Who this is for
You are in a hotel room, a park, a spare bedroom, or a garage where the rack has not arrived yet. Or you train with gear most days and want a session for the days you are away from it. You know the movements already. You want more of a plan than burpees until you are bored.
The hard part of bodyweight training is load. You cannot add a plate, so you change other things: more reps, a slower lower, shorter rest, or a harder version of the movement. Every scale-it line below works in both directions. Read it backwards and it tells you how to make the movement harder next time.
How to structure a session
Same four parts as any session, about 30 minutes all in:
- Warm-up, 5 minutes. Two rounds of 10 air squats, 10 arm circles each way, 5 inchworms, then 20 seconds sitting in a deep squat.
- Strength, 8 to 10 minutes. Tempo work stands in for weight. Push-ups at 5 x 8 with a three-second lower, or reverse lunges at 4 x 10 each leg with the back knee touching down.
- The work, 12 to 20 minutes. One of the formats below.
- Cooldown, 5 minutes. An easy walk, then hamstring stretch, pigeon, and child's pose for 30 seconds each.
Three or four sessions a week. Make one of them a run day if you have somewhere to run. Bodyweight work is easy to repeat, which is exactly how people end up doing 300 squats a week and nothing else.
To progress, change one thing at a time. Add two reps per round, or slow the lower to three seconds, or cut rest by 10 seconds. If you change all three in one week, you will not know which one made it hard.
Sample workouts
Four bodyweight workouts.
No load to write down, so the reps and the version of each movement are the record. Note both.
General fitness information, not medical advice. Scale or stop if something hurts. Read the safety note
Four-movement grind
AMRAP 20:00
A pace you can hold for twenty minutes. If round two is faster than round one, you started too easy. That is fine.
- 10
Burpee
Scale it Step back and step up, no jump
- 20
Air squat
Scale it Squat to a chair or bench at knee height
- 12
Push-up
Scale it Hands on a bench or the edge of a table
- 20
Sit-up
Scale it Shorter range: hands slide to your knees
Log it Rounds plus reps. Example: 6 + 30.
Legs, chest, trunk
EMOM 15:00
Three minutes repeated five times. Each set should leave you 15 to 25 seconds of rest.
- 16
Alternating reverse lunge
Scale it Hold a wall or doorframe, shorter step
- 10
Push-up
Scale it Hands on a bench or the edge of a table
- 20
Plank shoulder tap, total
Scale it Knees down, or a plain plank for 20 seconds
Log it Minutes finished on time, and the push-up version you used.
Five rounds out the door
For time cap 22:00
Five rounds. Needs a road, a track, or a long hallway. Run the 400 at a pace you can repeat five times.
- 400 m
Run
Scale it Cut the distance by a quarter, or walk the last stretch
- 15
Air squat
Scale it Squat to a chair or bench at knee height
- 8
Burpee
Scale it Step back and step up, no jump
Log it Finish time, or rounds and reps done at 22:00.
Forty on, twenty off
Intervals 15 x 0:40 / 0:20
Three stations in order, five times through. Work 40 seconds, rest 20, move to the next.
- 0:40
Broad jump
Scale it Half the distance, or step it out
- 0:40
Hollow rock
Scale it Hollow hold with knees bent, 20 seconds
- 0:40
Single-leg glute bridge, switch halfway
Scale it Both feet down
Log it Your lowest rep count at any station. Next time, beat the low number.
Common mistakes
- Half push-ups. Chest to the floor, elbows locked at the top. Ten real reps with your hands on a bench beat twenty half reps on the floor.
- No pulling. Bodyweight training has plenty of pushing and almost no pulling. Once a week, find a playground bar for hanging and pull-ups, or put a pull-up bar on your list. It is the cheapest gear upgrade there is.
- Skipping the warm-up because it is only bodyweight. Broad jumps and burpees on cold legs are still broad jumps and burpees.
- Jumping on the wrong surface. Tile and hotel carpet over concrete are hard on landings. Land quietly, or switch jumps for their step-out version.
- Not writing it down. Without a weight to record, people stop logging. Write the reps and the version you did. Six weeks from now that is the only way to know anything changed.
When you want a fresh one, the generator with no equipment picked builds from bodyweight movements only.