CAN YOU REALLY BUILD MASS WITH HOME WORKOUTS?
ADDING STRENGTH AND SIZE WITHOUT GOING TO A COMMERCIAL GYM
Is it really possible to build significant muscle mass with a home gym set up? We think so – and so do our customers!
Here’s what we’ve learned from years of helping stacked guys (and girls!) kit out effective home gyms for building better bodies.
Home training sessions can be as simple or as complex as you want to make them. But if your goal is adding muscle mass, you need to tick off all the essentials:
– Training stimulus
– Progressive overload
– Volume
– Load
– Time under tension
– Training frequency
What You’ll Need
You can only take things so far with bodyweight and calisthenics style workouts. At some point you will need to add extra load if you want to build muscle. Your home gym will need to have a barbell and plates, or decent sized dumbbells, kettlebells, or machines that give you enough variety. This is particularly important for big muscle groups that can take a lot of work – think legs, back, glutes, and overhead work.
Define Your Goals
OK, you want to build mass. But do you want to grow all over? Or focus on weaker body parts? Make sure you have a plan that moves you closer to your goals. From there, you can adapt your kit (or add to it) and create a training plan with exercise selection and rep ranges.
Remember The Basics
Humans have been building mass since time began. So stick with the basics and you can’t go far wrong. Squat, hip hinge, push, vertical pull, horizontal row, and overhead press. Within those categories you can choose the exercises that suit your body and your kit.
Combine Weights & Body Weight
Bodyweight alone probably won’t be enough to build serious mass, but you can minimise the amount of kit you need in a home gym by combining training styles. Superset free weights with a body weight movement, or choose some body weight moves to act as a cell-swelling finisher for the end of your workout. Push ups, pull ups, split squats, walking lunges, and advanced bodyweight movements can all be valid mass building moves.
Your Perfect Training Split
Remember that the beauty of a home gym is that you can train what you want, when you want. No more avoiding chest on a Monday because the benches are all taken. So design your mass-building training plan to suit you – not the gym! You can build mass on a full body training plan, a push/pull/legs plan, upper/lower, or a traditional body part split. The key is training frequency, hitting the muscles often enough to give them sufficient training stimulus. Find the sweet spot and there’s no reason you can’t add muscle mass from a home gym.
