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The No-Equipment Workout Plan

Six weeks, four days a week, with nothing but a floor and a sturdy table. The whole plan is on this page: the movements, the sets, the rep ranges, and what to move on to when each one stops being hard. Nothing to buy, and nothing to sign up for to read it.

What you actually need

A floor, and a table you trust with your bodyweight. That is the honest list. The table matters more than it sounds: it is the only horizontal pull available to you without a bar, and it anchors your heels for the hamstring work. A desk, a heavy dining table or a low railing all work. If you can get under it and it does not shift, it qualifies.

Most "no equipment" plans quietly assume a pull-up bar. Pull-ups are a bodyweight movement, but they are not a no-equipment movement, and neither are chin-ups, muscle-ups or hanging leg raises. This plan does not use any of them.

The two workouts

You alternate two sessions. On four days a week that is A, B, A, B; on three days it is A, B, A one week and B, A, B the next, so neither day gets trained twice as often as the other. Rest 60 to 90 seconds between sets.

Day A
MovementSetsHow, and what comes next
Push Up4 × 8–15Too easy at the top of the range? Next stop is a decline push up, feet on the table. Too hard at the bottom? Put your hands on the table instead.
Bulgarian Split Squat3 × 8–15Rear foot up on a chair or the table edge. Slow on the way down. Swap for walking lunges if balance is the limiting factor.
Pike Push Up3 × 6–12Feet on the floor to start. Walk them up onto the table to make it harder, which takes this most of the way to a handstand push up.
Glute Bridge3 × 12–20Both feet to start. One foot at a time is the progression, and it is a big jump, so expect the reps to drop.
Calf Raise3 × 15–25On a stair edge for a full stretch. One leg at a time when both legs stop being hard.
Hollow Body Hold3 × 30sLower back pressed into the floor the whole time. If it lifts, bend your knees or tuck your arms in and hold that instead.
Day B
MovementSetsHow, and what comes next
Inverted Row4 × 8–15Under the table, gripping the edge. The flatter your body, the harder it is, so start with your knees bent and feet flat and work towards straight legs with your heels on the floor.
Bodyweight Squat3 × 15–25When the top of the range stops being hard, move to a cossack squat, then a box pistol on a low chair.
Diamond Push Up3 × 8–15Hands together under your chest. If that is too hard, do these on your knees and keep the hand position.
Glute Ham Raise3 × 5–10Hook your heels under the table and lower yourself as slowly as you can. Coming back up unaided takes months, so use your hands to help and count the way down.
Bird Dog3 × 10–15Slow, opposite arm and leg, no rocking. Pause for a second at the top of every rep.
Side Plank3 × 30sEach side. Drop to your knees if your hips start to sag, and hold that instead of breaking form.

How it progresses, since there is nothing to add

A barbell program progresses by adding weight. You cannot, so the plan progresses two ways instead, and they run in order.

First, reps. Every set carries a range rather than a single number. Work in that range, stopping one or two reps short of failure, and when every set reaches the top of it, that movement is done growing at that difficulty. This is a double progression, and it is the standard way to run bodyweight work.

Second, leverage. Once you are at the top of the range on every set, move to the harder version named beside it in the tables above. Expect your reps to drop back to the bottom of the range, which is the point: that drop is the equivalent of putting another plate on the bar. Then start climbing again.

If you can already do 25 push ups, you will hit the top of that range on day one. That is fine, and it is the signal rather than a problem: start on decline push ups with your feet on the table instead, and let the reps fall back into single digits.

Six weeks, then what

Six weeks is a block, not an expiry date. Nothing resets at the end of it. Run the same two sessions again from wherever your progressions actually landed, and the plan keeps working for as long as there are harder variations left to climb, which for most people is a year or more.

What a floor genuinely cannot do

This is the part most no-equipment plans skip. Everything except vertical pulling is fully trainable with what you have: chest, shoulders, quads, hamstrings, glutes and midsection all reach a normal weekly volume off a floor and a table.

Pulling is the exception, and it is a question of how many angles you can reach rather than none at all. Under a table you can row at four different heights, from near-upright down to flat on your back with your heels on the floor, and each one is a real step harder than the last. The six-week plan above leans on one of them to keep the sessions simple, so its lats and traps read a little under a general weekly target. Build one in the app instead and it will use the whole row ladder, which closes that gap. What no amount of arranging gets you is a pull-up: the one thing a table cannot do is let you hang.

A pull-up bar is what buys you that, it costs about the price of two coffees a month for a year, and a doorway model needs no fixing to the wall. If you buy one piece of equipment, buy that one, and the Recommended Routine is what to run once you have it. Until then, this plan is an honest use of your four days rather than a compromise pretending otherwise.

Doing it in Ægir Iron

This plan ships in the app as Floor and Table Foundations, so you can load it rather than copy it out. Open the Program Wizard, pick Calisthenics or Strength & Muscle, and it is on the shelf under "What do you want to run?". Choose three or four days and whether you want split squats or lunges, and every session above is written into your calendar with the rep ranges and progression notes attached.

Two things the app does that a page cannot. It tracks the rep range for you, so it knows when every set hit the top and the next progression is due. And a pull-up bar is its own equipment box, separate from bodyweight, so if you never tick it you will never be handed a pull-up. Tick it later and the vertical pulling comes back automatically. Logging, the volume chart and the progress graphs are free.

Load this plan free →