12 Best Bodyweight Exercises To Build Muscle

Bodyweight exercises are great for building functional strength, especially when you’re on the go and don’t have access to a gym. They’re also great for building body awareness and stability.

While free weights are more effective for actually growing and building muscle, bodyweight exercises still deserve a place in your exercise routine.

Since bodyweight exercises are limited to your body mass, you’ll need to progress them over time by adding more volume, frequency, and difficulty to stimulate muscle growth. That said, if you perform bodyweight exercises well and progress them little by little, they can still provide good resistance that can stimulate muscle growth effectively.

Here are the best bodyweight exercises for building muscle. As a general principle, complete three sets of 10 reps for each exercise, increasing the overall volume of your workload over time.

1. Push up

This quintessential bodyweight exercise targets the upper body and challenges muscle groups like the triceps, pecs, and shoulders. If you can’t complete a regular push-up, you can always modify it by performing the movement from your knees instead of your feet.

1. Begin with your hands on the ground and positioned directly under you, just outside shoulder-width apart.
2. Extend both legs so your toes are on the ground, balancing your lower body.
3. Keeping your neck, hips, and back flat and aligned, initiate the movement by bending your elbows and lowering yourself to the ground.
4. Press the floor away from you and return to the starting position.

2. Squat

Squats target the major muscle groups of the lower body, such as the quadriceps, or quads (front of thighs), glutes (butt), and hamstrings (back of thighs). It is a highly functional exercise and translates to many activities of daily living. You can always modify the depth of your squat depending on your mobility, so don’t feel pressured to go super low. 

1. Stand tall and separate your feet shoulder-width apart.
2. Brace your core, look straight ahead, and slowly sit back as if you were lowering yourself into a chair behind you.
3. Once you approach roughly 90 degrees of knee bend, pause briefly and press through the floor, returning to the starting position

3. Plank

The plank is a classic bodyweight exercise that challenges many areas of your core, such as the transversus abdominis, rectus abdominis (“six-pack”), and oblique (side abdominal) muscles. If you find doing it from your toes too challenging, you can modify the difficulty of this exercise by doing it from your knees. 

1. Place your elbows on the floor and extend your legs so you are balancing on your toes.
2. Keep your core tight, your spine and neck in a neutral position, and your hips parallel to the floor.
3. Hold the position for as long as you can before your form starts breaking down. You can start with 30 seconds and work towards holding it for a minute or longer.

4. Glute bridge

The glute bridge loads the hip extensor muscles and targets your glutes and hamstrings. When performing this movement, make sure you’re only extending your hips and not your lower back. Keep your abdominals (abs) braced to keep your spine neutral. 

1. Lay flat on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor.
2. Keeping your ab and glute (butt) muscles engaged, press your feet into the floor and bridge your hips into extension.
3. Pause briefly, feel your glute muscles contract, and slowly lower yourself back toward the ground.

5. Walking lunges

Lunges challenge your unilateral leg strength and load the quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and adductors. They build leg muscles while also challenging your balance and stability. 

1. Begin with your feet together, standing up tall with an engaged core. 
2. Take a big step forward into a lunge, bringing your back knee toward the floor, hovering an inch or so above the ground.
3. Step forward with the back leg leading in the lunge and repeat for several steps.

6. Side plank

The side plank is a little different from the traditional plank. This movement loads the oblique (side ab) muscles to a greater extent and is great for spinal stability. If you find the exercise is too difficult with your feet stacked, modify it by performing it on your knees. You’ll get the same benefit but with less shoulder strength needed to hold yourself up. 

1. Place your elbow on the floor aligned with your hips and shoulders.
2. Press your forearm into the floor and raise your hips so they come parallel to the floor beneath you. 
3. Maintain a stable and braced core while holding the plank for as long as possible before switching sides.

7. Lateral lunge 

This lunge variation also loads the muscles targeted in the walking lunge, such as the quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, and adductors. However, the movement occurs in the frontal plane, moving side to side, as opposed to forward lunges, which occur in the sagittal plane (forward and backward).

Working movements in the frontal plane offer a challenging novel stimulus, as most movements in life occur in the sagittal plane.

1. Begin with your feet together, standing up tall with an engaged core. 
2. Take a big step to the side and bend your knee, slowly shifting your weight into the lunging leg. 
3. Push your hip slightly back and hinge forward on the lunging leg to load your glutes.
4. Return to the starting position and complete subsequent reps on each side. 

8. Burpee

This exercise is just as aerobic as it is strength-dominant. From rep to rep, it will challenge the muscles of your entire body and cardiovascular system. If it’s too challenging, you can modify the difficulty by skipping the jump part.

1. Start standing, drop into a squat, and place your hands on the floor.
2. Jump back into a plank position from a push-up position before returning your feet to your hands.
3. To complete the movement, explode into a jump, reach your arms overhead, and land softly. Repeat several reps and sets. 

9. Jumping jacks

If jumping jacks bring back memories of gym class, there’s a reason this bodyweight exercise has stood the test of time. It challenges your entire body and also gets your heart pumping. 

1. Begin with your feet together and arms at your sides.
2. Jump your feet out while raising your arms overhead in an arc motion.
3. Hop back to the starting position with a soft landing and bring your arms back toward your side before repeating sequentially. 

10. Standing calf raises

This exercise focuses on the gastrocnemius and soleus, the muscles that comprise your calves. It isolates them perfectly, and you’ll feel the burn after just a few reps.

1. Stand tall with your feet hip-width apart and slightly bent knees.
2. Push through the balls of your feet and lift your heels as high as possible while focusing on the contraction of your calf muscles.
3. Pause briefly at the top before slowly lowering your heels back to the starting position and completing more reps. 

11. Box jump

While technically a plyometric exercise, this movement also challenges the strength of your lower body muscles and works your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which are key for explosive movements and power.

Feel free to modify the height of the box depending on how difficult you want it to be. Start low and go higher as you get stronger. 

1. Stand in front of the box with your feet hip-width apart and engage your core muscles.
2. Swing your arms back to build momentum and jump explosively onto the box, extending your hips, knees, and ankles at the same time.
3. Land softly with both feet on the box in a stable position.
4. Step down carefully and complete several reps. 

12. Dead bugs 

This bodyweight core drill helps train neutral spinal mechanics and challenges your deep abdominal muscles. 

1. Laying on your back, bend your legs at 90 degrees and reach your arms toward the ceiling.
2. Press your back onto the floor and extend your right leg and left arm at the same time.
3. Slowly return to the position you started from and switch arms and legs. 
4. Alternate each time through and do several rounds.

Are bodyweight exercises effective?

To build muscle, you need to implement the principle of “progressive overload”, which basically just means gradually increasing the demand (weight) placed on your muscles over time through increased resistance, repetitions, sets, frequency, or difficulty.

Since bodyweight exercises are limited to your body mass, you’ll need to progress them over time by adding more volume, frequency, and difficulty to stimulate muscle growth adequately. However, when loaded in the proper anatomical position and progressed properly, bodyweight exercises still provide adequate resistance to build muscle effectively.

Do bodyweight exercises build muscle?

Externally loaded movements (for example, using free weights) build muscle mass more effectively because they can be progressively overloaded by adding more resistance over time. Bodyweight exercises are limited to your body mass and, therefore, have a cap on their overload capability.

However, they are still a form of resistance and can contribute to muscular hypertrophy if done and progressed properly. You can effectively use them to strengthen almost every muscle in your body. 

A quick review

Bodyweight exercises can help build muscle when performed correctly and progressed effectively over time.

In addition to your bodyweight workouts, make sure to incorporate free weight exercises into your routine, as bodyweight exercises can only get you so far in terms of strength and muscle mass.