Most of what I came to say is already here, so I’ll just add: lunges. If you’re in a position where it’s not too weird, for short-ish trips (like getting to/from the bathroom) do lunges instead of just walking to things. Minimal extra time, but reasonably effective lower body exercise

It’s old as hell, but I’ve always been partial to the Beach Body p90x and p90x3 videos. P90x vids go anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half but the p90x3 vids are about 30 minutes long, once a day, and will give you a great full body workout over the course of a week. Tony Horton is cheesy and prone to talking about his work on military bases but the workouts are solid.

from my experience, even 1 set of pull, push, and legs every so often each does wonders compared to doing nothing.

1. nah go for it
2. sometimes i do just pull exercises on one day, just push on another etc. somedays i just hit every body part i can manage. never had issues
3. my very basic routine is

–push: dips and pushups –pull: pullups and rows, leg raises for core –legs: regular squats, jump squats, bulgarian split or assisted pistol squats, cardio/biking/sprinting/jumprope –if you have extra time or energy you can add some isolation stuff for specific muscles and lat raises –try for 2 sets of 6-12 reps of each where you give it your absolute all, works better for me than spamming sets and reps. repeat ideally 3x a week, more if you got the energy, and at least 1x a week if not

having a pair of gymnastic rings helps immensely to widen range of exercises + where you can do them, but most of these things can also be achieved with random household features/furnishings or at a park

The best exercise budget equipment you can get is, by far, gymnastics rings. All you need is a sturdy beam to hang them from.

Pushups and squats, planks and lunges, and something that gets your heart rate up for a few minutes (brief jog, go up and down the stairs, whatever gets blood pumping). That’ll get most of your muscle groups without leaving the house.

If you’re old as shit like I am, adding a piece of “equipment” (a gallon milk jug filled with water, or sand, or concrete, depending on how strong you already are) and doing “dumbbell” rows is a great idea. It’ll hit a lot of back muscle groups so that your ass won’t feel like it’s falling out all the time.

Firstly, I would say there’s a couple of good options. The key thing is that you’re not looking to optimise and get jacked and so on, so most internet tips are going to be suboptimal for your specific goals.

The first thing I would say is that - and I’ve forgotten what it’s called but it’s out there - you can do 5 sets of an exercise split across 12 hours and still make significant progress. Sure, it’ll be slower, and no, Mr Olympia doesn’t train like it, but it’s totally viable.

The evidence out there does exist, but here’s my anecdote: I was a very lazy kid, but I had a pullup bar in my room. Throughout the day, when I walked past it, I’d sometimes jump on it and hit a few pull-ups. Eventually I could do about 13 good pull-ups in a row, and I’d do that maybe 2 times a day. It felt good to do, and was no commitment at all, so I just did it. I never thought much of it, until everyone else started hitting the gym, and in getting all macho someone would offer up an arm wrestle… I’d accept the offer and completely melt them. It became a bit of a circus trick, where I’d have one gymlad on each arm and pull them into each other, while everyone frustratedly said ‘how!!!’. Seriously, it works.

The other thing is that Push Pull Leg splits are probably a waste of time. If you’re not trying to isolate each one and push them to muscular failure each time, it’s just not necessary. In fact, you could even do ‘super sets’ (doing two different exercises one after another, then resting) of rows/pushups, or whatever oppositional movement. It would be completely fine, especially if you did that 3 times split across a whole day.

The other key is that without proper equipment, you’ll become too strong for a lot of exercises on the ground or off the side of a chair to do them in the 6-12 rep range (which is said to best for building size/strength), BUT, that doesn’t necessarily matter. You’re not looking for size, you’re looking for health. Right now, I’m strong as a bastard but unfit as a sloth. If I were actually healthy, I’d have a more balanced routine involving more endurance sized sets (12 to however many reps you want) or smaller breaks and supersets, to really burn the calories and get my heart rate up. But alas, I am chasing size by lifting heavy and taking long breaks.

For pushups, different progressions and elevation off a chair will keep you busy for a long time. Your dip bar will too. But if you could get the apparatus to have rings - now that’s where you hit the sweet spot. I can’t stand bar dips now that I’ve felt the freedom of movement on ring dips and ring rows. Sweet sweet range of movement.

Otherwise - walking. Chasing your kids around. Chasing your dog around (if you have one). Kick a ball with your kids but play as if you were a kid again leaving nothing in reserve. I used to play ‘donkey feet’ as a kid - where you kick or punch a foot (soccer) ball around high in the air, and whoever it bounces ONCE nearest to has to then hit it up in the air again. If you let it bounce twice, you get a letter added to your D - O - N - K - E - Y. Well, I played it with some friends again the other day. Holy shit, the day after I could barely even walk (in a good way, like every muscle had been stretched), yet in the moment it felt like nothing at all.

Feel free to ask questions or DM, I have spent about 7 years researching and perfecting the laziest and most efficient workout styles possible.

In terms of upper body- My chest has become absolutely yoked from doing pushups with a heavy backpack. Highly recommend

I do 20-30 mins of jump rope and 15 mins of yoga everyday and I feel it’s been great to start getting some muscle + the flexibility is great for lowering joint pains + meditation 5 mins at the end

Thanks for all the feedback folks, this is really great stuff, I’m just busy and can’t answer everyone. But seriously thanks!

There’s a lot of good advice here. I recently went from doing the Busy Dad Burpee Program to a more well rounded (but admittedly far more time consuming) routine using rings and bodyweight.

The Busy Dad Program was 20 minutes, as many 6 count military style burpees as you can muster, alternate with Navy Seal burpees, same deal. Very time efficient, and it trains your pushup to failure, and also your cardio and legs somewhat well. But no pulling, and no intense legs nor core. Hence why I went for a more well rounded routine.

My current routine is:

• Warmup with L sits/Handstand practice, Hollow Body, bridging work.
• 5x5 Ring Pullups
• 5x5 Ring Dips
• 5x5 Ring Rows
• 5x5 Ring Pushups
• 5x5 Hamstring Curls on Rings
• 5x5 Nordic Curls
• 5x5 Bulgarian Split Squats
• 5x5 Dumbell Squats or Deadlifts

Plus 1 to 2 hours of stretching upper and lower body following Tom Merrick videos on YouTube.

I do this 2-3 times a week, and on off days I still stretch and do jump rope and core work/handstand/lsit practice.

Its still very time consuming, but perhaps you could find some movements or ideas here that you could scale down in terms of volume.

I actually do think the Busy Dad Program was a good program for time efficiency, but it is very incomplete in terms of various aspects of health and fitness IMHO.

Anyways, hope this gives you some ideas.

I’m getting older and I think core exercises are important to prevent like a back injury. I do sideplank/hip raises, 15 reps and then hold static for 5 seconds. Deadbug and birddog exercises.

I do rotator shoulder exercises with exercise bands, but I’d be sure and check with a professional that I’m using proper form and not actually increasing the risk of injury.

Other than that I just do squats and dumbell rows and pushups.

Concentrate on good form. If form breaks down then stop.

Some good advice in here so I’ll give an interesting off-the-wall suggestion that may or may not help with your situation:

I’ve seen some interesting work lately that suggests you can get 90%+ of the cardio benefits of a regular 5x/wk gym routine, with one 90 second workout a week, provided it’s intense enough. Now the stuff I saw said that they used special equipment to achieve this, and you basically can’t recreate it on a regular treadmill, but that you can actually get pretty close with some decently steep hill sprints.

So, if you can spare 10 minutes out of the house to go out on a big hill and bust your [individually-defined bustable parts] for a few minutes straight, you could knock out your cardio for the week in almost no time at all.

I’ll try to dig up my source for that later, if there’s interest, but just something interesting that’s been rattling around in my gaping-lack-of-theory-space lately.

Generally speaking, a good program minimum kind of thing is one push, one pull, one legs.

So, something like the push-ups, the inverted rows and some bodyweight squats is a balanced day. Maybe dips, pull-ups and nordic leg curls another day for variety. You want to try and do a vertical pull and push versus horizontal push and pull if you can to really round things out. And then something more quad focused and something more hamstring focused.

I know you’re looking purely for bodyweight stuff, so a recommendation for you if you can swing it is to invest in some suspension training straps. TRX is the big name brand on this, but you can find other people making them these days. Really really let you do a wide variety of movements and you can easily change the difficulty by doing stuff closer or further from the anchor point. Can help you work up to pull-ups and dips if those are too difficult for you to start. If you don’t want these, or can’t install them safely anywhere, some resistance bands can be good. Make sure you spend decent money on bands, you can get some cheap-o ones, but I guarantee you they will snap and break. You do not want that, especially if you’re working out around kids.

As a FYI type thing, here’s my program minimum. It’s what I do on days I need a break from lifting but won’t be walking or biking anywhere that day. Even though I have a home gym, I try to keep them to just bands and bodyweight stuff. Though I do have an ab roller in this as well, which is not a bad addition to any routine.

• 50 band pull aparts
• 50 dips
• 50 pulll-ups
• 25 ab roller from knees
• 50 inverted rows
• 50 push-ups
• 25 internal rotations w/band (per arm)
• 25 external rotations w/band (per arm)
• 25 ab roller from knees

generally speaking combining a push movement with a pull movement is a good idea and will keep your physique balanced

resistance bands, a kettlebell or even a big ass rock or can of paint can add resistance training to the mix