Home Workout for Beginners: No Equipment, Full Body

Five moves train your legs, glutes, chest, arms and core in one circuit. It is built for beginners, but you can make it harder as you get stronger. All you need is a bit of floor space. Do it two or three times a week and you will feel the difference within a few weeks.

This is a circuit. Do one set of each exercise in order, resting about 15 seconds while you move to the next one. After the plank, rest 90 seconds. That is one round. Do 3 rounds in total. Use slow, controlled reps. If you can easily do more than the listed reps, slow down before you add reps.

Your body adapts in a few weeks, so the workout has to grow with you. Change one thing at a time. First add reps until you reach the top of each range. Then slow down: take three seconds to lower each rep. After that, add a fourth round or move to harder versions of each exercise.

• Squat: pause for two seconds at the bottom of each rep
• Push up: move from an incline to the floor, then raise your feet
• Reverse lunge: stand on a low step so you can go deeper
• Glute bridge: switch to a single leg glute bridge
• Plank: add 10 seconds each week, up to about 60 seconds

Do this workout two or three times a week with a rest day in between, for example Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Sore muscles the next day are normal at the start and usually fade after the first two weeks. On rest days, a walk is a good idea. Doing the same workout three times a week is not boring for the body, as long as you try to do a bit more each time.

Body weight alone can build real strength for months, especially for beginners. Once you can do 20 or more clean reps of an exercise, the extra reps do less for muscle growth. That is the time to add load. A pair of dumbbells is the most useful next step. Resistance bands are light, easy to store and do build muscle when they are hard enough. Move up to a stronger band once a set feels easy.

In GymDroid you can turn each exercise in this workout to see it from every angle.

Yes, especially as a beginner. Body weight exercises build muscle when the sets are hard and you keep making them harder over time with more reps, slower reps or harder versions.

A short full body circuit like this one: a squat, a push, a lunge, a glute bridge and a plank. It trains every major muscle in about 25 minutes.

Two or three times a week for a full body workout, with a rest day between sessions.

For a beginner, yes. A focused 20 to 25 minute full body workout, done two or three times a week, is enough to get stronger. Short sessions are also easier to keep doing.

Yes, if the band is heavy enough that the last few reps feel hard. Switch to a stronger band as you progress, just as you would add weight to a dumbbell.