Most people seem to think that they can’t build lean muscle mass using body weight exercises in the comfort of their own home. There is this notion that you must go to a gym, and that you must lift heavy weights to put on muscle mass. This is completely false.

Here’s why: This is something that no muscle magazine or supplement company wants you to know. Your body doesn’t know how much weight it’s lifting. All it understands is stress. When you lift weights, you’re breaking the muscle down.

When your body tries to rebuild itself, it uses nutrients to build itself up stronger and bigger. That’s how mass gain works, not with some super secret workout or supplement (although the right nutritional supplements can help speed the process!). This is one truth that has always allowed me to put on lean muscle and burn more fat–whether I’m training with weights or with body weight training.

So, the key to adding muscle mass with body weight exercises is to break down lean muscle mass so that it can be rebuilt stronger and bigger. How do you do that? There are two ways – using difficult exercises and using high intensity techniques.

I don’t care if you can’t even do 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 20 bodyweight only squats, whatever, you can still always add muscle with bodyweight exercises.  Do you really think that going from 1 pullup to 5 pullups isn’t going to make your body stronger and bigger?

Take a look at gymnasts. They perform a lot of difficult exercises at a high intensity level. You don’t need to do what gymnasts do to get a great looking body. I’m just using gymnasts as an example. Even if you were to do a fraction of what gymnasts do, you’d be able to develop an amazing body no matter what it looks like right now.

I always incorporate a lot of bodyweight exercises into my workouts.  They offer great resistance and can be done anywhere, anytime.  Frankly, they are one part of the reason I’ve managed to overcome my hardgainer genetics and pack on 35 pounds of muscle.

I’d love tell you exactly how I did it.  Just enter your name and email address and i’ll put you on my mailing list where I share the whole story and all my best tips for hardgainers.  As a thank you for subscribing I’ll also  give you a video collection of dozens of my favorite bodyweight exercises.  Just enter your name and email address and you’ll be able to download the video right away.