The no-equipment home workout: bodyweight strength that actually progresses

Why "just do more air squats" fails

Muscles grow from sets taken close to failure in roughly a 5–30 rep range. Twenty easy air squats stop being close to failure within weeks — after that you're doing cardio, not strength work. Instead of adding endless reps, bodyweight training progresses by making each rep harder: longer levers, single-limb versions, slower tempos, and paused positions.

The bodyweight strength menu

• Push: push-up → feet-elevated push-up → archer push-up → pike push-up (shoulders). Each shift moves more bodyweight onto fewer working muscles.
• Squat: tempo squat (3-second descent, pause) → cossack squat → wall sit finishers. Tempo is the free weight you already own.
• Hinge: single-leg Romanian deadlift → Nordic curl eccentrics — one of the best-evidenced hamstring builders in sports science.
• Pull (the honest gap): with literally nothing, rows are hard to load — inverted rows under a sturdy table work; a doorway pull-up bar (~$25) solves it completely.
• Core & conditioning: hollow holds, dead bugs, bear crawls, shadowboxing, stair climbs — all zero-gear, all quiet.

How to run it in Stolen Reps

1. Check nothing but Bodyweight in the equipment list (or uncheck everything while traveling).
2. Pick Strength or HIIT + your time. The generator programs real progressions — pike push-ups, tempo squats, wall sits, Nordic curls — not filler air squats.
3. Log your reps. When a movement gets easy, the app's variation system offers the next-harder version — the bodyweight equivalent of adding weight.
4. Short on time? The same session compresses to 15 minutes; see the nap-time workout guide.

Related: quiet home workouts · workout generator by equipment · the 20-minute dumbbell upgrade.