard that question a million times and most people think the answer is that bodyweight training, or calisthenics, is a waste of time when it comes to hypertrophy.

The main argument is that bodyweight training doesn’t create enough tension to provide the necessary stimulus for muscle growth.

Firstly, there are bodyweight exercises that require too much strength for most people to do, so clearly, those exercises will be capable of building muscle. But what about the majority of people who don’t know that stuff and just want to build muscle without a gym?

In this article, we will look at the body of evidence surrounding low-resistance training and try to answer the question:

Low-load Science​

We’ll start with a meta-analysis of all peer-reviewed articles that compared low load, which was defined as

 

[atheautistic]

@lucie_tsao

Another issue is that these high-rep sets to failure are going to be hard. I mean no one said it was going to be easy, but some of the sets are going to make you question your life choices, that’s for sure.

Speaking as a lean dude who started doing pushups to failure as a fatty @ age 30 [when I began my journey], I moved onto high-rep dips roughly about 2 years later & have been doing them for about 3 years now.

Honestly, I ALMOST consider it easy on some days. My "dip station" [a medical walker] is right next to me. To get on it & start the dips sometimes feels effortless. Now I won't lie: some days it can be a bit intimidating, particularly when I decide I'm gonna do those extra-taxing fast reps but overall, the fact that one can build muscle via dips in the convenience of their own room is kinda amazing. You gradually adapt to the taxing cardio-aspect of it. But nowadays? I often use TUT to emphasize rep form and they're done even EASIER like that because less reps results in less endurance/cardio demand

Fast forward to now, the pecs are my most complimented/noticed muscle. I currently range from about 25 slow reps to 39 fast, often fluctuating with water weight of course. 5'6 @ I think 130-145 lbs.

Men & women of the dip kingdom: acknowledge that some people make themselves jump through hoops just to work their chest/triceps. All we have to do is hop on a set of bars that can be placed anywhere. Take advantage! [pushups included]

On that note:

Can you build muscle using just calisthenics?

yes of course. do the work, be consistent, don't stress TOO much about adding heavy weight. you'll get the results; as OP mentioned, all fibers get activated @ near-failure. Relevant Boges vids:

HOW high reps build muscle

Day 2. Can high reps build muscle?

"It used to be thought that muscle was built in the 8-12 rep range, with 4-6 reps being for strength and 12+ being for endurance. However, research is showing that this is not the case. While low reps are superior for strength, and high reps superior for endurance, the truth is that any rep range can build muscle when sets are taken to, or close to, failure."

Research he linked:

"Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28834797/

 

[tomismyname]

@atheautistic Thank you for sharing this

 

[donw1245]

@atheautistic a medical walker? for real it's stable enough for this? I'm a similar weight and have thought about getting a dip station but don't have space in small apartment

 

[atheautistic]

@donw1245 Made a lazy vid to demonstrate:

Last time I weighed myself was months back @ 130lbs; was mostly sticking to a small deficit then. Having ramped up my calories since [small surplus], my very rough estimate is @ about 140lbs.

+35lbs dumbbell:

https://imgur.com/ohJDuqb

Hope my breathing doesn't make it seem too hard to stabilize doing them; already had my food/sets in for the day & just keeping myself well oxygenated lol. Currently in rest mode.

 

[hobie21se]

@atheautistic That's dedication and the added weight!!! you just gave me some motivation. Thank you!!

 

[atheautistic]

@hobie21se

you just gave me some motivation. Thank you!!

glad to help.

 

[kuda]

@atheautistic Wow! I want to hear more about your story. You started out doing only pushups at 30? How was your workout routine then vs now? What was your progressive overloading criteria? Did you add 1 rep every workout till you reached a certain rep, then move on to the next progression?

 

[atheautistic]

@kuda

Wow! I want to hear more about your story. You started out doing only pushups at 30? How was your workout routine then vs now? What was your progressive overloading criteria? Did you add 1 rep every workout till you reached a certain rep, then move on to the next progression?

Up to the age 30, I was fat with practically no muscle [sedentary computer lifestyle]. Pushups were really my only strength workout starting then; 15 reps when I began was enough to have me sore for days. I was pretty consistent daily & just added reps whenever I could.

Aimed for a 1k caloric deficit / strict clean eating. Didn't really start doing sprints/jogs til I hit the kinda-chubby phase; doing runs with a lot of fat on me really just didn't feel good. After I leaned out even further, I moved onto doing occasional sprints to speed up the process.

Did the most basic bicep movements I could with x2 15lb dumbbells; really didn't know what I was doing there.

I was chasing hard after the cliche "flat stomach" & got lean enough that one day I realized that I could pretty much pull myself up on my closet door. Got a pullup bar shortly after. Roughly around that time was when I tried the dips thing with a medical walker [saw on YT]. Ditched the pushups after. From there, I switched to doing chinups 95% of the time [rather than pullups].

In short, chinups/dips are my main work. Just trimmed this post a bit since it was starting to feel like a rant. I documented the entire process up to this point pretty well via pics, assuming Honeyview's "shooting date" is accurate.

Biggest lesson I'm learning now is to embrace the caloric surplus; I might've halted my progress like a dummy for 3 years trying to maintain super leanness [I did see progress; just VERY slowly]. Turns out water weight is tricky & can look like fat building up around the stomach [did NOT like that] but I got some things figured out now.

 

[changingtides]

@atheautistic Thank you

 

[fallenangel12]

@atheautistic

"It used to be thought that muscle was built in the 8-12 rep range, with 4-6 reps being for strength and 12+ being for endurance. However, research is showing that this is not the case. While low reps are superior for strength, and high reps superior for endurance, the truth is that any rep range can build muscle when sets are taken to, or close to, failure."

Wise words for high-T women. We get a lot of crap for being paranoid over any kind of weight work but the truth is some women are higher T than others and doing a lot of weight work can, sometimes, yield an unaesthetic result. I have genetically prominent traps and lat dorsi muscles and am always on the lookout for toning exercises that don't involve hypertrophy because who needs that.

Edit. Did you people really downvote me for using the word tone in a way you didn't like. Gatekeep much? Everybody knows what I meant.

 

[dawn16]

@fallenangel12 What’s a toning exercise? There’s no such thing. Fat is lost from the body in layers, you can’t target specific muscle groups.

You CAN build more muscle mass in specific groups though, which can result in general fat loss.

 

[kretyen001]

@dawn16 As a woman with broad shoulders I tend to do Pilates-style maintenance on my upper body to prevent bulking and maintain tone, and lift heavy for my lower body.

This helps provide something of an aesthetic balance, an hourglass shape even, where I use the targeted building of muscle to create an ideal shape as opposed to an attempted targeted loss of fat—which as you said, does not exist.

So yes you can target specific muscle groups, though smarter not to do so with the intention of losing certain spots of fat but rather with the intention of rounding out certain parts of your body via muscle.

 

[imnotcrazy]

@dawn16 What exercise isn't toning? Tone is a function of the nervous system describing a muscles ability to fire, not a fat-loss technique. Letterboxbrie was talking about increasing a muscles tone without increasing it's size

 

[jesusrescuedme]

@imnotcrazy If all exercises are toning then there's no such thing as toning exercises.

And I think when most people talk about toning muscles they're primarily thinking of aesthetics, and it sure seems that's what letterboxbrie was talking about.

 

[imnotcrazy]

@jesusrescuedme Tone is a nervous function that talks about the state of contractility in a muscle. The more a muscle is used or caused to fire, the more tone increases. When we use muscles in exercise, we cause them to fire, this increasing tone. I can't understand what you mean by "If all exercises are toning then there's no such thing as toning exercises." Can you think of a situation in which we cause muscles to fire and they become less toned?

Sometimes "when most people talk about" something they are just wrong. A common example of this is when most people talk about muscles being "tight." What they mean when they say tight is hypertonic, too much tone; the muscle is over-firing. This mistake leads people to believe that, to correct their "tight" muscle they should stretch it out, which although popular is also largely unhelpful.

Stretching doesn't work the way most people think it does. If you want to down-regulate tone, you have to actively involve the nervous system.

(I guess here is a scenario in which hypertonic muscles exercise into decreased tone, but if those same muscles were hypotonic they would gain tone, so it's all kinda relative, I guess)

 

[jesusrescuedme]

@imnotcrazy Hey my man, great stuff, I was just responding within the context of that conversation.

Person A talked about doing toning exercises, Person B said there's no such thing as toning exercises (meaning the colloquial but wrong aesthetic tone that A seemed to be talking about), then you said everything is a toning exercise. My comment meant that if that's true, Person A was wrong about focusing on toning exercises.

Anyway, who gives a shit, have a good night!

 

[imnotcrazy]

@jesusrescuedme "Good seed is never wasted."

It's important that those who know better speak with clarity and accuracy. Bro science hurts people, and you never know who's reading!

 

[brokenspirit88]

@atheautistic Awesome man! Good to hear you're killing it with your workout gainz!

 

[oscarmezie]

@lucie_tsao Yes