build biceps without weights

Bicep Exercises Without Weights – 4 Of The Best

I like to do bicep exercises without weights! Building big biceps is often associated with hitting the gym and cranking out a few sets of bicep curls. Sure, that is most probably the quickest way to build big bulky biceps.

But I also like to do bodyweight exercises for biceps at home!

So here is a selection of bodyweight exercises for biceps that will help you build bigger biceps without weights in no time at all…from the comfort of your own home.

4 Bicep Exercises Without Weights

Chin-ups for biceps. This requires the use of a pull-up bar or some sort of bar that will support your body weight. Installing a pull-up bar in your home is relatively inexpensive and you just need to place the bar between a sturdy door frame and screw it in place…

Biceps Without Weights

How To Build Biceps Without Weights

Building biceps without weights can be done in two different ways.

1. Using bodyweight exercises

2. Using make-shift weights

 Bicep Bodyweight Exercises

The best bodyweight excercises for building biceps without weights are chin-ups. Chin-ups are great for working the back and bicep muscles by using your own bodyweight as the resistance.

There is a lot of confusion between chin-ups and pull-ups. They are similar exercises but achieve slightly different results.

Chin-ups primarily work the biceps, but also work out the back muscles. Pull-ups primarily workout the lats, but also work the biceps.

The main difference between these exercises is the grip. The grip for the chin-up has your hands gripping the bar with your palms facing towards you. For pull-ups, your palms face away from you.

Also for chin-ups, there is less of a gap between your two hands on the bar. Where as for pull-ups you often grip further than shoulder width apart to bring the back muscles into play.

You can do chin-ups from home and build biceps without weights using a door. You will need a sturdy door for this though. Otherwise expect your door to come flying off the hinges!

Place a towel over the top of the door and hang from the door, palms down. Adopt a narrow grip to emphasize the working of the arm muscles. Use a wider grip when you want to work out the back muscles more.

 Make-shift Weights For Building Biceps

Another way to build biceps without weights is to make your own weights.

A really clever way to do this is to fill up empty water or milk jugs with water or sand.

If you can get hold of a 1 gallon milk jug and fill it up with water, you will have created yourself a weight of 8.35lbs.

You can get a good bicep workout done with only 8.35lbs. If you find that you need more resistance than this then just do the exercises more slowly so that you reach failure after only 6-8 reps. Really focus on pausing and contracting the muscles at the top of each rep.

In addition to this, pre-exhaust the muscles with bodyweight exercises such as push-ups and chin-ups to make your 8.35lb milk jug workout even harder. It is not about the quantity of weight that you lift, but how you use the weight to work your muscles as hard as possible.

With milk-jugs or water jugs full of water (or sand) you effectively have your own dumbells. You can therefore perform a typical dumbell workout using these make-shift weights.

We came across the milk-jug idea from a bodybuilding.com article, which suggested this as a great method on how to build biceps without weights. The bicep workout for building muscle suggested in this article is as follows:

Alternating bicep curls (1 x 12-15 reps)

Alternating hammer curls (1 x 12-15 reps)

Cross-body hammer curls (2 x 12-15 reps)

It is also suggested to repeat this sequence two or three times each workout in superset fashion. So do these exercises one after the other. Rest. And repeat. Choosing a different starting exercise each time.

Summary

By adopting chin-ups and improvised weights into your home workouts you have all you need at your disposal to build bicep muscle without weights.

Remember, it is about working your muscles as hard as possible. This can be done without weights or by using weights of low quantity.

For an example bodyweight workout to build muscle without weights, it is also worth checking out the Tacfit Commando routine used by the Navy SEALS.