when gyms closed during the pandemic, i didn’t want to stop exercising, so i downloaded sweat, kayla itsines’ app, and picked one of its home workout programs. i had a pair of adjustable dumbbells and a few resistance bands, and that was my whole setup for almost a year and a half.
i’d been strength training and doing other sports for a few years already, just never with the consistency i have now. somewhere along the way, while following that program, something clicked. i consider that period the real beginning of my fitness journey because it’s when i learned how to train properly and, more importantly, how to enjoy it. i'm telling you all this because training at home didn’t just help me stay active while gyms were closed. it made me fall in love with lifting weights, helped me build muscle, and taught me how to stay consistent.
and yet, there’s still this idea floating around fitness culture that home workouts are for cardio, sweating and “toning”, but if you want to build real muscle, you need a gym.
a fully equipped gym does give you more options when it comes to exercises and progression, but you don’t need a membership to build muscle. you absolutely can do it at home. the catch is that your sets need to get progressively harder over time, and this is where many home workouts fall short. they keep you moving, get your heart rate up and leave you sweaty, but they don’t necessarily challenge your muscles enough to keep them growing.
📝 in this article: what your muscles actually need to grow, where training at home gets tricky, and which (few) pieces of equipment make the biggest difference.
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your muscles respond to effort, wherever you train
your muscle doesn’t know where you’re training. it doesn’t know whether you’re lifting a barbell in a gym, a dumbbell in your living room, or your own body weight on the kitchen floor. what it responds to is how much effort you’re asking it to produce, and more specifically, how close you get to the point where you couldn’t complete another rep with good form.
if you've ever followed a training program, you've probably noticed that almost everything is written in sets of 8 to 12 reps. that range has been considered the "hypertrophy zone" for decades, even though we now know that muscle can grow with anywhere from about 5 to 30 reps per set, as long as you take those sets close to failure.
the reason 8 to 12 stuck around is mostly practical: the more reps you do, the longer each set lasts and the more tiring the whole workout becomes. a set of 25 or 30 reps burns, leaves you out of breath and takes a lot of mental effort to push all the way to the end, and if you do that for every exercise, your session gets long and exhausting pretty quickly. using a heavier weight for fewer reps gives your muscles a similar stimulus in less time and with a lot less suffering, which is why it makes sense as a default.
but it's mostly a matter of convenience, and when the heaviest dumbbells you own are the ones you have at home, doing more reps is a perfectly valid way to build muscle. studies comparing heavy and light loads find very similar muscle growth across a wide range of weights, as long as the sets are taken close to failure.
keep that in mind
to grow, your muscles need three things:
𖥔 training close to failure: your sets need to end when you could only do one to three more reps with good form, because that’s the signal that tells your body it needs more muscle.
𖥔 progression: what you ask of your muscles has to increase over time, otherwise they have no reason to keep adapting.
𖥔 food: your body needs enough of it, especially protein, to build new tissue.
where training at home gets tricky
training at home comes with a few limitations, and understanding them can make the difference between spending months exercising without seeing much progress and actually building muscle with the equipment you have.
the first problem is progression
at the gym, when a set gets too easy, you grab the next dumbbell or add another plate to the bar. at home, especially if you’re relying on bodyweight alone, you can hit a ceiling pretty quickly. this is particularly true for your legs and glutes, which are already used to carrying your body weight around all day. thirty bodyweight squats might feel challenging during your first week, but a few weeks later, your muscles have adapted and the same set no longer provides much of a stimulus for growth.
the second problem is your back
pushing movements are relatively easy to do at home (think push-ups for your chest and triceps, or pike push-ups for your shoulders). pulling movements are a different story because you need something to pull against. without equipment, it’s much harder to train your back and biceps effectively. a program built mostly around push-ups, squats and lunges can leave important muscle groups undertrained, and over time that imbalance shows up in your posture.
the third problem is effort
most home workouts you find online are designed to make you sweat. they often combine short rest periods, lots of jumping and high reps of relatively easy exercises, leaving you breathless and feeling like you’ve worked really hard. and you probably have worked hard. but feeling exhausted isn’t the same as giving your muscles a strong stimulus for growth. your heart and lungs can be working overtime while your muscles still have plenty left in the tank. if you finish a set of squats and could easily do another ten reps, that set probably wasn’t very challenging for your legs, even if you’re sweating and breathing heavily by the end of the workout.
how to make it work
𖥔 train close to failure. if you only remember one thing from this article, make it this one. end most of your sets when you could have done one, two, maybe three more reps with good form. the closer to failure a set ends, the more muscle it tends to build. an easy way to check yourself: if you finish a set of squats and could easily do another ten reps, that set probably wasn’t very challenging for your legs, even if you’re sweating and breathing heavily by the end of the workout.
𖥔 make it harder without adding weight. when there’s no heavier dumbbell to grab, you change the exercise instead. you can take three or four seconds to lower yourself during a romanian deadlift, pause for two seconds at the bottom of a squat or at the top of a hip thrust, or switch to single-leg variations — the bulgarian split squat, for example, is one of the best exercises you can do at home to train your legs and glutes. you can also simply add reps, which builds about as much muscle as adding weight, as long as your sets still end close to failure.
𖥔 cover the basic movements. make sure your weekly training covers these movement patterns: a squat or a lunge, a hip hinge (like a romanian deadlift or a hip thrust), a horizontal push (like a push-up), a vertical push (like an overhead press), a horizontal pull (like a row) and a vertical pull (like a pull-up or a band pulldown). together, these movements give you a solid foundation for training all your major muscle groups. as a starting point, aim to train each major muscle group at least twice a week and work toward around ten challenging sets per muscle group per week.
if you’re not sure how to structure your workouts, this article will help you plan your sessions.
𖥔 write everything down. track your reps, tempo, and the variation you’re doing. progress at home often happens in small steps that are easy to forget from one week to the next. without keeping track, it’s hard to tell whether you’re actually getting stronger or just repeating the same workout. your notes also give you a clear idea of what to aim for next time, whether that’s squeezing out one more rep, slowing down the lowering phase, or moving to a more challenging variation.
𖥔 eat for it. your muscles need energy and protein to recover and grow, so your training can only do so much if you’re not eating enough to support it. when it comes to protein, around 1.6 g per kg of body weight per day is a solid target for muscle growth. some people may benefit from a little more, but you don’t need to chase huge numbers to see results. and if you’re trying to build muscle while eating as little as possible, you’re making it harder for your body to recover and adapt to your training. you can’t expect to build muscle efficiently if you’re constantly underfueling yourself.
the equipment you actually need
you don’t need a home gym to start building muscle, but a few well-chosen pieces of equipment can make progression a whole lot easier.
💵 if you have zero budget
start with your body weight, a sturdy chair and a backpack filled with books or water bottles. the backpack is more useful than it looks: you can wear it for squats and lunges, hold it for hip thrusts, or use it for bent-over rows to give your back some much-needed pulling work.
this setup is enough for your first few months, especially if you’re new to strength training. you’ll have plenty of time to learn the movements, improve your technique and build a foundation before you need to invest in anything. eventually, though, you’ll probably find that some exercises become too easy, particularly for your legs and glutes. that’s when having some proper resistance makes a real difference.
💸 if you can spend a little
a set of resistance bands is a great next step. they’re inexpensive, take up almost no space and can add resistance to exercises like squats, glute bridges, hip thrusts and overhead presses. with a suitable door anchor, you can also do rows and pulldowns, making it much easier to train your back and biceps.
a pull-up bar that fits securely in a doorframe is another useful addition, especially if you want to work toward your first pull-up. even if you can’t do one yet, you can start with controlled hangs and assisted variations, as long as the bar is installed according to its instructions and is suitable for your doorframe.
💰💰 if you want a setup that lasts for years
if you can afford one bigger investment, i’d go for a pair of adjustable dumbbells. ideally, choose a set that lets you increase the weight in small increments and has enough room to grow with you. add a bench if you have the space, and you’ve got a setup that can cover a huge range of exercises: romanian deadlifts, squats, lunges, hip thrusts, rows, presses, curls and plenty more. combine your dumbbells with a set of resistance bands, and you’ll have even more options for training your entire body.
a kettlebell is a nice extra for swings, goblet squats and other exercises, but it’s not a priority. i’d put that money toward a more versatile set of weights first.
what you can happily skip: vibration plates and pretty much any gadget sold with promises of “toning” or sculpting one specific part of your body. you don’t need a special piece of equipment to tone your arms, flatten your stomach or lift your glutes. you need a training routine that challenges your muscles, enough food to support your efforts, and time to let the results add up.
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if you want to start this week, keep it simple. choose one exercise for each movement pattern, use whatever equipment you already have, and plan two or three full-body sessions. aim to finish most sets with just one to three good reps left in the tank, and write down what you do. the following week, look for one small way to progress: an extra rep, a little more weight, a slower lowering phase or a slightly harder variation.
and before you go… if you train at home, tell me in the comments what your setup looks like, and share this with the friend who still thinks she needs a gym membership to get started.
thanks for reading,
—glicia ⋆˚✿˖
about the writer
i’m glicia, a certified personal trainer and dietitian in training based in paris. at never not hungry i translate research and complex concepts into clear, relatable insights you can actually use in your everyday life. when i’m not writing, i’m designing workout programs, trying overpriced cafés, reading romantasy, or lifting heavy things. welcome to my little corner of the internet. i hope you’ll stay.
💖 find me elsewhere (instagram, pinterest, spotify)
sources
Schoenfeld, B. J., Grgic, J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). Strength and hypertrophy adaptations between low- vs. high-load resistance training: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 31(12), 3508–3523. link
Robinson, Z. P., Pelland, J. C., Remmert, J. F., Refalo, M. C., Jukic, I., Steele, J., & Zourdos, M. C. (2024). Exploring the dose-response relationship between estimated resistance training proximity to failure, strength gain, and muscle hypertrophy: a series of meta-regressions. Sports Medicine, 54(9), 2209–2231. link
Plotkin, D. L., et al. (2022). Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations. PeerJ, 10, e14142. link
Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Sports Sciences, 35(11), 1073–1082.
Great article for the many people who, for different reasons, don’t have access to a gym or prefer not to go to one. I train exclusively at home, mostly with a set of adjustable dumbbells, and I’ve been doing it for years. My DEXA scan is proof that you can build plenty of muscle without setting foot in a gym. And I’m turning 50 in less than a year.
Curious if you have any tips for traveling? For me there are some trips that are true vacations where temporarily breaking away from my regular routine is the goal… but then there are other trips, like when I visit my in-laws, where I’m essentially trying to maintain my normal routines from a different location. In this example, they own one set of 10lb dumbbells. I feel like I always try to take my gym routine and adjust it the best I can with those 10lb dumbbells, but I usually walk away from the workout questioning whether or not it was actually worth it.