What muscles are we targeting?

There are many different muscles located in your arms, stretching from your wrists and hands up to your shoulders.

The muscles in your chest and shoulders not only play key roles in many important movements, but also help routine arm movements.

The arms themselves primarily include the following major muscles:

• Biceps brachii. This classic muscle is responsible for flexing the elbow and externally rotating your hand and forearm.
• Coracobrachialis. This muscle spans from your shoulder to the middle of your upper arm until just below your elbow. It assists in raising, or flexing, your upper arm.
• Brachialis. The brachialis is a strong elbow flexor that spans from the middle of your upper arm to just below the elbow and plays a major role in flexing your elbow.
• Triceps brachii. This muscle has three distinct heads, each of which begins at the shoulder and spans the backside of your upper arm until just below the elbow. It’s responsible for extending your elbow when you straighten your arm, as well as extending your shoulder, or moving your arm behind you.

The muscles located in the arm are not the only ones responsible for the amount of strength the arm can produce. The shoulder, upper back, and chest muscles also contribute to how strong the arm is.

While these muscles are not commonly associated with the arms, they are vital for almost any movement that requires the use of your arms.

These muscles include:

• Pectoralis major. The pec major is responsible for most of the movements of the arm, including pushing, lifting the arm, and bringing the arm down from a flexed position. It also adducts the arm from a horizontal position and assists with the rotation of the upper arm.
• Pectoralis minor. This muscle is an important scapular stabilizer.
• Posterior shoulder muscles. These rear shoulder muscles move your upper arm backward, such as during pull-apart motions.
• Deltoids. These muscles around the front, side, and back of the shoulder move your arm upward in all directions. They’re also responsible for the rotation of the upper arm.
• Rotator cuff muscles. These muscles are important shoulder stabilizers, but they also assist with initiating arm movements.
• Latissimus dorsi. This muscle in your upper back moves your upper arm downward, in, or backward, such as during a lat pulldown or rowing motion.

It is important to focus on strengthening all of the muscles in your arms to ensure that they are all proportionally strong.

SUMMARY

The muscles required for arm movements include the biceps and triceps in the front of your arm, as well as the pectoral, deltoid, and latissimus dorsi muscles in the chest, shoulders, and upper back, respectively.

The 8 best bodyweight arm exercises

The following exercises target the various arm muscles using body weight. The exercises range from easy to difficult, listed in that order, and may involve multiple muscle groups (including your core muscles), as well as your arm muscles.

It should be noted that without a pullup bar or suspension trainer, such as gymnastic rings or a TRX system, it is very difficult to strengthen the back and biceps without using external weight.

When doing these exercises, actively contract the muscles in your arms during each repetition. This will help improve the quality of your training by increasing muscle activation.

Arm circles

The focus of this beginner exercise is strengthening the shoulder muscles by working the biceps and triceps. You want to maintain tension throughout the set by making small or large circles.

To perform arm circles:

1. Stand tall with your arms straight out to your sides and your muscles contracted down the length of your arm.
2. Slowly make circles with your arms by rotating them around your shoulders while keeping them straight and your elbows locked with tension.
3. Perform 3 sets of 10–20 repetitions in both directions. You can perform sets of large or small diameter circles to slightly change the effort required.

Arm front raises

This exercise strengthens the front of your shoulder, as well as your biceps and triceps. To make it more challenging, hold two cans of soup or two water bottles.

To perform arm front raises:

1. Stand tall with your arms out to the front, locked out straight with your thumbs toward the ceiling.
2. Raise your arms overhead while keeping them straight and locked out until they point straight up overhead, with your upper arms blocking your ears when viewed from the side.
3. Slowly lower your arms to the starting position.
4. Perform 3 sets of 10–20 repetitions.

Arm lateral raises

This exercise targets the muscles at the top of your shoulder, and strengthens your biceps and triceps by working against resistance. To make this more challenging, grab two cans of soup or two water bottles to add weight.

To perform arm lateral raises:

1. Stand with your arms at your sides and your palms facing inward toward your hips.
2. Keep your arms straight and raise them to the side until your body makes a “T” when viewed from the front.
3. Slowly lower to the starting position.
4. Repeat for 10–20 repetitions.

Wall angels

This exercise strengthens the muscles in the shoulders and upper arms, as well as improving the range of motion in the shoulders.

To perform wall angels:

1. Stand with your back against a wall with your knees bent and your feet roughly 1–2 feet (about 0.5 meters) away from the wall. Your head, upper back, and tailbone should be in contact with the wall.
2. Bend your elbows to 90 degrees and raise your arms until your upper arms are parallel to the floor, as if you’re putting your hands up.
3. Extend your arms overhead until they’re straight. Aim to keep your arms, head, upper back, and tailbone in contact with the wall.
4. Return to the starting position.
5. Repeat for 3 sets 10–12 repetitions.

Downward Dog to plank

This exercise strengthens the muscles in your chest, shoulders, and arms. It’s a great way to start building strength in the top of a pushup position.

To perform Downward Dog to plank:

1. Begin in a pushup plank position with your hands under your shoulders and your arms straight. You can start with your knees on the ground if the pushup plank position is too challenging.
2. Raise your hips and press backward with your arms to arrive into the Downward Dog Pose. If you started from your knees, you will raise your knees off of the ground once you have pushed back enough to do so.
3. Stabilize briefly in the Downward Dog Pose before returning to the starting position.
4. Repeat for 3 sets of 10–12 repetitions.

Plank tap

This exercise is a plank variation that will help you to develop stronger shoulders, triceps and biceps.

To perform the plank tap:

1. Begin in a pushup plank position with your hands under your shoulders and your arms straight. Keep your spine neutral. To make the exercise more challenging, keep your feet together. To make it easier, widen your feet.
2. Bring your left hand up to your right shoulder and tap it before returning your hand to the floor.
3. Repeat with your right hand and left shoulder.
4. Perform 3 sets of 10–12 repetitions on each side.

Pushup

The standard pushup is a great way to work your chest, shoulders, and triceps without any equipment. You also have to engage your core to stay in position, which gives your abs a little extra work as well.

To make the standard pushup easier, do them on your knees.

To perform a pushup:

1. Begin in a pushup position with your hands under your shoulders, spine neutral, and legs straight. If needed, keep your knees on the ground to reduce the difficulty level.
2. Lower your entire body in unison toward the floor by bending at the elbow. Keep your elbows close to your sides or at about a 45–degree angle. Lower your chest until your upper arm is parallel to the floor.
3. Push through the floor to drive back to the top position, maintaining control the entire time.
4. Repeat for 3 sets of 10–12 repetitions. If the sets become too difficult, you can revert to the knees-down variation.

Triceps dip

To do this triceps dip variation, you will need a chair. This exercise will target your triceps and chest.

To perform bodyweight triceps dips:

1. Place your hands shoulder-width apart on the chair you’re propping yourself upon.
2. Shift your pelvis and bottom forward so there’s a gap of 3–6 inches (8–15 cm) between your back and the chair, giving you clearance as you dip down.
3. Bend your legs to a 90–degree angle with your feet planted firmly on the ground, or extend them out in front of you (but don’t lock your knees).
4. Slowly lower your body straight down and then push back up, focusing on engaging your triceps.
5. Complete 3 sets of 10–12 reps.

Can you build bigger arms without weights?

The goal of many people who work out is to build big arm muscles. While strength and muscle mass are correlated, they are not the same thing.

There is a limit to how much muscle you can build with the bodyweight exercises in this article.

At the beginning of your fitness journey, you will be able to build some arm muscles with these exercises. You can make them more challenging by doing more repetitions, up to approximately 20 per set.

The exercises will become easier as you progress, and you will need to add external resistance to continue to challenging your muscles enough to stimulate growth.

The back and biceps muscles are difficult to train without additional equipment, as mentioned earlier.

That's because pulling movements are the primary movement for these muscles and there is no real way to use your body weight to load these movements without a suspension method like a pullup bar or TRX system.

Muscular arms cannot be achieved through bodyweight arm exercises alone, you will need to do more than that. Even though these exercises are helpful, they will only help you with your form and function when you can't go to the gym.

SUMMARY

These exercises are a starting point for people who want to gain muscle on their arms, but they alone will not lead to large amounts of muscle growth.

Tips for an equipment-free arm workout

To include the exercises above in an arm strengthening program, consider the following guidelines:

• Perform the workout 2 times per week on nonconsecutive days.
• Start with 3 sets of 10 reps of the easiest exercise, such as arm circles.
• Perform 3 sets of 1 or 2 exercises that are intermediately difficult, performing the exercises either to failure each set or stopping at 20 repetitions.
• Perform 3 sets of the hardest exercise in the list that you can still perform for at least 5 repetitions. Perform these sets to failure. If you can perform more than 20 repetitions, the exercise is not sufficiently challenging.

The bottom line

While there are many different exercises that you can do to strengthen your arms, it can be difficult to find exercises that do not require any equipment.

This article provides excellent exercises to start and progress your arm workout program without the need for equipment.

You will need to branch out into equipment-based exercises to continue growing muscles.

Even if you don't have any equipment, there are still some great exercises you can do to build up your arm muscles.