Building Muscle Through Resistance Training at Home

Is it necessary to join a gym in order to build muscle? While it is true that joining a gym will give you access to their exercise equipment and a wide variety of different weight categories for barbells and dumbbells, you can get almost as good of a workout at home with nothing more than a pair of dumbbells.

An exercise bench is also nice to have, but it isn't necessary, however, it will allow you to do dumbbell flyes, bench presses, and inclined dumbbell presses. It is possible to do bench presses and dumbbell flyes on the floor, but the resistance won't be as great. If you don't have a bench you can also do push-ups to work out your chest and triceps.

The benefit of working out at home instead of a gym is that you can workout whenever you feel like it and you won't have the monthly expense of a gym membership. You can even exercise in front of the television if you like. Or if you prefer, you can watch weight training videos and work out to them, although it seems that a lot of the weight training videos generally use very light weights and provide more of a cardiovascular workout than resistance weight training. In addition, these videos seem to go a little fast for weight training (in my opinion). What I often do is pause the video after viewing the exercise. In this way I can see the proper technique, but can take my time doing the exercise, especially if I am using heavy dumbbells. I find that these videos and DVDs are a very good way of learning the proper technique for each exercise, and believe me that proper technique really does make a huge difference. Books can also teach you the proper form, but I find it easier to learn the proper technique from watching weight training videos and DVDs, but whatever works for you is fine.

In addition, some people are reluctant to join a gym until they've gotten into shape (although you certainly shouldn't let your level of fitness stop you from joining a gym if this is your only reason). You will find people of all different fitness levels at the gym.

However, it is possible to become very muscular just working out with dumbbells at home. With them you can work out every part of your upper body (even your back) and even some parts of your lower body (by doing squats). However, if you are exercising with heavy weights you will need someone there to spot you. It isn't safe to lift very heavy weights alone, although working out with dumbbells seems to be relatively safe because you typically won't have that much weight on them.

What Is Resistance Training?

With resistance training you gradually increase the amount of weight you use over time for your workouts. So, for example, if you begin doing bicep curls with 10 pound dumbbells, then after a few workouts with this amount of weight you should increase your weight to 12 pound dumbbells. To do this you can either buy two different sets of dumbbells (2 ten pound and 2 twelve pound) or you can buy the kind of dumbbells that let you adjust the amount of weight by adding or removing weight plates. Then when you feel you are ready, just increase your dumbbell weight to 15 pounds, and so on.

If you are trying to build muscle then you should start with the heaviest weight that you can use to SAFELY do each exercise while still maintaining the proper technique. Then gradually add to the amount of weight you are using over time. You will begin to build muscle and become stronger in this way. If you don't increase the amount of weight that you are using, initially you will build a little muscle, but that will be as much muscle as you'll gain because you will soon reach a plateau.

Proper Breathing Technique

How you breathe while lifting weights is very important. You certainly don't want to hold your breath because your muscles are going to need oxygen to lift the weight (and so will the rest of your body and brain). If you hold your breath while lifting weights you may pass out. You should exhale when you are lifting the weight and inhale as you lower it.

Rest Between Sets

If you are lifting weights to gain muscle you should rest between sets. A set should include between 8-12 repetitions of each exercise, but not more than 12. Some bodybuilders who are using very heavy weights even do less than 8 repetitions per set. After you have perfomed a set then you should rest for approximately 2 minutes and then begin the next set. In general, do 3 sets per exercise.

Rest Between Workouts

When you are just starting out and presumably not using really heavy weights yet, you should rest each body part that you have worked out with weights for 24 hours. This is because while you are lifting weights you are actually tearing the muscle down and it takes 24 hours for the muscle to repair itself and grow. As you increase the amount of weight you are using and if you are using a lot of weight then you may want to give yourself even more time between workouts (e.g., 48-72 hours).

A lot of people choose to work out their upper body one day and their lower body the next day so that they can exercise every day. Also, this prevents each workout from becoming overly long and tiring so that you can put your maximum effort into each exercise you perform.