A complete guide on how to build muscle with no equipment

A complete guide on how to build a body you are proud of and stay healthy for life at home

Many people will ask, what split should I choose? What is the optimal amount of sets or reps? What is the BEST exercise? How many days a week should I train?

It doesn't matter.

I will go over a complete guide but you can optimize it for you, it's about what works for you. "But I can only train 1 day per week," Then train 1 day per week."But I don't know what to do." Then listen. "But I don't know what the BEST exercise is." Doesn't matter. 

If you are a new lifter then as long as you are doing a few basic rules(Which I will outline in this post), eating a good diet, and training hard, you WILL gain muscle. This is a more calisthenics based workout and calisthenics is just training with your own bodyweight. We are going to split these workouts into Push, pull, and leg exercises

Pushing movements to work your chest, shoulders and triceps
Pulling movements work your back, biceps and rear delts
Leg exercises work your legs, surprise.

Within that, there are 4 main upper-body movements - 
A vertical push (such as an Overhead press, dumbbell shoulder press or handstand push-up)
A horizontal push (such as a bench press, dumbbell press or push-up)
A vertical pull (such as a lat pull down or pull up)
A horizontal pull (such as a barbell row, chest-supported row, single-arm dumbbell row or body row)

And there are 2 main lower-body movements - 
A leg press (such as a squat, leg press or Bulgarian split squat)
A hip hinge (such as a Romanian deadlift)

With these 6 movements, you can build a pretty good physique, but to build a truly impressive and aesthetic physique, we need more than just these exercises. This is a full workout guide on how to build a great physique and maximise your body.

Now not everyone is at the same fitness level, so choose a variation which you can do for 8 - 15 reps where you train to failure. Once you can do 15-20 of an exercise, move on to the next hardest variation. All the progressions are easiest to hardest. If you are in the middle of 2 exercises, say you can do 20 of one but only 3 of the next, then I would recommend doing it on your knees until you can do the movement for 8 or more reps.

Also, a pull-up bar is convenient, but if you don't have access to one you can use a tree, bar or anything which you can hang on

At-home routine:

Dynamic stretches(30 seconds for each stretch) - You need to stretch before a workout to make sure you don't get injured. Here is the warm-up:
Small arm circles forwards
Small arm circles backwards
Full arm swings forwards
Full arm swings backwards
Wall slides
Trunk rotations

5 min cardio at a moderate pace (cycling, treadmill, row etc.)- this is optional, and studies have found that this is particularly beneficial for leg workouts.

Push exercises:

Push-ups (Chest, triceps, front deltoids) 

PROGRESSIONS
Wall push-ups
Incline push-ups
Knee push-ups
Full push-ups
Uneven push-ups
Archer push-ups
One arm push-ups

Dips (Triceps, Chest and front deltoids) 

PROGRESSIONS
Leg assisted dips
Single leg assisted dips
Negative dips
Jumping dips
Full dips
Ring dips
Straight bar dips
Russian dips
One arm dips

SHOULDERS
Lateral raises (Lateral deltoids) 
No progressions, use house objects if you don't have dumbbells such as books and food cans. You will only need very light weight for these

Pike Push-ups (Shoulders) 

PROGRESSIONS
Knee push ups leaning slightly forward
Bent knees pike push ups
Hand elevated pike push ups
Pike push ups
Feet elevated pike push ups
Feet against the wall handstand push ups
Handstand push ups

TRICEPS

Bodyweight tricep extensions (Triceps) 
There are two ways to do it, on the floor (a sphinx push-up) or elevated (a bodyweight tricep extension)
The sphinx push-up can be made harder by moving your elbows forward (increased range of motion)
The bodyweight tricep extension can be made harder by getting closer to the floor (increased range of motion)

Pull exercises
BACK
Pull-ups (Most muscles in the back worked)

PROGRESSIONS
Leg assisted pull ups
Single leg assisted pull ups
Negative pull ups
Jumping pull ups
Pull ups
Typewriter pull ups(
Archer pull ups
One hand assisted pull ups
One hand pull ups

Inverted rows (Most muscles in the back worked) 
To progress, elevate your legs higher and your upper body lower. You can also add weight such as a backpack. Or do them unilaterally. Eventually, you can progress to a tucked front lever row or a full front lever row.

Wide grip inverted rows (rear delt focused but similar to inverted rows)

BICEPS
Chin-ups (Lats and biceps) 
Same variations as pull-ups.

Leg exercises:
Squats (Quads, Glutes) 

PROGRESSIONS
Assisted squats
Jackknife squats
Squats
Narrow squats
Side staggered squats
Front staggered squats
Skater squats
Assisted pistol squats
Pistol squats

Nordic leg curls (Hamstrings) 

PROGRESSIONS
Razor curl
Hamstring hip hinge curl
Partial range nordic curl - Gradually increase range of motion
Nordic curl

Bridges (Glutes, hamstrings, also for mobility - spine)

PROGRESSIONS
Short bridges
Single leg short bridges
Straight bridges
Elevated straight bridges
High Angled bridges
Full bridge
Single leg full bridge
Wall walking bridges
Stand to stand bridge partial reps
Stand to stand bridge

ABS

Leg raises

PROGRESSIONS
Lying knee raises
Lying Bent knee raises(slightly bent)
Lying Frog raises
Lying leg raises
Hanging knee raises
Hanging bent knee raises (slightly bent)
Hanging leg raises
Hanging toe to bars

So those are the exercises and variations, now let's put them into a workout routine. You can adapt these workout routines to your goals and time restrictions. Also, the exercises highlighted in red are compound movements (they train multiple muscles) while the ones in black only train one muscle. If you are short on time I would recommend sticking to these exercises over the others. All of these exercises will be performed for 8-15 reps and for 3 sets each.

PUSH workout - day 1 
Push-ups - 
Dips 
Pike push-ups
Bodyweight tricep extensions
Lateral raises

PULL workout - day 2
Pull-ups
Chin-ups
Inverted rows
Rear delt rows (wide grip inverted rows)

LEG workout - day 3
Squats
Nordic hamstring curls
Bridges
Leg raises

You could perform these just once a week, for example on Monday, Wednesday and Friday or twice a week, Training each workout once, then taking a rest day, before doing it again. All the exercises mentioned here can easily be found online, so you can find them if you don't know how to perform them, and I would always recommend it, since that is a large reason for injuries. 

YOU MUST KNOW THESE THINGS:
1. Progressive overload, every session/week do more reps, increase the weight, or choose a harder variation. Once you can do 15 of an exercise, move on to the next variation.
2. Training to failure, you must challenge your body, you need to be getting within around 1-2 reps of complete failure (You can't do any more reps) to build muscle efficiently.

CARDIO

Cardio is essential to keep fit, and I would recommend 150 mins of exercise each week, excluding this. You could split that up into 20 minutes each day, and it could be anything, sports, walking, running, cycling, anything to get the heart rate up. Your heart is a muscle as well, and it needs to be trained like every other muscle. 

NUTRITION

As long as you are eating healthy, I see no reason to count calories or macros, especially if you are a teen. Priorities real, whole foods as opposed to processed foods. Eating a balanced diet is also important, but you could look to eat more protein to help with muscle growth. Below are my favourite healthy, nutritious foods which have lots of protein.

Legumes(Lentils, chickpeas etc)
Nuts and seeds
Meat
Fish
Eggs
Yoghurt
Milk
Oats

Other healthy lifestyle changes I would recommend would be prioritising healthy snacks, switching that KitKat or a packet of crisps for a handful of nuts, or an apple. Protein supplements are also popular, now I am not totally against them, but I think you can get all the required macronutrients without them. They may taste good and have not much sugar, but almost all of them contain lots of unhealthy chemicals and sweeteners. Then again, a protein bar once in a while won't do much harm. 

So that's a full guide on how to build a great body at home, I know its a long read but if you read it all the way through and apply the principles then I'm sure you will be headed in the right direction towards getting in shape and achieving your fitness goals(whatever they may be)