How To Build Muscle Without Lifting Weights

Friday, July 27, 2018, 18:13

Building your muscles through consistent weightlifting is considered effective because it creates micro-tears in the muscle. And slowly, the muscle then repairs itself to become stronger, which means you start building muscles. But, a solid weightlifting routine is not the only option to build muscles, there are other ways of building muscle and strength without lifting weights.

Why Is It Important To Build Muscle Mass And Strength?

Maintaining your muscle mass and building muscle strength can reduce the likelihood of certain diseases, prevent muscle weakness, reduce the age-related loss of strength, strengthen your muscles and connective tissues, help ease arthritis pain and increase bone density.

Health Benefits Of Building Muscles

1. Building Muscles Helps Control Blood Sugar

Plenty of sleep, dietary protein and strength training increase the size of type 2 muscle fibres. These fibres aid in storing carbohydrates. Carbohydrates or sugar is necessary for the body as it provides you the required energy. The bigger the muscles, the larger the carbohydrates storage tank.

On the other hand, thin individuals or seemingly less health individuals often develop blood sugar problems from sedentary lifestyles, lack of resistance training and from poor nutrition.

2. Building Muscle Helps Manage Body Fat

Maintaining your muscles requires more energy compared to other tissues in the body. The metabolic rate starts dropping after the age of 20 at a rate of 2 to 3 per cent. And by the age of 50, metabolic rate drops even faster at an average rate of 4 per cent.

And as your metabolic rate drops, it becomes more difficult to keep your body fat from accumulating and while you cut back on calorie intake, it leads to muscle loss. This can further reduce the metabolic rate.

So, building your muscles will help boost your metabolism and thus, help in weight management.

3. Building Muscle Builds Your bones

Bone density should be higher among women than men because women are five times more likely to end up with osteoporosis. Minerals like calcium, magnesium and vitamins like vitamin D and K have been shown to help maintain bone density.

But, apart from the nutrients, the body should undergo resistance training to maximize bone density. When the bones don't encounter heavy resistance, their density start decreasing. This may lead to arthritis, osteoporosis and other health problems.

The studies from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that muscle building exercise can improve balance, sleep, mental health and the levels of blood sugar.

Most importantly, if you are person who doesn't like doing strength training, there are other ways to build your muscle mass and strength, especially if you are new to workout.

How To Build Muscle Mass And Strength Without Weight lifting

Bodyweight training is the ultimate way!

Bodyweight training will not only aid in sculpting your muscles, but also help you to develop functional strength. Bodyweight workouts are great if you are a first-timer in building muscles. By utilizing your body weight, your body will become stronger and leaner.

One downside of the bodyweight training is that if you are intending to increase your muscle mass or training for maximum strength, then it will be difficult for you to achieve maximal results.

Some of the bodyweight training exercises are push-ups, lunges, burpees and squats, which are great for strength and lean muscle mass.

To build muscle without weightlifting, you need to continually do challenging bodyweight exercises. Start working towards challenging exercises like one-armed push up, one-armed chin up, planks, pistol squat and front lever. These advanced exercises demand high levels of body tension that eventually lead to huge strength gains.