You don't need a barbell to build muscle.

I know. That sounds like something a guy selling a bodyweight program would say. And yeah — I'm that guy. I'm Jerry Teixeira. I've been training for over 25 years. I won a BJJ gold medal at 45. And I built Body Weight Strength around the idea that you can get brutally strong without ever stepping foot in a gym.

But I didn't make this up. I didn't have to. The research has been quietly making this case for years — and most people have never seen it.

So let me show you.

The Question Nobody Wants to Honestly Answer

Here's the question that gets dodged constantly in the fitness world: *Can bodyweight exercises actually produce the same muscle growth as lifting weights?*

Not "some" growth. Not "good enough for beginners." The same growth.

Most trainers won't touch this question with a straight answer because the honest answer threatens the entire gym-industrial complex. If your body doesn't need a $60/month membership and a rack of dumbbells to grow, then a lot of business models start to wobble.

But the science doesn't care about business models. The science just measures what happens.

And what happens is interesting.

Study #1: Kikuchi & Nakazato (2017) — The Head-to-Head Test

Published in the Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness, this study did something simple and powerful: they took two groups of untrained men and had one group do bench press while the other did push-ups.Both groups trained at the same relative intensity (40% of 1RM), with the same rest intervals, the same movement speed, twice per week, for 8 weeks.

Then they measured what actually grew.

Pectoralis major (chest):
Push-up group: 18.3% increase in muscle thickness
Bench press group: 19.4% increase

Triceps:

Push-up group: 9.5% increase
Bench press group: 10.3% increase

The difference between groups? Not statistically significant. In both the chest and the triceps, push-ups produced virtually identical growth to the bench press.

Read that again. A floor exercise, no equipment, no spotter, no gym,  matched the most popular muscle-building exercise in the world.

Study #2: Kotarsky et al. (2018) — The Progression Study

This one's my favorite, because it gets to the heart of how intelligent bodyweight training actually works.

Published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Kotarsky and colleagues took 23 moderately trained men (not beginners — people who already knew their way around a weight room) and split them into two groups. One group did traditional bench press training. The other did progressive calisthenic push-ups — meaning they moved through increasingly difficult push-up variations over time.

Both groups trained 3 days per week for 4 weeks.

The result? Both groups significantly increased their bench press 1RM (one rep max) by a comparable amount. A progressive push-up program built the same pressing strength as the bench press itself.

Here's the critical detail that most people miss: the push-up group didn't just do regular push-ups over and over. They progressed through variations. Similar to how I teach standard push-ups to feet-elevated push-ups. Narrow grip to archer. Eventually to single-arm progressions.

This is exactly what I call Surgical Leverage. Adjusting the angle, the base of support, or the load distribution to keep the movement challenging. It's not about doing more reps of something easy. It's about making the movement harder so your body has to keep adapting.

The push-up isn't one exercise. It's an entire progression system. And Kotarsky proved that system works.

Study #3: Calatayud et al. (2015) — The Activation Study

This one comes from the same journal and asked a slightly different question: if two exercises produce the same muscle activation, do they produce the same strength gains?

Thirty university students with advanced resistance training experience were divided into three groups: a 6-rep max bench press group, a 6-rep max elastic band push-up group, and a control group. They measured muscle activation via EMG (electromyography) at baseline — and found no significant difference between the bench press and the banded push-up.

Then both training groups did their respective exercises for 5 weeks using those same loads and conditions.

Both groups improved their 1RM and 6RM by similar amounts. The control group? No change.

The takeaway: when the effort and intensity are matched, the exercise modality doesn't matter. A push-up with appropriate resistance challenges your muscles the same way a bench press does. And your muscles respond the same way.

The Meta-Analysis: Lopez et al. (2021) — The Big Picture

If three individual studies aren't enough, here's the panoramic view.

Lopez and colleagues published a network meta-analysis in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, one of the most respected journals in exercise science. They pooled 28 studies involving 747 healthy adults and compared muscle hypertrophy across different training loads: low, moderate, and high.

Their finding? Hypertrophy was load-independent. When training was performed to volitional failure, meaning you actually pushed until you couldn't push anymore, muscle growth was similar regardless of whether the load was heavy or light.

This has massive implications for bodyweight training. Your muscles don't have a load sensor that reads "bench press" or "push-up." They experience tension. They experience fatigue. They experience proximity to failure. And if you deliver those things — through any modality — they grow.

So Why Does Everyone Still Think You Need a Gym?

Honestly? Three reasons.

First, tradition. The bench press has been the gold standard since the mid-20th century. It's the first question guys ask each other: "What do you bench?" It's deeply embedded in gym culture. Challenging it feels like challenging an identity.

Second, simplicity of overload. I'll give the barbell this: it's dead simple to add 5 pounds to the bar. Progressive overload with bodyweight requires more knowledge. You need to understand how leverage changes difficulty. You need to know the right progression at the right time. That's a skill gap, not an effectiveness gap.

Third, money. Gyms, equipment companies, and supplement brands all benefit from the idea that you need "stuff" to get strong. Nobody makes money when you get jacked on your living room floor. The research doesn't have a marketing budget.

What This Means for You

If you're training at home; in your garage, your living room, your hotel room, and someone has told you that it "doesn't count" or that you're leaving gains on the table, here's what you tell them:

Three separate studies. Three separate labs. Head-to-head comparisons. Push-ups matched the bench press in both muscle growth and strength gains.

A network meta-analysis of 28 studies with 747 people confirmed that hypertrophy is load-independent when you train with real effort.

You're not training with less. You're training with everything you need.

But, and this is the part most bodyweight content gets wrong, it only works if you train like it matters.

That means:

Progressive overload through harder variations. Not just adding reps to easy push-ups. Moving from kneeling push-ups to standard. Standard to deficit. Deficit to weighted. Weighted to single-arm. Each step increases the demand on your muscles — the same way adding plates to a bar does.

Training with genuine effort. The research is clear: proximity to failure is what drives growth. A set of 15 easy push-ups where you could've done 30 is not building muscle. It's just making you warm. What I call "Money Reps" are the ones at the end of a set where your body is actually fighting to complete them. That's where growth lives.

Managing volume intelligently. More isn't always better. (If you haven't seen my video on diminishing returns and junk volume, go watch that next.) One to three hard sets per exercise, done right, will outperform ten lazy ones every single time.

The Bottom Line

Your muscles don't care what you're pushing against. They care about tension, effort, and progressive overload.

The bench press is a fine exercise. I've done it thousands of times in my younger years. But it's a tool, not a requirement. And the research shows that bodyweight training, when programmed intelligently, is an equally effective tool.

The push-up isn't a warmup exercise. It's a progression system. And with the right approach, it will build the same muscle, the same strength, and the same capability as anything in the gym.

No membership required. No equipment required. No excuses required.

rain smart. Stay capable.

JT

About Jerry Teixeira

Jerry Teixeira is the founder of Bodyweight Strength and has been physically training for nearly 30 years. Since 2019, Jerry has coached thousands of clients using the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) philosophy—maximizing results through surgical precision and leverage manipulation rather than high-volume "junk" training.

References:

1. Kikuchi, N., & Nakazato, K. (2017). Low-load bench press and push-up induce similar muscle hypertrophy and strength gain. *Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness*, 15(1), 37-42.

2. Kotarsky, C.J., Christensen, B.K., Miller, J.S., & Hackney, K.J. (2018). Effect of progressive calisthenic push-up training on muscle strength and thickness. *Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research*, 32(3), 651-659.

3. Calatayud, J., Borreani, S., Colado, J.C., Martin, F., Tella, V., & Andersen, L.L. (2015). Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity results in similar strength gains. *Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research*, 29(1), 246-253.

4. Lopez, P., Radaelli, R., Taaffe, D.R., et al. (2021). Resistance training load effects on muscle hypertrophy and strength gain: systematic review and network meta-analysis. *Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise*, 53(6), 1206-1216.